Alcohol Abuse Costs US More than 220 Billion a Year

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health Report. A new study has found that excessive alcohol drinking costs Americans more than 220 billion a year. But the organizers of the study believe the biggest cost comes from the loss of worker productivity. Robert Brewer works for America s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a public health agency. He helped to produce a report on the study. Researchers used findings from 2006 to examine costs linked to heavy drinking. They looked at results