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Contrary to common beliefs, injuries that are due to drinking alcohol are more likely to be associated with an occasion of drinking than with a dependence on alcohol. In this study of 2,517 patients admitted to 3 emergency departments between 1998 and 2000, most alcohol-associated injuries occurred in persons who drank alcohol during the 6 hours before injury. Between 8.5 and 10.6 percent of all injuries could be attributed to consuming alcohol in the preceding few hours. According to the authors, levels of drinking alcohol that are considered safe are frequently associated with injury. Consuming 2 or 3 alcoholic drinks for women or 2 to 4 for men caused about 4 percent of all emergency department injury visits in this study, about the same proportion as is caused by alcohol dependence. An even greater proportion of major injuries (between 7.6 and 9.9 percent) was attributed to these levels of drinking. In 2001, 29.2 million injuries were treated in US emergency departments. Of those injuries as many as 1.3 million are possibly attributable to drinking what is considered a safe amount of alcohol.