By Mahlon Meyer
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Alcohol-related illnesses are by no means the leading cause of death in this state. The top killers are cancer, heart disease, and Covid-19.
But a massive increase in alcohol use during the pandemic has underscored the ravages caused by use of the drug. And the conflux of the Covid-19 pandemic and alcohol use has manifested in another, equally chilling way.
People afflicted with the horrors of long Covid—almost 7% of the U.S. population, now—have a new horror to contend with.
Virtually any alcohol use, according to a recent study done in conjunction with Stanford Medicine, either massively increases symptoms, or creates intolerable alcohol poisoning.
The dangers of drink
Most people might be surprised that just consuming more than two drinks (or fewer) for men or one drink (or fewer) for women in a single day is considered “excessive drinking,” by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Perhaps even more surprising is that most people who “drink excessively” are neither alcoholics nor alcohol dependent.
And yet, woe to them!
The short-term health risks of such drinking include the kind of accidents that could curtail or destroy one’s own or multiple lives, according to the CDC.
They include traumas caused by car crashes, falls, drowning, and burns. They also include violence that runs the gamut from homicide to suicide to sexual assault and domestic violence.
They further include potentially-fatal alcohol poisoning, risky sexual behaviors—that can lead to unintended pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases, including the catastrophic HIV—and miscarriage, stillbirth or fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.
Plague of the pandemic
During the pandemic, alcohol use actually increased.
The leading cause was social isolation, often brought about by the need for social distancing, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA).
“During the first two years of the pandemic, the number of death certificates listing alcohol as a factor soared from 78,927 to 108,791,” George F. Koob, director of the NIAAA told the National Institutes of Health.
That constituted a rise of 38% compared to pre-pandemic numbers.
One consequence was that deaths linked to alcohol induced liver disease shot up by more than 22% during the pandemic, said Koob.
To counteract any increased alcohol consumption brought on by the rigors of the pandemic, Koob recommended that individuals reach out to friends and regain social contact.
“Be like a bumblebee going from flower to flower,” he said.
In addition, exercise!
It helps with any ailment, he said.
Long Covid
Meanwhile, the combination of the pandemic and alcohol has had another terrifying effect, according to one study and volumes of anecdotal research.
During the pandemic, an increasing number of people infected with Covid-19 developed a syndrome of disorders now commonly called long Covid.
Long Covid itself is terrifying, and can come with dozens or even more symptoms, such as brain fog, ongoing physical lethargy sometimes to the point of virtual paralysis, and changes to the heart.
Observers began to find that people with long Covid who consumed alcohol were in for even worse suffering.
Halfway through the pandemic, stories began to appear in the media of an increase in symptoms or even horrific signs of alcohol poisoning when people who had long Covid drank even very little alcohol.
Some reports even suggested that a sip of alcohol might be used to diagnose long Covid—depending on the reaction.
Dr. Linda Geng (Photo courtesy of Stanford Medicine)
Last year, researchers, including Linda Geng, the co-director of the Stanford Post-Acute Covid-19 Syndrome (Long Covid) Clinic, conducted a study.
Researchers followed patients afflicted with long Covid who had also become suddenly unable to consume alcohol—except with debilitating effects.
“Patients with long Covid should be cautious about the use of alcohol, and some may feel better if they avoid it altogether,” Geng, who is also a clinical associate professor at Stanford Medicine, told the Northwest Asian Weekly in an email.
A heavy drinker now unable to drink “even small amounts”
One 40-year-old woman’s case seemed to shout this from the mountain top.
Prior to infection with Covid, she already had a host of medical issues—some that were unconquerable, such as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. As if that weren’t enough, she had asthma, anemia, hypotension, and migraines.
It is not known if her habitual consumption of alcohol was prompted by despair over her medical problems. But she “could easily tolerate about seven mixed drinks containing hard liquor in one night,” according to the study, “New Alcohol Sensitivity in Patients with Post-acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC),” published in Cureus on Dec. 29, 2023.
But then Covid-19 toppled her.
It never went away. In fact, it morphed into long Covid.
Three months later, she was still breathing in pain, thinking in a fog, and her heart and blood pressure were shifting wildly.
If alcohol had been her coping mechanism, she could no longer use it.
With “even small amounts of alcohol,” she now felt “terrible” for days after.
A single beer would bring on a crippling headache that lasted three days—and would key up her other long Covid symptoms.
Even the healthy are interdicted
Even a relatively healthy person was crippled by alcohol after developing long Covid.
Another subject of the study, a 60-year-old man “with no prior medical history” developed long Covid after becoming infected.
For five months, he suffered from headaches, inability to think clearly, anxiety, mood problems, and sleep disruptions.
Before all this, he could have a glass of wine a couple of times a month—with no issues.
But after, the slightest sip of wine would bring on a feeling as if a vise were clamped to the top and back of his head—and was squeezing tighter and tighter.
“Chronic, daily headaches characterized by a squeezing sensation at the top and back of the head,” said the study.
And it was the worst at night.
A CT scan and brain MRI showed nothing.
The combination: a disaster
In both cases, alcohol not only hindered their daily lives but intensified their long Covid symptoms, emphasizing the critical need to reduce alcohol consumption for those battling the aftermath of Covid-19.
Mahlon can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.