LIFESTYLE - Why some Students aren’t doing Dry January
Students have been drinking more under lockdown
I hate to break it to you, but we’re still only halfway through January. For some students, the semester hasn’t even started yet. Most of us will be studying from home, in our bedrooms, and not in Belfast. It’s rough. And it’s no wonder we’re turning to booze.
Every year, thousands of people in the UK and Ireland take part in Dry January, an alcohol-free month-long challenge that aims to raise awareness of the benefits that drinking less can have. But this year is different. We’re living through a pandemic, and Northern Ireland is now in its third lockdown. Unsurprisingly, students have borne the brunt of the coronavirus restrictions. Lecture halls have become laptop screens. The student social life, that many enjoy at university, is obsolete. Students lost, and are still losing, their jobs, with no means to pay rent, and no student safety net provided by university management. 73% of students have said that their mental health has suffered under lockdown.
Alcohol is a sedative. In other words, it reduces stress and anxiety. Sometimes, it can seem like a solution to our problems. And students have faced plenty of those this past year. Alcohol abuse has increased during the pandemic, and the British Liver Trust has reported a 500% rise in calls to its helpline since March last year, when coronavirus was declared a pandemic.
Queen’s University has a pervasive drinking culture, and it’s likely that students have been turning to drink even more than usual because of the challenges induced by lockdown restrictions.
The Speakeasy, a favourite student haunt, is closed for the foreseeable future
“We need something to get us through lockdown,” one second-second year student, Tierna, said.
Tom, who is also in second year, said “student life is rather boring. Having a drink makes time pass quicker.”
The coronavirus restrictions have been tough on students, and alcohol appears to have made them easier to grapple with. So, it’s not surprising that many students aren’t taking part in the Dry January challenge this year.
When drinking responsibly, alcohol seems like light relief. In some social situations, not drinking is even stigmatised. But drinking excessively can reap health problems. Excessive drinking may lead to low-quality sleep, higher blood pressure, and an increased chance of cancer-related proteins in the blood. For some students, the solace that drinking can bring seems to have outweighed the problems it causes because it offers a quick fix to larger problems that the pandemic has created.
“Students are possibly drinking more now than ever before, but in a very different way. Dry January for students often meant that they'd skip nights out for a while, get some more studying done. With lockdowns and restrictions, nights out where binge-drinking is the norm aren't happening, but more people than ever are engaging in more regular casual drinking”, the Queen’s University Belfast Students’ Union Welfare Officer, Katie Ní Chléire, said.
“There's also a lot of concern that students are resorting to using alcohol as a method of stress-relief; studying from home can be difficult, and with the dire news we're hearing from around the globe, it's likely that people are turning to drink as a coping mechanism.”
It’s only January. There’s a vaccine in sight but, for now, this semester looks like the last one. A Microsoft Teams nightmare. And we don’t know when it’ll end. It’s okay to drink booze at the moment, if it’s your thing. But it’s important to know the limits, and when drinking alcohol becomes a problem. You can find more information about alcohol abuse, and how to beat it, on the NHS website or by contacting the Student Wellbeing Service.
Olivia Fletcher is a freelance writer and Politics, Philosophy and Economics student at Queen’s.