People are continuing to drown their worries with alcohol. A new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that alcohol use has continued to rise among Americans since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After previous studies found an increase in alcohol consumption between 2018 and 2020, the new research sought to determine if people were drinking more or less in 2022 than in prior years.
The National Health Interview Survey, which looked at data from tens of thousands of people in between 2018 and 2022, found that the COVID-related spike in alcohol consumption in 2020 continued to rise both in 2021 and 2022.
In 2022, 69.3 percent of surveyed individuals reported some alcohol consumption. That’s up from 69.03 percent in 2020 and 66.34 percent in 2018.
The amount of heavy drinkers—men who consume five or more drinks any day or 15 or more per week, and women who consume four or more drinks any day or eight or more per week—also rose in 2022. In 2018, 5.1 percent of respondents reported heavy alcohol consumption. That went up to 6.13 in 2020, and to 6.29 percent in 2022.
More women than men were found to be heavy drinkers. In terms of race, white people had the highest change in being heavy drinkers.
What Made Alcohol Consumption Rise?
As for why alcohol consumption is up, Dr. Brian Lee, one of the study’s authors, shared his thoughts with CNN.
“They had really disruptive pandemic-related effects to their careers, losing jobs or losing their routine. Some of them have young children, too,” he said. “We know that alcohol is used as a coping mechanism for stress. What starts as a habit can become addictive or a substance disorder.”
Alcohol consumption can have a dire effect on a person’s health. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reported that each year there are more than 178,000 deaths that are attributable to excessive alcohol use. Alcohol, the institute reported, is one of the leading preventable causes of death in the U.S.
“We’ve shown in studies that liver transplants for alcohol have increased fivefold in the last 20 years. We’ve also shown that alcohol deaths due to liver disease are surging,” Lee told CNN. “… Alcohol has been implicated in more than 200 diseases, whether it’s heart disease, cancer, pancreatic disease—it really can affect your body, and both patients and doctors really need to be aware of this.”
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