Alcohol in Russia

It's always been a somewhat well known "fact" that Russians like their liquor. Well their word for vodka comes from the word "бода" which means "water". They love their liquor SO much that they let it kill them by the age of 55! 25% of Russians die by the age of 55 due to alcohol consumption, compared to just 1% in the US.Each Russian consumes 18 litres, or 4.8 gallons, of alcohol per year which doubles what scientists believe to be the dangerous amount. Also in Russia, they didn't consider beer to be an alcoholic beverage until 2013, it must not have been able to get them drunk enough. Because of Russians love of booze, their are over 500,000 alcohol related deaths a year.