By 20 April 2020, all but eight states had issued state-wide shelter-at-home orders requiring residents to stay home unless conducting “essential activities” 15. Concurrently, many states relaxed their alcohol laws to provide economic support for restaurants and liquor stores. For example, in many states, adults could, for the first time, order beer, wine, spirits—and sometimes even cocktails—for curbside or home delivery 16.
Can you drink alcohol when taking antiviral medication for COVID-19?
Past research shows alcohol consumption leads to more severe lung diseases, like adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and other pulmonary diseases, including pneumonia, tuberculosis, and respiratory syncytial virus. The spike in alcohol sales has alarmed health experts and officials around the world, who are concerned that increased drinking could make people even more vulnerable to the respiratory disease. Please note the terminology to denote the time-period of the review changes from phrases such ‘pandemic’, ‘lockdown’, ‘social-distancing’ or ‘quarantine’ depending on the terminology used within the respective study being described. Likewise, the dates of the time periods for data collection vary for different countries depending on when quarantine measures were instituted.
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. According to the Cleveland Clinic, once you take a sip of alcohol, your body prioritizes breaking down alcohol over several other bodily functions. The body doesn’t have a way to store alcohol like it does with carbohydrates and fats, so it has to immediately send it to the liver, where it’s metabolized. When the body is unable to clear a pathogen, an infection can worsen and lead to more severe, life threatening complications. When someone is exposed to a virus, the body mounts an immune response to attack and kill the foreign pathogen.
Disagreements regarding the inclusion of papers were resolved through discussion and there was no unresolved conflict. 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. Fear and misinformation have generated a dangerous myth that consuming high-strength alcohol can kill the COVID-19 virus.
Our search was restricted to articles published in peer-reviewed journals, from December 1, 2019 to November 30, 2020. A surge of stress-related drinking and alcohol-related deaths brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic in the US has not tapered off the way Dr. Brian Lee, a transplant hepatologist at Keck Medicine of the University of Southern California, had hoped. Also, during the period of shelter-in-place orders, children may have been exposed to unhealthy behaviors related to alcohol use. This could influence their future risk for problem drinking, AUD, and health problems related to alcohol use.
How Has Drinking Behavior Changed During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
NIAAA supports a wide range of research on alcohol use and its effects on health and wellbeing. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every family across the country, and alcohol misuse is complicating the situation in multiple ways. NIAAA’s free, research-based resources can help cut through the clutter and confusion about how alcohol affects people’s lives. This review looks at alcohol-related policies during the COVID-19 pandemic across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It can also interact with several common medications, such as ibuprofen, to cause further symptoms. It does not reduce the risk of infection or the development of severe illness related to COVID-19.
- RM, ANS, TH, GAW & GRL contributed to the data analyses and manuscript drafting.
- Four studies found a statistically significant role of gender in increasing drug use during the pandemic.
- From a preliminary comparison, it appears that participants are consuming more alcohol during COVID-19 than in 2019, but more research is warranted.
- The proportion of people consuming other substances during the pandemic ranged from 3.6% to 17.5% in the general population.
- This Canadian study was the only study to exclusively report a decrease in substance use because of the pandemic.
Drinking alcohol does not prevent or treat coronavirus infection and may impair immune function
According to a study in JAMA Internal Medicine, out of 201 people with COVID-19-induced pneumonia, 41.8% developed ARDS. Drinking alcohol does not reduce the chance of acquiring SARS-CoV-2 or developing severe illness from COVID-19. It is possible for high concentrations of alcohol, such as 60–90%, to kill some forms of bacteria and viruses.
Risky Alcohol Use: An Epidemic Inside the COVID-19 Pandemic
No research suggests that you’ll develop long COVID if you drink alcohol while you have a COVID-19 infection. Consult a healthcare professional about whether you can drink alcohol while using these medications. If you’re ready to enter treatment and stop drinking, you’ll likely have to wait until your COVID-19 infection is no longer transmissible before you enter a detox program. Alcohol can also weaken your immune system and contribute to risk-taking behavior (like not wearing a mask) that could increase your chances of contracting the virus. “People need to know what is harmful alcohol use and what it does to your body,” Lee said.
After cleaning the data—which included removing those who did not pass the screener question, did not consent to participate, or whose alcohol consumption was greater than three standard deviations above the mean—the final sample included data from 832 participants. The majority were female (84.4%), White (84.9%), between the ages of 26 and 49 (72.3%), and had a household income greater than $100,000 USD (67.0%) (Table 1). Fewer than half of the sample (45.1%) had children under the age of 18 currently living with them in the home. In contrast, Does Alcohol Thin Your Blood Effects and Impact 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, this study did report that males binged more during the pandemic (Silczuk, 2020).
According to the European World Health Organization (WHO), alcohol does not protect against infection or illness relating to COVID-19. In fact, it is possible that alcohol consumption may increase the chance of developing severe illness as a result of COVID-19. However, if you’re physically dependent on alcohol or drink heavily, stopping drinking without medical supervision may be dangerous. However, the 2021 study mentioned above suggests that people who drink alcohol often are more likely to develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) during COVID-19 hospitalization. Some research suggests that alcohol intolerance is common for people with long COVID.
Likewise, younger participants (15–24 years old) were more likely to report increased drug use compared to older participants (aged 25 years and older) according to Sanchez et al. (2020). Similarly, the proportion of young adults who used cannabis more often since lockdown was higher than the proportion of older adults (Van Laar et al., 2020) and those starting medications/substances were also younger (Boehnke et al., 2020). The global SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a substantial impact on the lives of people around the world including intensifying mental health difficulties (Czeisler et al., 2020). The spread of the disease has necessitated quarantine or “lockdown” measures as the principal containment tool (Rubin and Wessely, 2020). These factors are likely to affect other health-related behaviours and may generate a change in the consumption of alcohol and other substances (Carrico et al., 2020, Clay and Parker, 2020).