Consumption of alcohol and toxic substances on the rise

According to the survey conducted by the Mexican Observatory of Mental Health and Consumption of Psychoactive Substances, from March to October 2020, in which more than 17,000 people from Guanajuato, Querétaro, Mexico City, Durango, and the State of Mexico participated, 35.8 percent of those consulted consumed alcohol; 32.5 percent, tobacco; 24.6 percent, illegal drugs; and 14.6 percent, non-prescription drugs.

Jacqueline Cortés Morelos, from the UNAM School of Medicine, explained the above and highlighted that 39.4 percent of the participants said they felt stressed, 20.8 percent anxious and 17.2 percent desperate due to confinement. Other results of this exercise, supported by the Ministry of Health and the National Commission against Addictions, indicate that 15.3 percent reported feeling depressed, which coincides with studies promoted by the Pan American Health Organization in Latin America.

Added to this is the increase in alcohol consumption, a parameter that is difficult to measure since there is underreporting because only some people report or identify it, even in substance use disorder there is denial as a defense mechanism. They say no, that it is only social when they already have dependence. Due to the human losses caused by the pandemic, the number of cases of anxiety disorders, depression, and the use of toxic components increased in the world.

When giving the talk "Mental health vs psychiatric disorder", as part of the Health Education cycle of the University Program of City Studies (PUEC), the surgeon added: they are specially registered in groups that lost several family members in a short time, especially the providers or leaders of the family systems. "This causes the triggering of diseases to which they were already genetically predisposed, such as depressive or anxiety disorders, but there has also been in the pandemic an increase in substance use disorder, especially in people who consume alcohol chronically."

To face this type of situation, especially those related to depression, the member of the Department of Mental Health of the School of Medicine recommended strengthening four key aspects of the personality: self-concept, self-image, self-confidence, and self-esteem. The expert in Psychiatry emphasized that each of these areas is learned in the family, where children learn about hierarchies, alliances, limits, roles, and support networks.

"From the time they are children, behaviors will be determined depending on what the child sees in their families. They know how to relate as a couple by seeing how their parents relate. Children learn to lose and win by relating with their siblings, sometimes you get the toy or the candy and they learn the first constants that they will face later in life," said Cortés Morelos.

She acknowledged that due to the health emergency it is difficult to set limits and rules, because nowadays the couple, family, work, leisure, and socialization are in the same place, and more work is done, without schedules or limits. Today it is common to receive late at night or too early meeting notices, to work on weekends or holidays, which generates constant stress, wear and tear, fatigue; people must learn to set limits.

To strengthen what she called the fantastic four (self-concept, self-image, self-confidence, and self-esteem), the specialist in Child Psychiatry recommended performing a self-examination on what is the self-concept, how intelligent do they consider themselves, if they are hard-working, honest, lazy, dishonest, etc., if they are better than average, equal to average or below average.

"Many times when people's mental health is not very good and their emotions such as sadness or anguish make them feel a lack of self-confidence, this undermines their self-concept regarding their intelligence and they set goals below what they could achieve because they think that at a given moment they are not that intelligent and they are not going to achieve it when this is not the case, and when they see the evidence, even less so. Sometimes some people have averages of nine and consider that they are not so intelligent", concluded the expert in Couples Therapy.

Mexico ranks third in the Americas in alcohol consumption deaths

Mexico is already third in the Americas in deaths due to alcohol consumption, after the United States and Brazil, according to a study by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) published in the journal Addiction. Around 80 percent of deaths related to alcoholic beverage consumption in the Americas are concentrated in three of the most populated countries: the United States, with 36.9 percent; Brazil, with 24.8 percent; and Mexico, with 18.4 percent.

The intake of alcoholic beverages caused an average of 85,000 deaths annually between 2013 and 2015 in the Americas, where per capita consumption is 25 percent higher than the world average, according to PAHO research. This study shows that the harmful consumption of alcoholic beverages in the Americas should be one of the highest public health priorities.

Deaths due to alcohol consumption can be prevented and even have more years of life despite this disease, therefore, the importance of public health measures to reduce the consumption of alcoholic beverages was emphasized. The analysis of mortality data in 30 countries of the continent shows that, on average, 85,32 deaths were attributed to the consumption of alcoholic beverages, which corresponds to 1.4 percent:

64.9 percent of those deaths were among people under 60 years of age and were mainly due to liver disease and neuropsychiatric disorders, such as alcohol dependence More men than women died from drinking alcoholic beverages, with men accounting for 83.1 percent of deaths attributable to alcohol consumption. The largest gender disparities were in El Salvador and Belize, while the gap was smallest in Canada and the United States.

Meanwhile, the agency of the United Nations (UN) urged to curb the consumption of alcoholic beverages, so it recommended measures such as increasing taxes and imposing restrictions on advertising, promotion, and sponsorship of these products. Another simple but forceful measure is to limit the hours of sale and reduce the concentration of points of sale of these products in a community.

The study also shows that the group most affected in deaths caused by alcohol consumption are men aged 50 to 59. The harmful consumption of these beverages results in the death of people who are in the prime of their lives. This is a loss not only to their families but also to the economy and society as a whole.

During the covid-19 pandemic, alcoholic beverages have been promoted through social media and their availability has increased in many countries due to easier access to online shopping and home deliveries. It is presumed that those most likely to increase their drinking in the face of the pandemic were already binge drinking earlier. Alcohol outlets, such as bars and nightclubs, attract crowds that do not respect the use of masks or healthy distance.