A new study from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) finds that alcohol-related deaths in 2020 were so high that, for 16- to 64-year-olds, they exceeded the number of deaths from covid-19. Previously, the average annual increase was a little more than 2 percent; between 2019 and 2020, it skyrocketed to more than 25 percent. The largest rise in mortality occurred for people 35 to 44 years old, though rates of death associated with alcohol increased across all age groups…

White points to a particularly worrisome trend: increased alcohol use by women. Indeed, a survey published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that heavy drinking among women increased 41 percent in the first several months of covid-19.

Laura Bierut, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis, attributes the disproportionate impact to loss of structure as well as greater burdens shouldered by women. “There’s been a blurring between home and work,” she said. “It’s a lot easier to sit at home and drink than in the office. And covid has been particularly hard on women, with women dropping out of the workforce at greater numbers than men and family responsibilities falling predominantly on women.”