Located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, this surprising Montana county has been dubbed ‘The Drunkest County in America.’
Gallatin County, Montana, has a whopping 26.8 percent of residents who drink to excess, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.
The agency defines excessive drinking includes binge drinking, heavy drinking, underage drinking, and drinking during pregnancy.
According to CDC data collected by intoxistates.com, 26.8 percent of Gallatin County residents are heavy drinkers, compared to Wisconsin‘s Outagamie County where 26.13 percent of people are excessive drinkers.
The Montana county of 127,880 people surpassed popular college towns and party spots for the title of ‘Drunkest County in America.’
Gallatin County is located in a sweeping valley in the heart of the Rocky Mountains and is home to a plethora of outdoor activities including downhill skiing, blue ribbon trout streams and Yellowstone National Park.
Locals credit the county’s booming tourism for why it leads the nation in excessive drinking.
‘The ski resort aspect kind of makes it like a college town for sure,’ Andy Fortier, a shift leader at local bar Hungry Moose, told Cowboy State Daily.
Gallatin County, Montana, has a whopping 26.8 percent of residents who drink to excess
The Montana county of 127,880 surpassed popular college towns and party spots for the title of ‘Drunkest County in America.’ Pictured: People drinking at Scissorbills Saloon
‘Everyone just kind of uses that as their reason to get drunk every day. Everyone comes here to just kind of get away.’
Gallatin County resident Thomas McGuane Jr., who distills his own spirts, told the local news outlet the cold winters could contribute to residents drinking.
‘It’s kind of a holiday fest here always and then we also have the added rough weather that makes the only appealing activity wandering downtown and blowing off some steam,’ said McGuane.
‘It’s celebrating the lifestyle we have here. Everybody’s kind of in this celebratory mood all the time.’
About 178,000 people die from excessive alcohol use each year in the United States, the CDC estimated.
For the first time ever, binge drinking rates in women are catching up to those of men – and the rates of deaths linked to alcohol use are rising faster among women than men.
While many women may pride themselves on being able to hold their liquor, more of them than ever are drinking themselves sick.
Rates of alcohol use disorder have typically been much higher in men, according to Yale psychiatry professor Dr Sherry McKee, but over the decades, they’ve been converging ‘and those rates are getting very close to one-to-one.’
Gallatin County is located in a sweeping valley in the heart of the Rocky Mountains and is home to a plethora of outdoor activities
Locals credit the county’s booming tourism for why it leads the nation in excessive drinking
The rising number of women who binge drink is having devastating consequences and rates of women’s deaths due to alcohol are rising nearly 30 percent faster than men’s.
Dr McKee told DailyMail.com: ‘Women are more vulnerable to the neurotoxic effects of alcohol, so [that means] more neurodegeneration.
‘We think that there’s a general process of inflammation that’s more likely to happen in women than in men as a result of drinking, and this is partly one of the reasons why women are more susceptible or have exacerbated health risks from drinking.’
Neurotoxic effects can cause a range of symptoms, from a reduction in brain volume, brain shrinkage, brain cell death, breakage of nerve fibers and inflammatory stress.
Alcohol activates the immune system in the brain and a specific type of receptor meant to detect harmful invaders like bacteria and viruses and alert the body.
But chronic drinking can make this receptor more sensitive than normal and keep it on a heightened alert, leading to an exaggerated immune response that can end up harming the body and ramping up inflammation.
