Statistics can seem impressive or scary or moving in the right direction but they can also be fudged, toyed with and downright misleading. Which is why you always need to read more when you hear a statistic and not just hail it or disregard it.
Case in point. American drinking habits. There is much play whenever a poll comes out that says Americans are drinking less than before. I say this as someone who has parroted that line myself while also knowing whenever my doctor asks me how much I drink, I pretty much always lowball the number because I do not want a yearly check-up to turn into an intervention.
This leads me to this short piece that shows where our attention should really be. Give it a read.