The “fear and anxiety” of getting COVID and the isolation of lockdowns played bigger roles than infection in driving a surge in alcoholism over the past two years, a new study found.

A team of eight public health researchers published the study Thursday in JAMA Network Open, examining the electronic health records of 2,812,182 patients from January 2020 to January 2022.

They found that during most periods, there was no significant correlation between COVID-19 infection and alcohol use disorder diagnoses showing the virus had affected the brain in an addictive way.

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