Drinking: A serious pandemic hangover
“We cannot ignore it any longer,” said Leana Wen in The Washington Post. “We need to talk about drinking during the pandemic.” A new study has found that alcohol-related deaths skyrocketed more than 25 percent during the first year of the pandemic to nearly 100,000—and actually killed more under-65 Americans than Covid during 2020. And experts think there was even more drinking in 2021. As the pandemic raged, Americans turned to drinking “as routines were disrupted, support networks frayed, and treatment was delayed,” said Roni Caryn Rabin in The New York Times. The crisis has actually been “brewing for years,” as alcohol-related deaths in America grew by an average of 3.6 percent annually between 1999 and 2019. But the grim drinking statistics show that the death toll from the coronavirus “extends beyond the number of lives claimed directly by the disease.”
Stranded at home with children who couldn’t go to school or day care, many women turned into “wine moms,” said Alexa Scherzinger in The Blade. Drinking culture became “more normalized than ever” on social media sites, where women joked about knocking down multiple chardonnays and mimosas and bought T-shirts and glasses bearing jokes about “Mommy juice” and “Rosé all day.” It’s no laughing matter, said Amanda Wyle in The San Diego Union-Tribune. Just one drink a day raises the risk of breast cancer, and women are more vulnerable than men to heart and liver damage from prolonged misuse of alcohol. It doesn’t help that alcohol companies “dupe women” with ads enticing them to fill up their wine and cocktail glasses. “Don’t be fooled by the pink-ribbon packaging.” That’s not prowoman.
The government must accept some blame for the rise in alcohol-related deaths, said the New York Post in an editorial. Pandemic restrictions “played a starring role in this tragedy” by costing millions of people their jobs and making it more difficult to get addiction treatment. Fixing the problems caused by pandemic isolation “will take years to address,” said Katie Holland in The Florida Times-Union. Alcohol use is still rising, and so are depression and “aggressive behaviors.” To get healthier and feel calmer and happier, people can start by cutting down on the booze and reducing time online. Best of all, “get outside, get some sun, and breathe that non-recirculated air!”