Americans drank just as much alcohol during the pandemic as people did during Civil War era

Americans drank as much alcohol during the Covid pandemic as they did in the years leading up to the 1861 Civil War.

General, the average American drank 2.51 gallons of ethanol, the type of alcohol in beer, wine and spirits in 2021, up from about 2.4 liters on average in 2019 before Covid upended the status quo.

The 5.5 percent increase from 2019 to 2021 marks the most drastic increase in alcohol consumption in two years since 1969. The amount Americans drank in 2021 also came close to the total recorded in 1860 – 2.53 gallons per capita – a year before the start of the Civil War in which a an estimated 620,000 soldiers died.

During the Covid pandemic, a confluence of factors came together to drive up drinking rates, including generally elevated stress levels, boredom and wider access to alcohol through looser restrictions on delivery and open containers.

As in the era of the Covid pandemic, alcohol was widely available in the lead up to the Civil War and excessive drinking was a constant problem in both the Union and Confederate armies, when whiskey was part of everyday life. a soldier on the battlefield.

The map shows the total gallons of ethanol consumed per capita by state. Between 2020 and 2021, changes in total ethanol consumption per capita include increases in 37 states and DC, decreases in 10 states, and no changes in three states

Dr. Carolyn Rubenstien, a Florida-based psychologist, told DailyMail.com, “When you’re going through a trauma, especially a global trauma like Covid, you’re focused on survival and really don’t think too far ahead.”

She added that a constant barrage of negative news during the pandemic’s first tumultuous year and uncertainty about where the next spike would occur and when “only created more fear.”

“And so the environment that we were in was so ripe for fear building, that survival mindset, and people were very alone and not seeing a lot of people.” It also became much more socially acceptable and more talked about drinking alone at home or drinking at a Zoom party or things like that,” Dr Rubenstein added.

“Things that people normally wouldn’t have done in the past became more acceptable. Having a drink at the end of the day, or while you’re working at your desk, it became a little more acceptable and people who might not have been drinking that much started doing that.”

The rate at which Americans drink alcohol today rivals that in the Civil War era, nearly a century before the term “alcoholism” entered the medical lexicon.

Data collected by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism shows that the average American consumed about 2.53 liters of ethanol in 1860.

That figure remained high until around 1919 when the Prohibition era began, banning all liquor sales until 1933 when the 21st Amendment was ratified.

It wasn’t until the 1950s that the American Medical Association first classified alcoholism, or alcohol use disorder, as like a disease which sees drinkers become so dependent on the drink “that it presents a noticeable disturbance or disruption to their physical or mental health, their interpersonal relationships, and their satisfactory social and economic functioning.”

Federal data suggests that in 2021 as many as 29.5 million Americans aged 12 years and older, most of them male, had an alcohol use disorder.

Prior to Covid, more than a quarter of US adults admitted to binge drinking — that is, four or more drinks for a woman and five or more for a man in the space of about two hours.

In the first few weeks of the lockdowns, alcohol sales rose 54 percent from the previous year.

Modern drinking peaked in 1980 when the average American drank nearly 2.8 liters of ethanol.

The most recent figure on record reflects a relatively steady increase since 1995, when a national campaign to reduce drunk driving and underage drinking caused alcohol consumption to fall sharply before rising again.

Alcohol is ubiquitous in American culture and the media is steeped in it, so much so that some public health experts have dubbed it America’s Favorite Medicine.

The pandemic sparked an explosion of delivery services and a flurry of laws designed to keep businesses afloat, allowing people in many cities to bring their alcohol with them.

And the rise of so-called Zoom Happy Hours created an environment where drinking at home alone became the norm, even if the person didn’t feel completely alone with friends and colleagues on screen in front of them.

Alcohol-induced liver or pancreatic failure, alcohol poisoning, withdrawal and other alcohol-induced deaths increased from 39,000 in 2019 to 52,000 in 2021

Younger people between the ages of 25 and 34 are most likely to binge drink, with a quarter participating in the activity, according to CDC

By mid-2020, Americans were daydreaming about meeting friends for weekend cocktails or attending parties in person, which wasn’t an option during the initial Covid spike.

At the same time, millions of Americans wanted to escape the deluge of horror wrought by Covid in the form of skyrocketing infection and death rates.

Dr. Rubenstein said, “When you’re going through something scary you want to escape, and especially during Covid we were bombarded with news and information and social media, everything.

‘Although we were alone a lot, it was so busy and so noisy. And so many times we wanted to hit that stop button, but we didn’t know how, so people leaned toward things like drinking and other things that would help them reduce the stress a little bit.”

Rising alcohol consumption is not surprising given the historical context and would be expected at a time of great chaos such as a global pandemic or civil war, but that doesn’t make it any less disturbing, according to mental health experts.

And while drinking probably would have risen had it not been for a global pandemic, it probably wouldn’t have happened so quickly.

Dr. Rubenstein said, “The pandemic was like the perfect storm. So that fast wave, similar to what we saw in the 1850s, 1860s, is just the environment that fosters it.”

Consuming a lot of alcohol every day can weaken the immune system and make you more susceptible to colds, flu, or other infections. It also increases a person’s risk of developing depression or anxiety.

Heavy drinking is associated with chronic dangers such as liver cancer, high blood pressure, stroke and heart disease. Drinking by pregnant women can lead to miscarriage, stillbirth or birth defects.