Alcohol Consumption Surged During Covid — and Deaths Followed

ALCOHOL IS A DRUG –

July 13, 2023 – Mississippi saw a 159 percent increase in alcohol-related deaths, the nation’s biggest leap, along with a 10 percent rise in apparent consumption. In Delaware, consumption increased the most, by 25 percent, while alcohol-related deaths rose 73 percent.

George F. Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), said the traumas of the pandemic — the fear of covid-19 infection, job losses, social isolation — added to the stresses that were already spurring people to drink. “The pandemic just made it worse,” Koob said.

Experts point to a variety of factors for the increase, among them stagnant alcohol taxes that make drinking cheap relative to inflation, increased marketing to women and social despairs that have led to crises of mental health and addiction in the United States.

According to NIAAA data, apparent consumption of alcohol, measured as gallons of ethanol sold per capita, increased by 6.6 percent between 2018 and 2021 across the United States, reaching an average of about 2.8 gallons per person annually — roughly 597 drinks per year — for Americans over 21.