We suppose we should be more surprised by this, what with our DUI checkpoint posts being among our most clicked-on blogs, but Florida ranks as the 13th drunkest state in the union, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
It's not as much disappointing as it is kind of a head scratcher. That is to say, it's good news overall. But still.
This means that 12 other states get more drunk than we do.
Although maybe when you live outside of Florida, all you can do to escape never-ending snowstorms and perpetual doldrums is to get totally sloshed.
The National Institutes of Health study is basically based on per-capita booze consumption, which means how much alcohol was bought by people in each state from age 14 (!) and up.
NIH then took that data and broke it down to what Healthy People 2020 calls the "national objective" of 2.1 gallons of booze per person, per year.
In layman's terms, that's about 25 bottles of whiskey, 88 bottles of wine, or 320 bottles of beer. Actual average American consumption was 2.33 gallons, up just a hair over last year.
The NIH study says that 43 states' numbers for getting their drank on went up, with the Western part of the U.S. leading the pack with 3.4 percent and the Midwest trailing the rest with 1.7 percent.
That leaves the South in the middle at 2.1 percent.
New Hampshire, which comes in as the number 1 drunkest state, drinks twice as much as the national average of 2.33 gallons a year.
You can see the full rankings here.
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