The typical picture of a binge drinker may look as much like a middle-age man working long hours as it does a college fraternity boy partying late at night.
Doctors are increasingly focusing on that older population after years of placing a higher priority on experimenting adolescents and young alcoholics. Evidence is emerging that high-pressure jobs push millions of people toward binge drinking, and deaths from alcohol abuse escalate as people get older.
A new study from 14 countries published in the British Medical Journal found that people who work more than 48 hours a week are more likely to drink to excess — defined as 14 drinks a week for women and more than 21 for men. And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in a report last week that six people die daily from alcohol poisoning, mainly those ages 35 to 65.