Excessive drinking inches higher after pandemic increase: Research

Excessive drinking continued increasing in 2022, after rising during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study that was released on Tuesday.

The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that heavy alcohol use from 2018 to 2020 jumped by 20 percent, and then increased another 4 percent from 2020 to 2022.

The spike in drinking alcohol was seen in all regions of the U.S., races and genders, besides Asian Americans and Native Americans. The study used cross-sectional data from surveys of adults aged 18 years or older nationwide.

“Our study suggests that these increases persisted in 2022 and that certain subgroups may have had greater increases in heavy alcohol use,” the researchers wrote. “Potential causes of this sustained increase include normalization of and adaptation to increased drinking due to stress from the pandemic and disrupted access to medical services.”

In 2023, over 69.3 percent of Americans said they had had some alcohol, a slight increase from 69.03 in 2022, according to the study. In 2018, it was 66.3 percent. Heavy drinking went up from 5.1 percent in 2018 to 6.3 percent in 2022.

The study notes that alcohol is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in the country and said the findings “highlight an alarming public health issue that may require a combination of policy changes.”

“Increased screening efforts for harmful drinking with systematic integration and rapid linkage to behavioral health treatments by health care professionals, in tandem with community-based interventions for at-risk populations, should be considered to mitigate the public health consequences of the pandemic-related increase in alcohol use,” the authors wrote.

An average American drinks 60 percent more hard liquor than in the mid-1990s, according to a study published last year. It was also the case with wine where the consumption increased 50 percent per person since 1995.