A latest government report has shown that women in America are catching up to men when it comes to alcohol use and abuse. For the report, the data from 2002 to 2012 was analyzed and discovered that reported alcohol intake in the last one month rose among women from about 45% to over 48%, while it has gone down from slightly over 57% to just over 56% among men.

In an institute news release, study leader Aaron White, senior scientific advisor to the director of the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), said, “We found that over that period of time, differences in measures like current drinking, number of drinking days per month, reaching criteria for an alcohol use disorder, and driving under influence of alcohol in past year, all narrowed for females and males”.

He said that alcohol consumption is still more among males, but the gap between men and women have been diminishing. The researchers discovered that the average number of drinking days in the last 30 days also rose among women, from 6.8 to 7.3 days, but declined from 9.9 to 9.5 days among men.

During the research period, binge drinking in college students, belonging to age group of 18- 25 years did not alter. But, among the ones between 18 to 25 years old, who weren't in college, a huge rise in binge drinking among women was noted but a large decrease among men.

For men, binge drinking is described as consumption of five or more drinks on a given occasion, while its four or more drinks in women. There was only one area of drinking where the difference between women and men increased during the study period.