07 July 2021
Americans responded to the stress of the pandemic by drinking more — a lot more for some — and there's a risk that those habits could stick.
Why it matters: Excessive drinking is connected to a variety of health and social ills, butthe growing ubiquity of alcohol in daily life can make cutting back harder than ever.
By the numbers: Americans started drinking more as soon as the pandemic began in full last year — data from Nielsen showed a 54% increase in national alcohol sales year-on-year in the week ending on March 21, 2020. And as the pandemic wore on, so did Americans' drinking.
- A survey from late 2020 found 75% of Americans increased their alcohol intake during the pandemic to include at least one more day per month, while women, in particular, increased their alcohol intake by 39% compared to 2019.
- Another survey conducted by the American Psychological Association this year found nearly one in four Americans reported drinking more specifically to combat pandemic-related stress, and a separate study found women had a greater increase in excessive drinking than men, to the point that their intake levels were almost equal.
Between the lines: It shouldn't be a surprise that many Americans responded to the stress of the pandemic by turning to the bottle — similar spikes were seen following traumatic events like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. But pandemic tippling occurred against the backdrop of years of growing alcohol consumption and pushed some people toward the particularly destructive habit of solitary drinking.
- After more than a decade of declining alcohol consumption, per-capita alcohol consumption increased by 8% between 1999 and 2017 and the number of alcohol-related deaths per yeardoubled to nearly 70,000.
- Over the same years, alcohol seeped its way out of bars, restaurants and homes and into once-dry areas of daily life, with movie theaters, coffee shops and supermarkets selling alcohol and/or allowing consumption on site, while the rise of products like spiked seltzers and alcopops widened the market for booze.
- Sales of liquor rose during the pandemic as well, which is especially worrying as distilled spirits are much easier to abuse than lower-alcohol beer or wine.
- The unusually solitary nature of pandemic drinking was especially risky, as the writer Kate Julian described in a piece for the Atlantic last month, noting that "solo drinkers get more depressed as they drink."
Of note: While the pandemic was a global stressor, drinking more was mostly an American response — a recent survey found Europeans, with the exception of the British, drank less in the first months of the pandemic.
Flashback: We still have a long way to match the tippling habits of our forebearers — Julian noted the average American adult in 1830 drank three times as much as we do now, much of it whiskey that was often cheaper than milk.
What's next: It's too early to know how the return to in-person socializing will affect drinking trends, though a number of states have moved to extend more liberal pandemic-era alcohol regulations like allowing bars to sell to-go cocktails.
- The historical American pattern has been to binge — often during periods of social stress and dislocation, like the Industrial Revolution — and then abstain, which means we could be in for a turn away from the hard stuff.
The bottom line: Alcohol is a drug, and an increasingly legal and available one that is the third-leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. And thanks to the pandemic, Americans are drinking more and they're drinking worse.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.