Drinking Facts: Women and Alcohol

• Women absorb alcohol into the bloodstream faster and metabolize it slower than men.


• Women who drink regularly are at significantly greater risk for liver damage than men even if they drink less or drink for a shorter period of time.


• Women develop alcoholic liver disease after a comparatively shorter period of heavy drinking and at a lower level of daily drinking than men.²⁸


• Proportionately more alcoholic women die from cirrhosis than do alcoholic men.²⁷


• The odds of women experiencing sexual aggression were nine times higher on heavy days of alcohol consumption compared with days of no alcohol consumption.¹


• There is a greater incidence of alcohol misuse in women with eating disorders, especially bulimia, than in the general population.²


• Girls who start dieting in sixth grade are more likely to engage in alcohol misuse later in life.²


• A growing body of literature shows that substance abuse among women and the issues surrounding their abuse differ from that among men.³