U.S. women are drinking more, DUIs are up: expert

In California, based on the same FBI figures, women accounted for 18.8 percent of all DUI arrests in 2007, up from 13.5 percent in 1998, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety.

Nearly 250 youngsters were killed in alcohol-related crashes in the U.S. in 2007, and most of them were passengers in the car with the impaired driver, according to the National Highway Safety Administration.

In the Chicago suburb of Wheaton, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's daughter was stopped by police after she pulled away from a McDonald's with three of her kids in the car. She pleaded guilty to drunken driving and was sentenced to 18 months of court supervision.

Sgt. Glen Williams of the Creve Coeur, Mo., police department recalls stopping a suspected drunken driver on her way to pick up two preschoolers.

Sometime later, “she told me it actually changed her life, getting arrested,” he said. “She was forced to get help and realized she'd had a problem.”

The increase in arrests comes as women are drinking excessively more than in the past.

One federal study found that the number of women who reported abusing alcohol (having at least four drinks in a day) rose from 1.5 percent to 2.6 percent over the 10-year period that ended in 2002. For women ages 30 to 44, Schuler's age group, the number more than doubled, from 1.5 percent to 3.3 percent.

The problem has caught the attention of the federal government. The Transportation Department's annual crackdown on drunken driving, which begins later this month, will focus on women.

Unlike men, women tend to drink at home and alone, which allows them to conceal a problem more easily.

Because of this, they seek treatment less often than men, and when they do, it is at a later stage, often when something catastrophic has already happened, said Dr. Petros Levounis, director of the Addiction Institute of New York at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

In the current recession, women's incomes have become more important because so many men have lost their jobs, experts say. Men are helping out more at home, but working mothers still have the bulk of the child rearing responsibilities.

1|2

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email