Why Has The Coronavirus Pandemic Boosted Addiction Cases?
The coronavirus pandemic has brought with it not only a major medical health crisis, but also an increase in mental health problems, especially depression and anxiety.
In turn, these two psychological problems have contributed to the fact that, combined with the confinement measures and the economic and social uncertainty experienced during the hardest moments of the pandemic, what we could well call a second pandemic has occurred: that of addictions. In this article We will see what has caused cases of drug addiction to increase so much during the health crisis
Emergence and consolidation of addictions during the coronavirus pandemic
The stress and uncertainty caused by COVID-19 has resulted in an increase in demand for mental health services Anxiety and depression have been two psychological problems that have grown strongly since the health crisis began in March 2020, but they are not the only problems that have increased their number of cases, being in fact risk factors for presenting various disorders. mental disorders, including substance addiction.
Psychotherapists and other mental health professionals have seen how The use and abuse of substances, such as opioids and psychostimulants, has grown enormously Many people have fallen into addictions, consolidated in the pandemic due to several factors, including loneliness, boredom, stress and fear of catching the virus, conditions that all of them combined have created the perfect storm so that we not only talk of a viral pandemic, but also of addictions.
Added to the health risks that substance use disorder brings on its own, it has been seen that drug dependent people are more prone to develop the worst symptoms of COVID-19 disease, have more sequelae once the disease has been overcome and there is a significant increase in the chances of ending up hospitalized and dying from coronavirus.
Based on data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the month of June 2020 it was reported that around 13% of the country’s citizens began and increased the consumption of addictive substances, both licit and illicit.. The main explanation behind this increase was that the population used drugs as a method of coping with the stress and negative emotions produced by the health crisis
Although the fact that the population began to take more drugs does not mean that all people fell into addictions, this phenomenon does turn out to be very worrying since, as a result of it, cases of overdose also increased, already skyrocketing since the beginning of the pandemic.. The ODMAP system, an application to monitor overdose cases in the United States, indicated that in the first months of the pandemic there was an 18% increase in these cases compared to the same months in 2019.
The COVID crisis and substance use disorders
Based on research and clinical observation carried out during the pandemic, experts consider that one of the biggest causes of the increase in substance consumption has directly to do with economic uncertainty, the feeling of loneliness and the fear caused by the fear of contracting the disease
All of them occurred in combination at the beginning of the pandemic, times when everyone felt more stressed and alone, which predisposed them to make unhealthy decisions, including drinking and taking drugs.
As people feel more stress, they feel they have fewer effective ways to manage this emotion, and even more so if we take into account the nature of the anti-COVID-19 measures of most governments in the world. For example, activities that can be seen as promoting resilience, such as exercising outdoors or meeting friends, were not possible due to the ban on all non-essential and non-duly justified activities.
Faced with these prohibitions, people who before the pandemic already had anxiety problems but who controlled them by playing sports, walking or meeting with their friends saw how overnight they had to manage to learn a new method to manage their emotions. It was because of this that many people resorted to unhealthy strategies as their main coping method, including overeating, abusive pornography consumption, and also substance abuse, the stars being alcohol and tobacco.
The impact of the COVID-19 crisis on drug use patterns
The increase in substance use has occurred both in terms of quantity and frequency, and in some cases they have switched to more dangerous drugs
There are people who were already abusing substances before the pandemic who replaced them with new ones, easier to obtain from home but also less safe, because due to the restrictions and confinement measures they did not have access to the usual providers.
This change to a new drug is considered one of the reasons why mortality associated with substance use has increased during the pandemic. For example, a person who previously used heroin, when the pandemic began and no longer had supplies of this drug, may have replaced it with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid similar to morphine but 100 times more powerful. By not having as much experience with this drug as with cocaine, the user may underestimate its effects and cause an overdose with fatal effects.
There is also a practical explanation for the increase in overdose cases, and not just the increase in substance consumption. People have been more likely to die from substance abuse during the pandemic because in many cases they were alone This means that there was no one to stop them or convince them to reduce their consumption and, furthermore, if complications occurred there was no one to call emergency services or administer naloxone, an agent that reverses the effects of opiates.
The stressors that have increased substance use are still in force and, even when the COVID-19 pandemic is over, Many people will take months, maybe years, to reduce their consumption of tobacco, alcohol, coffee, illicit drugs, or stop abusive eating
The stress and anxiety behind these truly addictive behaviors will not magically disappear and there will continue to be a lot of uncertainty even when there is no longer a health crisis, a concern that, if not properly treated, can manifest itself in a drug overdose in the long run.
If a patient recognizes that they have been using a substance, whether directly or indirectly due to the pandemic, psychotherapy focuses on help the patient understand what stressors have predisposed them to substance use Added to this, healthier and more appropriate alternative ways are sought to deal with stress, both that caused by a health crisis, a humanitarian disaster or daily problems in the patient’s life.
The patient is helped to perform a functional analysis of the role that drugs have in your life and, thus, look for something that replaces it without posing risks to your health.
It should be noted that, taking into account how the pandemic has increased substance consumption, It should become a habit among professionals to ask their patient if they consume any type of drug, no matter how uncomfortable the question may be, and know which one you consume, in what quantity and how often. Although this is part of the clinical interview phase, it is sometimes overlooked.
Furthermore, one should not assume that a patient who does not have a substance use disorder does not mean that he or she is not using drugs abusively or feels that he or she has lost control.
