Working from home can remove a lot of the accountability that keeps addicts in check. When your coworkers can’t see you, it’s much easier to be inebriated or otherwise suffering from addiction-related issues without feeling social pressure to correct it.
COVID countermeasures reduced the number of safe recreational activities, and was a horrible for mental health overall. Additionally, America offers very little support for mental health distress, so I imagine this triple threat has been devastating to drug addicts. I'm only guessing as a teetotaler who got addicted to video games and Twitter in that time (and I used to scoff at Twitter-addicts since I had a small, curated list of accounts I followed)
[edit]A fourth factor - drug overdoses (and other "less serious" medical issues) also got less medical care because it was being hogged by respiratory patients.
This is a cruel twist, given that suicide deaths actually decreased in 2020[1], probably for the reason you've mentioned: spending nearly all of your time with others makes you accountable and removes opportunities for self-harm.
Never would have seen it coming that encouraging people to stay isolated for years at a time and actively fearing their own proximity to one another would be detrimental.
people are actually closer than ever to their family (or house-mates) due to COVID
Yes, this is the perception for many people who have family or housemates. In the same way the rich have gotten richer, the socially connected have become more socially connected, while the millions who already struggled with disconnection or loneliness have become even more strained at the behest of numerous politicians who mandate their "rules for thee and not for me" under the new anxiety-laced normal.
There was a study done looking at the impact of wolves, deer, hunters, and traffic accidents. What they found was that the smell of wolves scared off deer - thus reducing deer related traffic accidents; wolves were more effective at this than hunters killing deer.
This is a round about way of corroborating your fact, but from a different point of view.
The vulnerable and poorest suffer the most.
Don’t blame this on capitalism; this is a fact of nature. That humans have cobbled together a wealthy civilization capable of actually attempting to provide some measure of care for the weak is a staggering miracle.
We’re capable of doing far more to care for people than we do. The amount that we do is practically nothing in the US.
Europe seems to do a reasonably good job. Apologies if you were posting from a more socially sofisticated state. I kind of assumed and I usually try not to do that.
So the poor still suffered only they were politically poor not cash poor.
Capitalism has it's problems but so do all systems. Allocating resources is a very hard problem.
Domestic abuse is really high now - because of all of the "close familyness" going on. Also, there is a "National Emergency" for pediatric mental health. [0]. This is not a trivial fact
[0] https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/zLatest_News/Pediatricians_CAPs_...
Not only that but the lockdowns making people low-key depressed which would also be a reason for using addictive substances since they often go hand-in-hand together.
I could be pretty much classified an alcoholic during most of 2019-2020 because a six-pack a day keeps the boredom away.
For anyone reading who thinks that may apply to them: Talk to your doctor. "Cold Turkey" alcohol withdrawals can kill.
I'll definitely recommend LSD or mushrooms, though. They are lots of fun.
People do not die from smoking opium, much. But die a lot from popping pills.
Concentrated synthetic opioids are deadly.