Heavy drinking and alcohol-related liver disease have been rising for decades. Drinking had already jumped before the Covid Pandemic and shot up even more during Covid. Many Americans felt isolated, worried for the future, stressed due to income loss, risk of death and uncertainty. They drank as a result, or perhaps they drank more as a result. The proportion of Americans who drank alcohol rose, as did the amount of alcohol they drank.
Public health officials and physicians reported a significant increase in the number of patients coming into clinics for alcohol-related health problems as Covid progressed. Public health officials assumed it was due to stress and hoped it would go back to normal after Covid lifted. It didn’t. Two years after Covid the rate of drinking has not declined. Officials theorize that because alcohol is addictive heavy drinking during Covid did not lessen after Covid waned and the stressors abated, according to the New York Times:
Alcohol can be addictive, “and we know that addiction doesn’t go away, even if the initial trigger that started it has gone away,” Dr. Lee said.[A]lcohol-related deaths surged in 2020, with one study reporting a 25 percent increase in a single year, said Christian Hendershot, director of clinical research at U.S.C.’s Institute for Addiction Science.
Problem drinking was already on the rise and the pandemic was the catalyst that propelled it much higher. Many people were already at high risk and the pandemic pushed them over the brink into risk of sever illness and death.
The surge in alcohol consumption was one of several lingering legacies of the pandemic, along with school absenteeism, lags in educational attainment, a rise in overdose deaths and a surge in mental health problems, especially among young people.
Women seemingly had higher stress due to Covid than men. This was likely because of kids at home schooling through Zoom and the usual worries about income and isolation.
More women than men reported binge drinking in 2018 as well: 5.01 percent of men, compared with 5.19 percent of women. Both sexes reported an uptick in heavy drinking in 2020: 6.19 percent of men and 6.08 percent of women.The stresses of the pandemic may have been especially burdensome for women, said a co-author of the study, Dr. Divya Ayyala-Somayajula, of the division of gastrointestinal and liver diseases at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.
Experts report that while drinking is both legal and socially acceptable, it is not a way to deal with depression, anxiety or a significant stressful event. Women and seniors are especially vulnerable to the effects of alcohol and alcohol-related disease, much more so than men. Many of the effects of excess alcohol consumption take years to manifest, but the damage can be significant.
Excessive alcohol affects the heart muscle, leading to arrhythmias, strokes and high blood pressure, and can cause inflammation of the pancreas, or pancreatitis. It weakens the immune system and has been associated with an increased risk of certain cancers, such as cancers of the head and neck, the esophagus, the liver, the breast and the colorectum.
It remains to be seen if this trend levels off over time, but public health officials are not hopeful. Alcohol binge drinking can take years to show signs of health effects. Covid exacerbated medical problems that were likely years in the making.
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