Alcohol Drinking

歌曲 Alcohol Drinking
歌手 英语听力
专辑 VOA慢速英语:健康报道

歌词

[00:00.10] From VOA Learning English,
[00:02.38] this is the Health Report.
[00:05.02] A new study has found that excessive alcohol drinking
[00:09.99] costs Americans more than $220 billion a year,
[00:16.67] that amount is equal to almost $2 a drink.
[00:22.00] But study organizers believe the biggest costs
[00:26.49] come from a loss of worker productivity.
[00:30.03] Robert Brewer works for America's Centers
[00:34.72] for Disease Control and Prevention,
[00:37.56] a public health agency.
[00:39.80] He helped to produce a report on the study.
[00:43.84] The researchers used findings from 2006
[00:48.50] to examine different costs linked to heavy drinking.
[00:53.08] They looked at results from around the United States
[00:56.97] and found a lot of variation in different parts of the country.
[01:02.25] Alcohol-related costs include health care,
[01:07.68] the cost of trying cases for drinking-related crimes,
[01:12.70] and property damage from road accidents.
[01:17.34] Robert Brewer says the biggest cost is lost productivity.
[01:23.27] Many people with a drinking problem have lower-paying jobs.
[01:28.26] He says they may also be less productive when they are at work.
[01:34.68] "In addition to that,
[01:36.07] a number of people die of alcohol-attributable conditions.
[01:39.77] And many of those folks die in the prime of their life.
[01:42.55] So there's the personal tragedy there.
[01:44.94] But there's also a huge economic cost to somebody dying,
[01:48.44] for example, in an alcohol-related motor vehicle crash at age 35."
[01:52.67] The researchers were mainly concerned about the cost of heavy alcohol use.
[01:58.75] The study didn't look at the effect on individuals
[02:02.43] who drink a glass of beer or wine with dinner.
[02:07.06] Mr Brewer says the largest costs come from binge drinking
[02:12.80] when people drink a lot of alcohol in a short period of time.
[02:17.54] The study was based on the economic costs of heavy drinking
[02:23.01] in the United States,
[02:24.61] but Mr Brewer says many nations have problems
[02:28.90] with what the World Health Organization calls "harmful use of alcohol."
[02:34.83] "But I think that it is very reasonable to assume
[02:37.91] that harmful alcohol use is going to result
[02:41.15] in some of the same consequences in other countries,
[02:43.54] even if the costs associated with those consequences are different."
[02:47.53] The study on the economic costs of excessive alcohol use
[02:52.40] was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
[02:57.14] Two years ago, a British medical examiner ruled that singer
[03:02.53] Amy Winehouse died as a result of drinking to much alcohol.
[03:09.05] Winehouse was only 27 years old.
[03:13.08] Tests show that she died after drinking enough alcohol
[03:18.21] to put her blood alcohol level at more than
[03:22.44] five times the legal drink-drive limit.
[03:27.03] The award winning singer had a well documented battle
[03:31.31] with drinks and alcohol.
[03:33.86] And that's the Health Report from VOA Learning English.