CT had the nation’s highest jump in alcohol-related deaths. Why?

In 1993, Newport mother Dorrie Carolan founded Parent Connection to support parents whose children were battling addiction after her son died of a prescription drug overdose. In the decades that followed, her organization has faced a new enemy, one of the oldest recreational drugs: alcohol.

From 2012 to 2022, the alcohol-related death rate in Connecticut has nearly tripled from 4.5 to 12 per 100,000 people, a 166.67% increase, the highest percentage increase recorded among all U.S. states, according to a study conducted by Lantana Recovery .

“It’s totally different than it was 10 years ago,” Carolan said. “It’s more accepted. It’s easy to say ‘my kids only drink’ as opposed to ‘my kids only do heroin a couple times a week.’ You go to tailgating parties, high school sports games, and the parents have their Yeti [cups] filled with alcohol. The younger generation then sees that, [they] drink a lot more than we did.”

While Carolan’s business used to primarily help parents whose children were dealing with heroin or prescription drug addictions, most parents coming through her doors now, she says, have children dealing with alcoholism.

Before COVID-19, Dr. J. Craig Allen treated mostly opioid-addicted patients at Hartford HealthCare’s Ridge Recovery Center where he serves as vice president of addiction services. Now, the “vast majority” of patients are coming in for alcohol-abuse, just like at Carolan’s center.

“Everyone’s aware that alcohol can lead to problems, yet the the association of alcohol is different,” Allen said. “[It’s in] almost every level of our society. [In] celebration or even mourning, you drink alcohol. It’s woven into July 4 celebrations. Sports stadiums are named after companies that make alcoholic beverages. Advertisements, TV and radio and social media glamorize the use of alcohol.”

Besides the cultural influence alcohol has, both also pointed to binge drinking as one of the main influencing factors for the rise.

Binge drinking, typically defined as consuming a large amount of alcohol — five or more drinks for men and four or more drinks for women — within about two hours, has become increasingly prevalent in the state.

Nearly 21% of adults in the state engage in this form of consumption, according to Preston Rideout, a nightclub and bar consultant and the CEO of Rideout Hospitality and founder of The Dram Shop Experts.

“This dangerous behavior significantly increases the risk of alcohol poisoning and other alcohol-related health complications,” Rideout said. “Without appropriate knowledge, individuals may not fully grasp the potential consequences of their drinking habits.”

Those they leave behind

The increase in alcohol-related deaths means a rise in loved ones left behind, marred from the impacts the disease has on family members. For many who have lost a loved one to alcoholism, an insidious generational cycle begins.

“[Alcoholism deaths are] really hard on families,” Michael Brunk, chief marketing officer at Paramount Wellness Retreat, said. His brother passed away from the disease a year ago. While Paramount helps treat addiction to a variety of abused substances, patients struggling with alcoholism are the most common, he says.

“So much of it is environmental. It’s hard to change if you are coming home to that same thing every day.”

“A lot of people feel a lot of shame, and I think it’s hard for a lot of people to process a death like this, because there are a bunch of different ways that someone who’s under the influence could die,” Lily Geiger told The Connecticut Mirror. She lost her father to alcoholism when she was 20.

“They could get in a car accident, or they could fall down a flight of stairs. Their liver could fail them. So there’s so many things that you kind of just are constantly fearing when you’re dealing with someone in recovery or non-recovery.”

After her father’s death, Geiger started the non-alcoholic beverage brand Figlia during the pandemic.

She wanted to create a safer beverage option, one that fostered “honest and inclusive conversations around alcohol consumption.” Once the brand took off, she noticed other people coming forward and sharing their stories too.

“I think that once people heard my story, they were a lot more comfortable telling theirs,” she said.

Besides selling the non-alcoholic aperitivo at restaurants and in grocery stores, Figlia also fosters a community for those who have lost a loved one to alcoholism through an online chat forum.

The hardest part, Geiger says, is getting people to come forward, especially when many support groups out there, she says, can make “you feel like you’ve done something wrong.”

“The person who has the disease is clearly going through a really hard time, but then it kind of becomes all about them, and the people around that love [them], well you’re just totally getting bodied by this situation,” Geiger said. “And you say ‘Well I can’t talk about it [with] my friends, because I don’t want that person to feel judged, but I’m suffering because this is really hard.’”

Carolan’s business specifically helps those whose children are dealing with the disease. Many parents, she said, have a hard time striking the balance between supporting their child in recovery while ensuring they don’t relapse. Many are “painfully” hard on themselves.

