A survey asked 185 practicing transplant hepatologists across the U.S. who are among the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases members across the U.S. about "unhealthy" alcohol use - alcohol is a class 1 carcinogen, so unless you eat healthy amounts of plutonium or smoke healthy amount of cigarettes 'unhealthy' is a strange qualifier only alcohol gets - and found 26.3 percent screened positive for way too much alcohol use.
Which is higher than the general United States population but ironic since hepatologists are gastroenterologists who focus on liver diseases and alcohol is the leading cause of liver disease. So common that they had to create a non-alcohol version for the rarer cases of fatty liver disease that don't involve drinking.
U.S. physicians overall were only 15.3 percent but the good news for general hepatologists is that they read the literature and only have 11.2 percent unhealthy alcohol use. Obviously it should be none, aside from the beer at a party twice per year, but some doctors still smoke so 'do what they say, not as they do.'
This was a survey, so EXPLORATORY only. Doctors know patients lie about alcohol use and doctors know doctors lie about alcohol use, but even assuming people are under-counting, that 68 percent of hepatologists reported alcohol use while 5 percent consumed three or more drinks per day is alarming. They are literally trained to know better.
Men impacted most
The authors who wrote about the survey say the toxic nature of medical culture may be to blame. Men had higher scores for alcohol use and successful men even higher. Doctors who routinely counsel patients about getting help may not have confidence in the confidential nature of counseling programs, and if they are worried about career implications won't go. They may tell others there is nothing to be ashamed of, but there seems to be a lot of stigma.
The real concern is that if stigma is a problem, doctors won't trust surveys either, so the problem may be much greater.
Citation: Coe, Christopher; Prause, Nicole; Benhammou, Jihane N.; Singh, Jasleen; Shetty, Akshay; Trivedi, Hirsh D.; Yanny, Beshoy; Shoptaw, Steve; Pourmand, Kamron; Patel, Arpan A.. One in 4 transplant hepatologists in the United States screens positive for unhealthy alcohol use. Hepatology Communications 9(11):e0819, November 2025. | DOI: 10.1097/HC9.0000000000000819
