Add this finding to the documented increase in alcohol consumption among Americans during the pandemic and you have a worrying situation, said study lead author Kasey Creswell, an associate professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“Several studies have now shown that solitary drinking increased as a result of the pandemic,” probably due to the closure of bars and social venues during home stay measures, Creswell said.
“Studies have also shown that the associations between lone drinking and alcohol problems are stronger for young women compared to young men,” she said. “This is especially worrying given that there have been recent increases in solo alcohol consumption among American teens.”
“The main reason young people drink alone is to deal with negative emotions, and developing this relationship with alcohol during the pandemic could place lone drinkers on a path of increasing alcohol consumption, possibly causing more alcohol-related problems, ”Creswell said. “And again, this could be especially the case for young women.”
A 17-year study
Creswell and a team at the University of Michigan analyzed data from the Monitoring the Future study, an ongoing study of 4,500 teens who were asked about their alcohol consumption habits during high school years. Additional data were collected when participants were 22 to 23 years old and again when they were 35 years old.
About 25 percent of teens and 40 percent of young adults reported drinking alone, according to the study published Monday in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
Compared to people who only drank socially, the study found that drinking alone when a high school student increased the risk of suffering from an alcohol-related disorder by 35% at age 35. Alcohol consumption disorder, also called alcoholism, is defined as the inability to stop. drinking even when it causes physical or emotional harm to the drinker or others.
The bond was especially strong for the teens, Creswell said.
“The odds of symptoms of alcohol use disorder at age 35 were 86% higher for adolescent women (high school seniors) who drank alone. In contrast, the odds of symptoms of alcohol use disorder in women 35 years was only 8% higher for teenage men who drank sunburn, “he said.
Drinking alone during a person’s 20 years increased the risk of suffering from an alcohol consumption disorder by 60% compared to social drinkers, but this time there was no difference between men and women. The results were maintained even after other common risk factors were considered, Creswell said.
“Drinking alone at younger ages poses a unique risk of future alcohol problems, beyond previous binge eating and frequency of alcohol consumption, which are (both) known risk factors,” he said.
“This suggests that not only should we ask young people how much they drink and how often they drink to identify young people at risk, but we should also ask ourselves whether or not they drink alone,” Creswell said. . “Drinking alone tells us a lot about the future risk of developing alcohol problems.”
Pandemic drink
Previous research showed a 41% increase in alcohol-intensive days among women since the start of the pandemic. Part of the reason may be the “blurring” of the boundaries between home and work for many women. “Studies have shown that the complexities of balancing the home, work, and care responsibilities during the pandemic have fallen disproportionately on women,” Dr. Leena Mittal told CNN in a previous interview. Mittal is head of the women’s mental health division of the psychiatry department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. It was not associated with a new study.
According to experts, a higher level of alcohol consumption in women is worrisome because of the known link between alcohol and the risk of female breast cancer.
“There really isn’t a safe level of alcohol use when it comes to breast cancer,” Dr. Sarah Wakeman, medical director of the Substance Use Disorders Initiative at Massachusetts General Hospital, told CNN.
If you (or a loved one) seem to be struggling with alcohol, feel free to ask for help, experts say. There are many different support groups that can help, such as 12-step programs and individual therapy.