More drinking alone at night in lockdown, research finds
BRITONS hit the bottle during the pandemic – but mainly for late-night drinking alone, a study has found.
Researchers looked at data from 300,000 adults to see how our drinking habits changed during lockdowns.
They found that the total number of alcohol units consumed each week did not change when restrictions were imposed.
However, during lockdown there was a shift to at-home drinking in the late evening, as well as an increase in solitary drinking.
The research, led by the University of Glasgow and University of Sheffield, warned that the ‘concerning’ rise in at-home drinking could continue beyond the pandemic.
Experts said it will be important to monitor people’s drinking behaviour to see whether they keep the habits acquired during lockdown.
Lead author Dr Iain Hardie said: ‘It remains unclear what the long-term consequences will be of the changes in alcohol consumption in 2020.
‘In the past, home drinking has been a relatively under-researched topic, and there is now a need to monitor it more going forward to find out whether these home-drinking habits picked up by people in 2020 become a new norm within people’s drinking behaviour.’
The research team studied more than 250,000 adult drinkers in England and 41,500 in Scotland, focusing on the March 2020 lockdown, the easing of restrictions in July 2020 and the onset of further restrictions in September 2020 until December 2020.
The research, published in the journal Addiction, suggests that consumption of shop-bought alcohol increased following the March 2020 lockdown and remained persistently higher than previous years – even when pubs reopened.