Alcohol use increase during pandemic shows no signs of slowing

Two years after the state of the COVID-19 pandemic, a national increase in alcohol use had not abated, researchers reported this week (Source: “As the Pandemic Deepened, Americans Kept Drinking More,” New York Times, Nov. 11).

The percentage of Americans who consumed alcohol, which had already risen from 2018 to 2020, inched up further in 2021 and 2022. And more people reported heavy or binge drinking.
 
The new study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, found increases in alcohol use were found in both sexes; in every age, racial and ethnic group; and in every geographic region. Overall, 69.3% of Americans said they had consumed alcohol at some level in the past year, up from 69.03% in 2020 and 66.34% in 2018.
 
Rates of heavy drinking and of alcohol-related liver disease had been rising steadily for decades before the pandemic struck. But alcohol-related deaths surged in 2020, with one study reporting a 25% increase in a single year.
 
Women and older adults are particularly vulnerable to alcohol-related harms. Women are more susceptible than men to alcohol-related disease at lower levels of exposure, while alcohol-related harms can be magnified in older adults, experts said.