Alcohol Abuse (problem drinkers) and Alcoholism (drinking problems) constitute the top public health and public safety issues in America, to the tune of $220 billion per year. Alcohol overuse is our number one killer and is behind more illness than any other aspect of our society including cancer and obesity.
As more people join your insurance pool this decade with health insurance reform, the amounts people drink and how they get help – if they need it – ARE your business. Here’s a biting book on the differences between alcohol abusers and those with Alcoholism from a writer who silently and rapidly hit bottom and bounced off it a few times. What is the disease, what isn’t, what constitutes treatment? What happens when an “ordinary,” educated, middle-class man does hard time for drinking and driving? How does the system today fail?