Are there any demographics that reveal what socio-ecomic brackets or cross-sections of society most often smoke cigarettes and are alcoholics?
In the U.S.:
Statistics on smoking from the CDC.
Statistics on drinking (not necessarily alcoholism) from Gallup.
Interesting to see that, according to SpoilerVirgin’s statistics, it’s poor uneducated people who smoke, but affluent well-educated people who drink.
Also, the drinkers are atheists who don’t go to church. The given statistics don’t address smoking and religion.
Is it no that visible alcoholics are more likely to be poor, ie shouting at people in the park with a cheap bottle of cider while more well off alcoholics are able to maintain their dependency at home and not be counted.
The male poor get likkered up more often than the male rich, but interestingly, hazardous acohol use might be higher in higher SES groups, because (for example) you gotta own a car in the first place before you can get cited for DUI. The female wealthy might be pretty good closet alcoholics.
The statistics cited above all come from surveys of individuals, not from direct observation. There may be bias based on who is more willing to divulge cigarette use and/or drinking in a survey, although I would assume that the alcoholic in a park would be more likely to admit to the occasional drink than the wealthier closet alcoholic.
Gun owners tend to engage is risky alcohol related behaviors. Gun owners who attend gun safety classes also tend to engage in risky alcohol related behaviors, but not after controlling for demographics according to Garen J Wintemute in “Association between firearm ownership, firearm-related risk and risk reduction behaviours and alcohol-related risk behaviours”. Examples of risky behaviors include drinking and driving, drinking >5 drinks at a time or drinking >60 drinks per month.
Demographics that tend to lead to drinking and driving after controlling for other factors include being younger and being male. Race is insignificant.
The study relied on self reporting, which poses limitations.
there is a saying “an alcoholic is someone who drinks more than their doctor…”