Add that finding to the documented increase in drinking among Americans during the pandemic, and you have a troubling situation, said lead study author Casey Creswell, an associate professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“Several studies have already shown that lone drinking has increased as a result of the pandemic,” possibly due to the closure of bars and social establishments during stay-at-home measures, Creswell said.
“Research also shows that the associations between drinking alone and alcohol problems are stronger for young women compared to young men,” she said. “This is particularly troubling given that there has been a recent increase in lone drinking among adolescent females in the US.”
“The main reason young people drink alone is to cope with negative emotions, and developing such a relationship with alcohol during the pandemic could put lone drinkers on a trajectory of increased alcohol use, which is likely to lead to more problems, alcohol-related,” Creswell said. “And again, this may be especially true 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 investigation of 4,500 teenagers who were asked about their drinking habits while in high school. 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 report drinking alone, according to a study published Monday in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
Compared to people who drink only socially, the study found that drinking alone as a high school senior increased the risk of an alcohol use disorder by 35% by age 35. Alcohol use disorder, also called alcoholism, is defined as the inability to drink even when it causes physical or emotional harm to the drinker or others.
The relationship is particularly strong for teenage girls, Creswell said.
“The odds of alcohol use disorder symptoms at age 35 were 86% higher for adolescent females (high school students) who drank alone. In contrast, the odds of alcohol use disorder symptoms at age 35 were only 8% higher for adolescent males who drank alone,” she said.
Drinking alone in a person’s early 20s increased the risk of an alcohol use disorder by 60% compared to social drinkers, but this time there was no difference between men and women. The results held true even after other common risk factors were taken into account, Creswell said.
“Drinking alone at a younger age poses a unique risk for future alcohol problems above and beyond earlier binge drinking and frequency of alcohol use, (both of which) are well-known risk factors,” she said.
“This suggests that we not only need to ask young people how much they drink and how often they drink to identify at-risk youth, but we also need to ask whether or not they drink alone,” Creswell said. “Drinking alone tells us a lot about future risk of developing alcohol problems.”
Pandemic drinking
Previous research has shown a 41% increase in heavy drinking 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. “Research has shown that the complexities of balancing home, work and caregiving during the pandemic fall disproportionately on women,” Dr Leena Mittal told CNN in a previous interview. Mittal is chief of women’s mental health in the department of psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. It was not linked to a new study.
The higher level of drinking among women is worrying because of the known link between alcohol and the risk of breast cancer in women, experts say.
“There really is no safe level of alcohol consumption when it comes to breast cancer,” Dr. Sarah Wakeman, medical director of the Substance Use Disorders Initiative at Massachusetts General Hospital, previously told CNN.
If you (or a loved one) seem to be struggling with alcohol, don’t hesitate to seek help, experts say. There are many different support groups that can help, such as 12-step programs and individual therapy.
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