Australia Crowned The Drunkest Country In 2020

The Global Drug Survey just released its 2020 results, and while overall drug abuse was down due to disruptions brought on by pandemic lockdowns, alcohol was readily available as some Australians know better than most.

The findings, which drew on responses from more than 32,000 people from 22 countries, showed that on average, Australians reported getting drunk 27 times in 2020, the most out of any country in the survey. That’s well above the global average of 15 times a year, which is still too many hangovers as far as we’re concerned.

According to the survey the average respondent owned up to having been drunk 14.6 times in 2020, so a bit more than once a month.  Australians, on the other hand, reported getting drunk about twice a month, whereas respondents from Mexico reported only 8.9 times in the last 12 months.

The Global Drug Survey asked respondents about their mood, the location of use, and what kind of social context they were in and found that, as would be expected during the pandemic, most of these episodes occurred in homes. While the majority of these incidents occurred when the person was with close friends, a quarter of episodes occurred when the individual was alone.

Australian men reported getting drunk 30 times and women reported getting drunk 21 times throughout the year, with women the most likely group to regret getting drunk.

This from the organization….

“2020 was an unprecedented year for many people. So, we started GDS2021 with a simple question. After translating responses into English and only retaining the most common responses, the main theme was a negative sentiment towards 2020, as well as a focus on how life had changed or had been different during the pandemic.”

When the survey asked respondents to sum up 2020 in one word, words like “surreal,” “challenging,” “stressful,” “boring,” lonely” and “fucked” kept cropping up.

“It’s unfortunate that for many people intoxication becomes more attractive when they are feeling miserable or distressed. It’s natural to want a quick way to remove or numb those feelings,” said the GDS, but the London based organization which was founded in 2012, warned that intoxication while alone can “exacerbate” feelings of loneliness, adding that we need to remember that “the best times we have in our lives are often with other people”.

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H/T to the Drinks Business for their considerable help with this.