Edmonton has a population that is quite big compared to other cities. It also has a lot of people who are drinking alcohol either in too big a quantity or at too high a frequency. Those people need actual help and they can find it in the alcohol treatments available in Edmonton. There are 123 alcohol treatment facilities and support group  open in Edmonton alone which can help an alcoholic. But for those who do not wish to engage in a big alcohol treatment, there are 92 of those 123 alcohol treatments which are AA meetings. So someone can go to the kind of alcohol treatment in Alberta they want.

Edmonton Alcohol Abuse

People in Edmonton, much like other cities, are having trouble dealing with alcohol and the many problems it can lead to. Many people suffer of alcohol addiction in Edmonton and so need professional help to get over it. The following text will give an overview of how much alcohol is affecting the population of Edmonton. Of course, many of the alcohol problems older people show started when they were younger. In fact, the majority of the population will try alcohol more than once before they can even legally do so.

As a matter of fact, the students of Alberta average around 49 percent that have used alcohol the year prior to being asked. The girls’ percentage was of 50,3 and the boys’ was of 47,9. This shows that it is a misconception that boys drink a lot more than girls. But when it comes to binge drinking, boys have a higher percentage (81,7) than the girls (77,3). This is a big problem because the majority of them are not actually of legal age.

There are actually less students in Edmonton itself that drink alcohol than other big cities in Alberta. In a survey done on students of Edmonton, it showed that 37,4 percent of them admitted to currently drinking alcohol. And there were 63,4 percent that said they had drank alcohol at least once within a year prior to the survey. But a bigger problem than just drinking alcohol is when one drinks in excess. At parties, it often happens that some people will drink way more than their body can take and this can lead to injuries or complications as the body is not made to take in this much alcohol at once. In Edmonton, 31,3 percent of the students said that they had taken part in binge drinking.

But the statistics related to binge drinking gets a lot worse when the students get to university. The people that go to University between the age of 19 and 24 years old were surveyed. It was reported that 72 percent had taken part in binge drinking. This number is truly alarming and some people drink in excess often and so are at higher risk for all kinds of complications, some of which can even be fatal.

Drunk Driving in Edmonton

Drunk driving is still a problem although it was seen to have improved over the last year. To show the progression of drunk driving over the years in Edmonton, there are certain numbers. For example, the number of people stopped who were driving while impaired were of:
•    1,546 in 2006
•    1,955 in 2007
•    2,066 in 2008
•    1,106 in 2009

This is good as 2009 was the lowest year, which means that the people are making more conscious decisions when it comes to driving after having had a drink. There are other numbers who can also show that things are fluctuating on the roads. For example in all of Alberta, there was an increase of 2,7 percent in terms of the number of collisions when comparing 2007 and 2008. But the number of fatalities on the road went from 458 in 2007 to 410 in 2008, which is a decrease of over 10 percent. As far as the number of people injured on the roads, it went from over 24,000 in 2007 to just about 22,000 in 2008, which a 10,3 percent decrease.

This goes to show that although alcohol addiction and drunk driving are still a big problem in Edmonton, it is safe to say that there is some hope and that things are turning around for the better.

^{Resources
http://www.aadac.com/documents/TAYES08-Highlights.pdf
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2009/07/27/alberta-traffic-statistics-deadly-crashes-alcohol.html
http://www.edmontonpolice.ca/TrafficVehicles/AlcoholBreathTesting/ImpairedDrivingStatistics.aspx
http://www.surehire.ca/pages/facts-amp-statistics/alberta-youth-drug-and-alcohol-statistics.php
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2010/02/01/edmonton-police-toner-drunk-penalty.html
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=12ce51e0-8ac9-4091-9373-14000812d23b}