Quarantini overload? 1 in 3 Floridians turned to hard liquor during COVID pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic changed our lives in many ways. We’ve spent more time at home. We now own 200 masks. We watched television we never dreamed we’d be interested in and gained weight eating sourdough bread, which quite frankly we never want to see again, ever.
Apparently, we got bored, too. And if we live in Florida, a third of us started passing up our evening glass of wine or cold IPA for the hard stuff.
A new survey from Alcoholrehab.com, which provides alcohol and drug addiction treatment resources, reports that 34 percent of Floridians say COVID-19 boredom led them to drink stronger liquor over the past several months. That’s one in three people, so there’s a good chance that’s you.
Why is this significant? On average, hard liquor has about 40 percent alcohol by volume, while wine has 12 percent and beer has five percent, the website reports. So a third of you have been getting drunker for the past nine months.
On the bright side, we’re not Tennessee, where 62 percent of the respondents turned to the hard stuff. In contrast is Idaho, the least experimental state, where only eight percent reported turning to the perils of vodka, whiskey or rum.
Half of the drinkers surveyed report they started making their own cocktails at home during lockdown. Yes. Those G&Ts you made every evening were a gateway beverage. One in five people claim their tolerance for alcohol has increased since the start of the pandemic.
Across the country, the survey reports, sales of hard spirits increased by 34.1 percent, while wine sales increased by 30.1 percent and beer sales went up by 12.6 percent since the pandemic started.
The website surveyed more than 3,000 people in the United States age 21 or older.
