No one will notice but you –

Oct. 25, 2020 – Maritza Chesonis-Worthington, a functional nutritionist & hormone expert, told Salon it used to be hard for her to imagine giving up alcohol — until the pandemic happened. As a “health conscious” person, her decision to abstain from alcohol happened for a myriad of reasons. First, she wanted to support her immune system and stay healthy. Second, there was less social pressure to drink. 

“Perhaps it’s not the substance itself that drives dependency, but rather the connection and sense of tradition that it brings amongst family and friends,” Chesonis-Worthington said. Now she has been finding “novel ways to connect with others.” 

But not everyone is cutting alcohol cold turkey. According to a report in the journal JAMA Network Open, Americans are drinking 14 percent more often during the coronavirus pandemic, though this data that comes from the beginning of the pandemic. The study compared responses from a survey of 1,540 participants of their self-reported drinking habits in spring to the year prior. For women, the increase was up to 17 percent compared to last year. The study’s participants were between the ages of 30 and 80; the data collected was from the RAND Corporation American Life Panel. Michael Pollard, a sociologist and co-author of that behavior, previously told Salon that it was unclear whether these “alcohol use behaviors [will] persist,” or whether they will “go back to the way they were before COVID-19.”

Indeed, some say their drinking habits accelerated at the beginning of the pandemic before declining, as mythology writer Mike Greenberg told Salon.

more@Salon