Study: Alcohol-related problems jumped during pandemic

Alcohol-related health issues and deaths spiked during the first year of the pandemic, according to a newly published study by researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in the National Institutes of Health.

"The startling report comes amid a growing realization that Covid’s toll extends beyond the number of lives claimed directly by the disease to the excess deaths caused by illnesses left untreated and a surge in drug overdoses, as well as to social costs like educational setbacks and the loss of parents and caregivers," Roni Caryn Rabin reports for The New York Times.

The researchers looked through death certificates and included all deaths where alcohol was listed as an underlying or contributing cause. "Among adults younger than 65, alcohol-related deaths actually outnumbered deaths from Covid-19 in 2020; some 74,408 Americans ages 16 to 64 died of alcohol-related causes, while 74,075 individuals under 65 died of Covid. And the rate of increase for alcohol-related deaths in 2020 — 25 percent — outpaced the rate of increase of deaths from all causes, which was 16.6 percent," Rabin reports. "The alcohol-related deaths went up for everybody — men, women, as well as every ethnic and racial group. Deaths among men and women increased at about the same rate, but the absolute number of deaths among men was much higher." Adults aged 25-44 saw the largest increases in alcohol-related deaths that year, increasing nearly 40% from the previous year.

The authors believe many who died were recovering alcoholics who relapsed after losing easy access to support, even as they needed it more than ever due to the pandemic. "Stress is the primary factor in relapse, and there is no question there was a big increase in self-reported stress, and big increases in anxiety and depression, and planet-wide uncertainty about what was coming next," lead researcher Aaron White told Rabin. "That’s a lot of pressure on people who are trying to maintain recovery."

Similarly, "drug overdose deaths also reached record levels during the first year of the pandemic, with more than 100,000 Americans dying of overdoses during the 12-month period that ended in April 2021, a nearly 30 percent increase over the previous year, according to reports issued in November," Rabin reports. "The number of deaths from opioids in which alcohol played a role also increased."