Drug and alcohol review
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Drug and alcohol review · Feb 2021
Describing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol-induced blackout tweets.
COVID-19, considered a pandemic by the World Health Organization, overwhelmed hospitals in the USA. In parallel to the growing pandemic, alcohol sales grew in the USA, with people stockpiling alcohol. Alcohol-induced blackouts are one particularly concerning consequence of heavy drinking, and the extent to which blackout prevalence may change in the context of a pandemic is unknown. The purpose of the current study is to describe the prevalence of publicly available tweets in the USA referencing alcohol-induced blackouts prior to and during the COVID-19 outbreak. ⋯ Our findings demonstrate that references to high-risk drinking persist during the pandemic despite restrictions on large social gatherings. Given that the internet is a common source of information for COVID-19, the frequent posting about blackouts during this period might normalise the behaviour. This is concerning because alcohol use increases susceptibility to COVID-19, and alcohol-related mortality can further tax hospital resources.