General facts about alcohol:

• Alcohol is a toxic, psychoactive, dependence-producing substance.
• One in every 11 deaths in the WHO European Region is due to alcohol consumption. About 800 000 deaths a year result from alcohol use in the Region, almost a third of the global total of 2.6 million deaths. This means that death resulting from alcohol consumption is almost 3 times as common in the WHO Europe Region as it is globally.
• The European Union (EU), comprising around half of the WHO European Region by population, is the heaviest-drinking area in the world. Seven of the 10 countries with the highest per-capita alcohol consumption are in the EU.
  Cancer is the leading cause of deaths due to alcohol consumption in the EU, making up a third of the bloc’s alcohol-attributable deaths.
• The total per-capita alcohol consumption of a country is closely related to the prevalence of alcohol-related harm found in the country, including the prevalence of alcohol use disorders (AUDs).
• AUDs are a range of conditions where drinking causes harm to physical or mental health, or leads to serious problems in daily life. Alcohol dependence is the most severe form, sometimes referred to by the outdated term “alcoholism”. AUDs have significant effects on people’s health and well-being. In the WHO European Region, more than 1 in every 11 adults experiences alcohol use disorders.