Drink Up: Alcohol Use Now at 25-Year High

Can we blame this on Bush or is Obama yet responsible for anything?

When the economy is in the tank, do more Americans drown their sorrows in alcohol?

Well, times are tough, and the number of U.S. adults drinking booze is at a 25-year high, according to a new Gallup poll.

Sixty-seven percent of Americans say they drink, the poll reports, the highest percentage since 1985.

But Gallup, which has been keeping track of U.S. drinking habits for the last 71 years, reports that while the numbers move up and down slightly each year, the statistics on American drinking are surprisingly steady.

When Gallup first started keeping track, during the tail end of the Great Depression in 1939, 58% of adults said they drank alcohol.

The nation's low came in 1958, when only 55% identified themselves as alcohol imbibers.

Gallup recorded an all-time high between 1976 and 1978. In those years, on the heels of the 1973 oil crisis and subsequent stock market crash, 71% of Americans admitted to hitting the bottle.

I wasn't even of legal drinking age during the Carter years but his mess had me hitting the sauce in high school.

In a related development, scientists have now created a vaccine for stress in the event you don't want to get drunk to forget your troubles.