Giving up alcohol in the Covid-19 era

Several studies conducted last fall found that excessive alcohol consumption increased during the pandemic. A study of more than 1,500 adults published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in September found that the frequency of alcohol use increased by 14% over the previous year for all adults. For women, excessive alcohol consumption increased by 41%.

Amanda was not a troubled drink, but she feared it might become easy during the pandemic. “The complete elimination of the option felt much easier than I expected to moderate, given everything that was happening,” she says. He is part of a growing number of people inspired by the pandemic to adopt a kind of preventive sobriety. In July, a survey of 2,000 people, commissioned by the Alcohol Change UK addiction awareness group, found that 7% of participants stopped drinking completely during the blockade.

Meanwhile, the alternative beverage market has exploded and is now expected to exceed $ 29 billion by 2026. Jen Batchelor, co-founder of Kin Euphorics, a non-alcoholic beverage line, says sales of the most popular canned cocktail, Kin Spritz, quadrupled during the pandemic. “People admit they don’t want to poison their energy source, while the state of the world is what it is,” says Ms. Batchelor. “They want to keep their agency at a time when roulette is already available. But the mentality is not “I hit with alcohol”. It’s “I got away from alcohol.” It’s a choice, rather than what we often consider a necessity, someone’s need to stop drinking – or something. “

“I think a lot of people come soberly from a new, modern, data-driven goal where it’s so easy to measure the inputs to your life and what variables make you feel different – what it affects your sleep, your hydration, your attention ”, says Bill Shufelt, co-founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing Company, a non-alcoholic craft brewery whose sales in 2020 increased by over 500% compared to the previous year. “And I think that isolation and being in their homes has helped people in particular to identify the variables that make them feel better or worse.”

People who give up alcohol often say that they do not do this to address a drinking problem, but to avoid creating one. “At a time when people are feeling more anxious, it has become very common among patients I see to give up alcohol as a precaution,” says Chicago psychotherapist Kelley Kitley. “People tell me I don’t identify as an alcoholic, I don’t stop. But, quite so strongly, I admit that I might be tempted to use alcohol as a control mechanism. ”

Chris Cucchiara, a 32-year-old real estate agent from Pismo Beach, California, hasn’t drunk anything since January last year. “I thought I would start with the onset of the pandemic, but I continued,” he said soberly. “I used alcohol to calm my anxiety in the past. It became a goal to test myself during the pandemic, a kind of project. ” Will sobriety remain once the pandemic is over? Mr Cucchiara says he is not sure, but he is happier now than he has been for some time.

“It’s interesting how a pandemic can fuel healthy choices as much as unhealthy ones,” says Manhattan psychologist Sarah Gundle. “People are definitely struggling to find ways to cope, because some of their other tried and true methods, such as the gym and friends, are being taken. But making a conscious decision to do something different during this time – as an experiment or a short-term or more permanent goal – can provide a beautiful structure and concentration that can be very reassuring and helpful. ”

From her more introverted and sober patients, Dr. Gundle heard reports of relief that they could now socialize without having to drink. “I’m at home and they’re more comfortable and no one needs to know that I’m drinking a seltzer and not a tonic gin,” she says.

Even some who never considered sobriety – and perhaps never, once life returned to “normal” – made the change during the pandemic. Brian O’Ceileachair, a 39-year-old content director and Irish expat who lives in Orlando, Florida, says the pandemic has ended his series of over 20 years of drinking a few days a week. A friend posted on Facebook that he hit a sober year, and Mr. O’Ceileachair was inspired “to take some free time.”

It didn’t take long for him to see a change in his stress level and general mood. “Work has become easier to manage, children have become less annoying, the morning has become much easier,” he says. “I am currently on the longest sober series of my life and, honestly, I regret that I did not discover this years ago. Everyone knows me as a grumpy curmudgeon, but since I quit drinking, I’m not that guy anymore. ”

Ruby Warrington, author of the 2019 book “Sober Curious,” says she saw her Facebook group Sober Curious triple during the pandemic. “I saw a lot more people who could have considered themselves normal social drinkers suddenly realized that they wanted to fall asleep and they knew it wasn’t great,” she says. “I also saw a lot of people who could have used alcohol as a social lubricant who questioned their habits, because it wasn’t something they needed to socialize.”

In the UK, she says, the number of people abstaining from alcohol for Dry January has risen from 3.9 million in 2020 to 6.5 million this year. It is estimated that 15% of Americans participated in Dry January in 2021 compared to 10% last year. Ms. Warrington believes that change has a lot to do with the fact that it can be much easier to abstain from alcohol altogether than to try to moderate. “We spend an awful lot of energy on the brain, and as soon as we have one, our responses are already altered,” she says.

Before Covid-19, Lillie Marshall, a 39-year-old teacher, writer and mother of two in Boston, was a “classic mother drink,” she says. “I would study all day, I would come home exhausted, I would reward myself with a drink, maybe two.” Once she started blocking and found herself teaching from home, in addition to taking care of her two young children, she realized that “she couldn’t survive this” unless she was fit. She never considered drinking her once a day a problem, but she was sure it wouldn’t help.

Her best friend had achieved the same. She advised Ms. Marshall to read Holly Whitaker’s 2019 book “Give Up a Woman,” which notes that while drinking alcohol as a coping mechanism may feel that it helps, it is ultimately bad. Mrs. Marshall and her friend cut off their drink and began to meditate daily.

It wasn’t long before she noticed that she slept better, had more energy, and was much less irritable. Her productivity was on the roof – no time was wasted for drinking or even the slightest hangover. “I said to myself, ‘God, from that drink?’ She says. The friends had set a goal of not drinking for 21 days, but almost 10 months later, none of them looked back. “Besides all this, my husband is not working this year for pandemic reasons and we are saving a ton of money,” says Ms Marshall. “Oh, and I have abs again!”

—Dr. Drexler is a New York psychologist and research filmmaker and the author of two books on gender and families.