Lockdown libations? Young adults drank less during COVID-19 pandemic

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

Heavy-drinking young adults reduced their boozing during and after the pandemic, according to a new study.

Researchers analyzed alcohol consumption levels and patterns of young people before, during and after COVID-19 lockdowns.

They found that boozing and alcohol-related problems "substantially decreased" in heavy-drinking 21- to 29-year-olds during the pandemic - despite a four percent increase in drinking alone.

The decreases were still evident as the pandemic began to wane, according to the findings published in the journal Nature Mental Health .

Study lead author Professor Kasey Creswell said: “The pandemic gave us a unique opportunity to see how widespread mitigation measures like social distancing and bar/restaurant closures may have affected alcohol consumption.

“We focused on young adults who were engaging in heavy drinking before the onset of the pandemic, and we followed them over time to see if there were any pandemic-related changes to their alcohol consumption and alcohol problems.”

Unlike most previous studies of drinking habits during COVID-19, the new research concentrated on the drinking patterns of 234 heavy-drinking young adults ages 21 to 29 from before to well after the onset of the pandemic.

To be considered, the participants had to report binge drinking at least four times in the past month before the pandemic, defined as consuming five or more drinks per occasion for men, and four or more drinks per occasion for women.

The researchers gathered data every six months from February 2018 to March 2022.

The findings showed that the participants significantly reduced how much and how often they were drinking from before to after the onset of the pandemic.

They also decreased their monthly alcohol consumption by nearly 13 drinks.

The participants also reported significantly fewer alcohol-related problems.

The reductions in alcohol use and alcohol problems were still evident up to two years after the start of the pandemic, according to the findings.

Creswell, of Carnegie Mellon University , says the results may in part be explained by the environment.

She said alcohol was still available to the participants during the pandemic, but the context in which they were drinking likely changed "pretty drastically" for most of them.

Creswell explained that, due to pandemic restrictions, they weren’t able to drink with friends at parties or in bars, contexts that are usually associated with heavy alcohol among that age group.

The research team highlighted the impact of social settings in problematic alcohol use.

Contributing author Professor Aidan Wright, of the University of Michigan , said: “Alcohol is a social drug.

“These results highlight the social nature of drinking and speak to the importance of the social context in driving drinking behavior.”

The study also found "significant" decreases in negative emotions during the pandemic, but did not find any change in alcohol use as a coping mechanism during COVID-19 lockdowns.

The results for men and women followed similar patterns, according to Professor Wright.

He said: “Although there are overall trends that show declining patterns in drinking, it doesn’t mean that people did not have high periods of drinking.

“The averages hide a lot of information, smearing over a lot of different trajectories that people took.”

Drinking alone did increase during the pandemic - with participants reporting a four percent increase, according to the findings.

Previous research by Professor Creswell has associated solitary drinking with an increased risk of developing alcohol problems.

But she says the increase in solitary drinking remained fairly muted, considering the constraints in accessing alcohol in social settings due to pandemic-related mitigation measures.

Creswell said: “Drinking to cope is the main reason young people engage in solitary drinking.

“But in this study, we actually saw a decrease in drinking to cope motives along with decreases in negative affectivity, so we think this increase in solitary drinking is less of a signal of something problematic happening and more a result of pandemic-related restrictions on social drinking settings.”

She said future studies are needed to evaluate the effect of the pandemic on alcohol consumption and related problems in different age and social groups.

Creswell added: “The pandemic was really hard on a lot of people, but for this group of young adults who were engaging in heavy drinking, the pandemic seems to have had a long-term positive effect.”

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