Pandemic Drinking
Feb 05, 2021
Many Americans have been drinking more since the coronavirus pandemic.
American adults say they're drinking 14% more often during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report in the journal JAMA Network Open. The increase in frequency of drinking for women was more pronounced, up 17% compared to last year.
Instances of heavy drinking among women, which for women was defined as four or more drinks within a couple of hours, spiked by 41%.
We know it is not a healthy choice, but disassociate from the idea that it negatively affects the body’s immune system. Weakening our defense against the exact virus we are trying to avoid.
We are coping with our stress, fear, and boredom with alcohol.
At first it felt like just playing hooky, not going into the office and hunkering down at home. Making the best of the situation by Zoom Happy Hours and Quarantini’s.
Social connection and a sense of humor go a long way towards a healthy state of being and I commend these efforts. The problem is we’ve been conditioned to believe that it is the alcohol that connects us and makes us laugh.
Alcohol use is no laughing matter, and these kind of messages are hurting us greatly.
Alcohol has become the catch all, be all, joke to for coping. “This might be wine” quoted on your morning coffee cup is hilarious, until it’s not.
With the amount of people struggling with loss and impossible expectations during the pandemic drinking is no help.
It makes us less able to deal with our situation. I understand the desire to take the edge off, avoid, and escape the heaviness. However, alcohol adds to the list of problems until it becomes the #1 problem.
No one has ever successfully thrived during a challenging situation while drinking too much.
Indulging in alcohol leaves you tired, more anxious, and more depressed than you were when you started drinking.
It might seem like the easy “go to cure all” for a bad day, but over time dependence grows.
I found myself drinking to cope during a series of unexpected deaths.
Over time alcohol hijacked my brain, until I could no longer find joy without it.
If your pandemic drinking is starting to scare you, it is ok to stop now and reevaluate it.
You don’t have to be someone with a drinking problem to see that drinking is becoming a problem.
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