‘Quarantinis’ and Beer Chugs: Is the Pandemic Driving Us to Drink?

Whatever day you read this – at whatever hour – you can bet that someone in the Facebook group Quarantined Beer Chugs is shotgunning a beer or swigging a bottle….

“We know that drinking can increase under stressful conditions – that’s well-documented in the literature,” said Dr Rajita Sinha, director of Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Stress Center. “But the broader question you have is: Is that okay? And I would be wary. I would ask, are there alternative ways to cope with stress that are healthier?”…

Those sorts of questions are critical now, said Dr Priscilla Martinez, a scientist studying the health effects of drinking at the Alcohol Research Group, a federally funded research center. Heavy drinking is not good for human health, under any circumstances – and recent research by Martinez, Sinha and others has shown that alcohol disrupts the immune system and compromises the brain’s stress-coping mechanisms.

Read the full article on The Guardian.

Originally published by The Guardian