Drinking Alcohol with COVID-19: Tips for Use, Safety, Risks

The study used data from the National Health Interview Survey, administered by the US Census Bureau, and compared the data with 2018 as the baseline. Amanda Roberts and Jim Rogers contributed to the study selection, data extraction, data analyses, and manuscript drafting. Rachael Mason, Aloysius Niroshan Siriwardena, Todd Hogue, Gregory Adam Whitley & Graham R. Law contributed to the data analyses and manuscript drafting.

1. Although evidence suggests substance and alcohol use may change during the Covid-19 pandemic there has been no full review of the evidence around this.
2. Specific factors of the increase in alcohol use were reported in one study as a high level of education (Rolland et al., 2020) and in another that college graduates had significantly lower odds of decreased alcohol consumption compared to people who were not graduates (Knell et al., 2020).
3. There are also a variety of medications available for depression and anxiety.
4. In more serious cases, mixing alcohol with medications can cause internal bleeding and organ problems.

Alcohol and COVID-19: what you need to know (

Reasons for this increase were increased stress, increased alcohol availability, and boredom. One perhaps surprising risk factor in the included studies was parental status (those with children were more likely to increase their alcohol use during the pandemic). During lockdown, many parents had to ‘home-school’ their children alongside continuing to work at home. Study authors suggest that this may have led to role overload and distress and consequently heavier drinking (Sallie et al., 2020).

Of the full sample, 12.8% reported that their drinking had decreased and 27.0% reported that there had been no change in their drinking behavior pre- and post-COVID-19. Over half (58.1%) reported that their drinking had decreased because of diminished alcohol availability, 29.7% reported that their drinking had decreased because of less free time, and 12.2% reported that their drinking had decreased because of having less money. About one-fifth (21.6%) listed some combination of these three reasons and the remainder gave some other reason (25.7%). Six studies reported a statistically significant role of younger age in increasing drug use during lockdown. Ballivian et al., (2020) report that being younger predicted drug use during quarantine.

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Additionally, the percentage of heavy drinkers rose to almost 6.3% of those surveyed in 2022, up from 6.13% in 2020 and 5.1% in 2018. For example, beta-blockers can help control the physical responses to anxiety, such as increased heart rate. Although some people turn to alcohol, there are many other ways of coping with feelings of depression and anxiety. People who develop a severe illness from COVID-19 are at risk of developing acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). This occurs when fluid fills up air sacs in the lungs, affecting oxygen supply to the body. According to the European World Health Organization (WHO), alcohol does not protect against infection or illness relating to COVID-19.

Other factors that may lead to alcohol intolerance

The authors would like to thank the various organizations and individuals who helped distribute the survey and Brian Neelon for his statistical guidance. But after her infection, she found herself unable to tolerate even small amounts of alcohol, experiencing unpleasant sensations like lightheadedness, sluggishness, and queasiness after just a few sips. There’s growing evidence that it may be a unique symptom of long COVID, particularly the post-viral fatigue syndrome (PVFS) type. Long COVID refers to persistent symptoms that occur more than three weeks after the initial COVID-19 infection. Lee and Chhatwal also suggest that more and better messaging on the risks of overconsumption could help counter these effects.

Whilst the increases in alcohol or other substance use are not of the same magnitude, most of the included studies showed increase in use and there were some notable consequences, such as marked increases in deaths from drug overdoses. In a cross-sectional sample of youth participants, 23.2% in the clinical sample and 3.0% of the community sample met the criteria for a substance use disorder during the pandemic (Hawke et al., 2020). This Canadian study was the only study to exclusively report a decrease in substance use because of the pandemic. One study reported that patients and residential patients with ongoing or previous substance use disorders reported low cravings (Martinotti et al., 2020). Two studies reported a statistically significant role of the level of education in increasing alcohol use during lockdown. Specific factors of the increase in alcohol use were reported in one study as a high level of education (Rolland et al., 2020) and in another that college graduates had significantly lower odds of decreased alcohol consumption compared to people who were not graduates (Knell et al., 2020).

However, due to the limited available data on post-COVID-19 alcohol intolerance, it’s unclear whether it’s a temporary or long-term symptom. Further research is needed to establish a clearer understanding of this phenomenon. Though the researchers couldn’t answer exactly why alcohol consumption was so high among the US adults surveyed, Lee has a few hypotheses. New research, led by Lee and published November 12 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that a spike in alcohol consumption among people in the US in 2020 continued to rise slightly in 2021 and 2022. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19.

Among substance users, there were increases in specific drugs including 27.3% cannabis, 16.7% Ritalin or similar substance, 18.2% pain relievers, and 23.5% sedatives (Gritsenko et al., 2020). In contrast, two studies found that women were significantly more likely to use alcohol than men during the pandemic. In a polish study of physicians, females used alcohol more often and drank more standard drinks per occasion. However, highwatch online meetings this study did report that males binged more during the pandemic (Silczuk, 2020). In a large study with teenagers in Canada, there was an overall increase in the frequency of alcohol use. However, in this study, the increase was significant only for females and not males when the analysis was separated by gender (Dumas et al., 2020).