“We as parents fear if we don’t help them, they’ll go back into relapse mode.”

‘Profound’ impacts on the state

Excessive alcohol use cost Connecticut’s taxpayers an estimated $3.029 billion in 2010, adjusted to $4.089 billion in 2022 dollars: $2.75 per drink, according to Rideout.

“The impact on productivity, traffic collisions and the criminal justice system is profound,” Lantana Recovery’s Executive Director Lindsay Richerson said.

According to the Connecticut Department of Transportation, nearly 40% of all fatal crashes in the state involved a person with a BAC level above the legal limit in 2021, the last year of verifiable data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration .

The state also had the highest rate of fatal crashes with BAC levels above 0.15% at 30%.

Since then, there have been over 8,000 DUI-related crashes, including over 200 fatal crashes, according to AAA Connecticut .

Rideout pointed to the pandemic as not only a cause for increased alcoholism rates but increased DUI rates.

“Unfortunately, this increase in alcohol consumption [during COVID] also coincided with a decrease in law enforcement presence on the roads due to pandemic-related restrictions,” he said.

“As a result, drivers may have felt emboldened to drink and drive, knowing that the chances of getting caught were lower.”

He also pointed to the alcohol industry’s marketing and affordability.

“When alcohol is both affordable and heavily advertised, it creates an environment where impaired driving becomes more prevalent, leading to fatal outcomes on the road.”

Carolan agreed, citing that parents coming through her doors often don’t even realize their children are drinking given the beverage’s packaging: “it looks like lemonade [or] like berry punch.”

It’s all the more appealing for kids then, as well.

Allen pointed to the alcohol industry’s marketing towards women and the “one glass of wine” before bed phenomenon for mothers.

“I think that marketing campaigns — really sophisticated, well developed marketing campaigns — have aggressively focused on increasing the number of women purchasing alcohol, and you can see in the statistics that the number of women needing emergency help, the number of women developing alcohol use disorders, the number of women dying from alcohol-related causes has increased significantly as as they start to drink at levels that equal men.”

He first noticed the shift following the pandemic’s lockdowns; “Disproportionately, women tended to drink more than men during COVID.”

What can be done?

Influencing factors like the pandemic and alcoholic beverage marketing don’t discriminate over state lines. Yet the rate of increase over the past decade for Connecticut far exceeds any other state.

Delaware, the state with the second-highest percent increase in alcohol-related deaths, saw an uptick of 147.37%: almost 20 percentage points lower than Connecticut.

Rather than pointing to one specific influencing factor, a confluence of societal norms, policies and infrastructure seems to hold the answer.

Carolan pointed to the state’s socioeconomic gap as a potential factor; many families have working parents who aren’t home to closely monitor their children. Others have the ability to give their children free rein, socially and financially.

“I think it may be a combination of being in the part of the country that is fast paced and high stress,” Allen added. “Connecticut is a very expensive state to live in, so there’s those pressures.”

Connecticut’s geographic proximity to two of the nation’s major cities, New York and Boston, also could be a factor, says Allen. Besides commuting on the state’s highways, the dense populations of both urban centers can lead to more frequent social gatherings, nightlife, and potentially higher alcohol consumption rates.

These were also all states dramatically hit by COVID.

Treatment facilities, or the lack thereof, also contributes, according to Brunk.

Connecticut currently has approximately 2.62 treatment facilities per 100,000 people for alcohol abuse disorder, ranking 23rd in the nation for alcohol treatment facilities per capita, according to Lantana.

“The disease left untreated is a death sentence,” Brunk said, urging the state to invest more in facilities like Paramount Wellness.

He pointed to the closure of Retreat Behavioral Health as a cause for concern, noting that many people seeking help will now either have to go out of state for treatment or not receive treatment at all.

Without state transitional living opportunities and more sober environments relapse rates will remain high. A possible option, Brunk said, is governmental incentives for businesses to have “sober friendly environments.”

This past legislative session, the Connecticut General Assembly introduced S.B. 424 which would have lowered the legal driving blood alcohol level to .05% from .08%.

The bill was ultimately tabled, but researchers and advocates at Lantana Recovery “strongly support” its reintroduction and eventual signing into law.

Allen added that he thinks more must be invested into public service advertisements and education campaigns.

Brunk concluded that “ultimately, we just need more help at the state level.”