Alcohol Addiction In Women During The Pandemic: Why Has It Increased?

Introduction

After the COVID 19 pandemic forced people to stay inside their homes to mitigate the risk of infection, more people are turning towards alcohol as the coping mechanism to handle daily build-up stress. The research shows that alcohol consumption in adults increased by 14% in 2020-2021. Women, in particular, have been shown to exhibit a 41% increase in alcohol consumption. 

Light to moderate consumption of alcohol is considered healthy for adults. However, if alcohol becomes dependent, it can affect you with several short-term and long-term side effects.

Since the advent of COVID19, alcohol use has skyrocketed. If 41% was enough to surprise, a recent study by RTI shows that women with children under the age of five are more vulnerable to unhealthy alcohol consumption with an increased rate of 323%.

If you or your spouse is suffering from addiction, it is important that you take immediate steps. Talk with them and convince them for medical detoxification. To get a quote on the detox services, visit https://www.gallusdetox.com/locations/texas/san-antonio-detox-center/. 

Why Are Women Influenced More By Alcohol Addiction?

When someone is under stress, alcohol consumption is the best coping mechanism for many. When the pandemic hit the world, people were forced to stay indoors. This built up their stress.

And you know what happened afterward!

This past year has brought a lot of changes in the life of a woman, especially mothers of young children. These women were not only working remotely but were also looking after their families, children, and house chores.

This resulted in a lot of stress, depression, and anxiety! – Alcohol just became the coping mechanism.

That being said, here are a few reasons why alcohol consumption increased in women during the pandemic.

1. Accessibility

Although alcohol was always accessible for adults to enjoy, but it was limited to only selected places –

• Bars.
• Afterwork meetings.
• Dates.
• And occasional house events.

– Hence, despite being available all the time, there were only a few instances where a woman could have enjoyed drinking.

However, with the pandemic, all these were stopped, and people started storing alcohol inside the home. That means, no matter where you are or what you do inside your house, alcohol is accessible in the home.

That being said, one glass of alcohol after work to relieve stress can easily become a daily habit.

Daily habit to Addiction!

2. Emotional Impact

As we have already mentioned above, with the pandemic, the workload of women increased drastically.

Naturally, this affected their productivity, sleep, mood, health-related problems, and worries to keep everything organized.

Now that’s a lot of work we are talking about here!

The workload increases if a woman has small children to take care of. Taking everything into consideration, we can see how emotionally vulnerable women had become during the pandemic.

In addition, the mothers who were dependent on the childcare support system were experiencing additional burdens with the decrease in support.

3. Unemployment

Unemployment was one of the major contributors to the increase in alcohol consumption.

Unemployment has always been linked to depression, anxiety, anger, and sometimes suicidal thoughts. Women who lost their job during the pandemic were greatly affected, and alcohol seemed to be the only way to cope with the situation.

4. Loss Of Loved Ones

Alcohol and grief have a tragic but all too common relationship!

Once a loved one passes away (which had been a lot during the pandemic), the fallout can be devastating, especially for women. Women being emotional creatures, are greatly affected by the loss of their loved ones.

Alcohol acts like a coping mechanism to control grief and reduce body stress. Unfortunately, while alcohol helps you forget about your grief, it can become addictive over time.

5. Having To Manage Children’s Schooling

If you think taking care of children is one of the best moments in life, think again. This time add all the factors mentioned below:

• Office work.
• Cooking.
• House cleaning.
• Chores.
• Taking care of yourself and other family members.

– Now, does that sound super simple and easy to you?

– No!

Managing children is in itself a responsible job, and after adding all these factors, it becomes quite overwhelming, especially if you have children below 5.

After taking care of everything, you will find that too much stress has built up inside your body which cannot be dealt with by regular means.

This is where alcohol consumption becomes the only savior. While taking a few sips from time to time is healthy, making it a habit can become an addiction!

Signs Of Excessive Alcohol Consumption

Whether you are a woman or a spouse of a beautiful wife, it is your responsibility to pick up the signs of excessive alcohol consumption. This will prevent you from falling into the addiction trap.

• Feeling tired all the time.
• Not getting enough motivation to get through the day.
• Experiencing frequent headaches.
• Highly sensitive to noise.
• Feeling depressed and anxious without any solid reason.
• Increased conflicts in relationships.
• Hiding alcohol from your loved ones.

If any of the signs you see in you or your better half, they might be consuming alcohol more than is needed. 

When you notice the sign, you do not have to confront them directly. Instead, you can take an indirect approach and allow them to open up about their consumption,

Once that happens, you can move forward with your plan to convince them of the addiction treatment program.

Healthy Coping Mechanism

It is important to take help from healthy coping mechanisms after knowing your addiction. When you are feeling like you’re not yourself or experiencing stress, knowing what to do will really help.

Here are a few activities that you can include:

• Exercise.
• Eating nutritious foods.
• Counseling.
• Following creative pursuit to keep yourself busy.

Ideally, a healthy coping mechanism should be about an activity where you are using your physical body in one way or another.