Binge drinking among Americans increased the longer they stayed at home, study finds

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Alcohol abuse among Americans increases the longer they spend time at home and as a result of stress brought on by the pandemic, a new study published in the “American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse” suggests.

Researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health in Dallas analyzed data from an online survey of 1,982 adults from mid-March to mid-April when stay-at-home orders were put in place nearer the start of the pandemic. Participants were 42 years of age on average, and the majority were White (89%) and women (69%).

Participants were divided into three groups based on survey responses: binge drinkers, non-binge drinkers and non-drinkers. Researchers also analyzed how long they were spending in lockdown and the number of people and children they lived with. They were also asked to answer questions about their current mental health state and previous experiences with depression, as well as their employment status and whether they had suffered a job loss or decreased salary.

Thirty-two percent of Americans reported binge drinking during coronavirus lockdowns, a new study found. (iStock).

The survey found that participants, on average, spent 21 hours a day at home, with 72% of respondents saying they did not leave for work.

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The researchers found that alcohol abuse among binge drinkers – defined as men who consume five or more drinks within two hours, and women who consume four in the same time frame — surged by 19% during every week of lockdown. Increased alcohol consumption for binge drinkers was more than double (60%) compared with people who did not have such drinking habits (28%), the study found.

Individuals who drank excessively during the pandemic had admitted to consuming up to seven drinks within two hours, on average, as compared to the two-drink maximum that the average non-binge drinkers had consumed on occasion.

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"Increased time spent at home is a life stressor that impacts drinking, and the COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated this stress,” Sitara Weerakoon, a Ph.D. candidate from the University of Texas, said in a statement.

"Future research should consider the potential for depressive symptoms acting as a moderator (a factor that changes the impact) in the relation between the time spent under a shelter-in-place mandate (lockdown) and binge drinking.”

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The study found that 32% of those surveyed reported binge drinking during the pandemic, with those deemed as binge drinkers increasing their alcohol intake even more.

What’s more, non-binge drinkers were said to have consumed around the same amount of alcohol they did prior to lockdown.