Drinking alone during adolescence and young adulthood can strongly increase your risk of binge drinking later in life, especially if you’re a woman, according to a new study.
Add this finding to the documented increase in alcohol consumption among Americans during the pandemic, and you have a worrying situation, said the study’s lead author, Kasey Creswell, an associate professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
“Several studies have already shown that solitary drinking has increased as a result of the pandemic,” likely due to the closing of bars and social venues during stay-at-home measures, Creswell said.
“Studies have also shown that associations between solitary drinking and alcoholism are stronger for young women compared to young men,” she said. “This is especially concerning given that there have been recent increases in solitary alcohol consumption among US female teenagers.”
Studies have also documented increases in pandemic-related stress, negative emotions and mental health issues for many young people, Creswell said.
“The main reason young people drink alone is to deal with negative emotions, and developing this relationship with alcohol during the pandemic could put them on a trajectory of increased alcohol use, possibly resulting in more drinking-related problems.” said Creswell.
“And again this may be particularly the case 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 their senior year of high school.
Additional data were collected when participants were 22 to 23 years old and again when they were 35 years old.
About 25% of teenagers and 40% of young adults who drink reported drinking alone, according to the study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
When compared to people who only drank socially, the study found that drinking alone in their final year of high school increased the risk of alcohol use problems by 35% at age 35.
The link was especially strong for teenage girls, Creswell said.
“The likelihood of alcohol use disorder symptoms at age 35 was 86% higher for female teenagers (high school students) who drank alone,” she said.
Drinking alone during a person’s early 20s increased the risk of alcoholism 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 considered, Creswell said.
“Drinking alone at younger ages is responsible for a unique risk for future problems with alcohol, in addition to binge drinking and frequency of alcohol use, which are well-known risk factors,” she said.
“This suggests that we should not only ask young people how much they are drinking and how often they are drinking to identify young people at risk, but we also need to ask whether they are drinking alone or not,” Creswell said. “Drinking alone tells us a little about the future risk of developing alcoholism.”
drinking in the pandemic
Previous research has shown a 41% increase in binge drinking days among women since the start of the pandemic. Part of the reason may be the “blurring” of boundaries between home and work for many women.
“Studies have shown that the complexities of balancing home, work and caregiving responsibilities during the pandemic have fallen disproportionately on women,” Leena Mittal told CNN . Mittal is chief of the division of women’s mental health in the department of psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She did not participate in the new study.
A higher level of alcohol consumption in women is of concern because of the known link between alcohol and female breast cancer risk, experts say.
“There really is no safe level of alcohol consumption when it comes to breast cancer,” he told CNN Sarah Wakeman, medical director of the Substance Use Disorders Initiative at Massachusetts General Hospital.
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.
Source: CNN Brasil
