When Germany began to “close the city” due to the new crown epidemic, the only thing the 38-year-old touring player Marco (pseudonym) from Berlin wanted was to intoxicate himself.

Marco drank about a bottle of gin every night and thought: “Why not drink it? …Is all isolated, let’s have fun!” br>

As the days passed, Marco began to view drinking from different angles. “Because of isolation, people are forced to look at themselves and realize, wait, this is not good,” he said, “this (drinking) is actually a problem, it is alcohol addiction.”

< /div>So, Marco contacted the local anonymous abstinence party. He has been drinking hard almost every night for 20 years and finally decided to quit drinking.

Since the closure of Germany in early March, the number of alcoholics seeking help like Marco has exploded. The spokesperson for Anonymous Alcoholics said that the number of hotline consultations has roughly doubled, from about 10 to about 20 per day.

Alcohol addiction in the epidemic

In the early days of Germany’s “closing city”, the sales of alcoholic products increased sharply because many people could not Going out to participate in social activities, had to drink at home.

A study published in Der Spiegel shows that the sales of red wine in Germany increased by 34% at the end of March compared with the end of February; the sales of spirits increased by 31% over the same period.

An anonymous alcoholic drink spokesperson said that the epidemic also prompted many people to face the drinking problem directly. Some people choose to quit drinking after self-examination, while others’ relatives finally realize how fierce they are.

The spokesperson said that someone had previously secretly drank alcohol on the way to work or at the workplace, “but this (during the epidemic) no longer works”. The travel restrictions introduced to curb the epidemic have resulted in “people have to start drinking at home, and spouses or family members can discover their true drinking volume.”

Agence France-Presse reported that Germany’s alcohol consumption ranks among the top in Europe, and activities such as the Oktoberfest promote the country’s alcohol consumption. A recent study by the “German Addiction Centre” found that 3 million Germans aged 18 to 64 had alcohol addiction problems in 2018.

Opening a new “world” on the Internet

Anonymous abstinence parties have held thousands of mutual assistance meetings on abstinence throughout Germany A spokesman for a mutual aid group in Berlin said that nowadays, the volume of alcohol consultations has “substantially increased”, and consultations are basically accepted once a day, while there are only one or two consultations per month before the outbreak.

The Berlin team has been unable to organize face-to-face meetings since early March and turned to online meeting gatherings. The spokesman said that online meetings are more convenient and more anonymous, so they are more suitable for people who need help. “Many people who contact us are usually quite lonely.”

Even if Germany cancels all anti-epidemic measures in the future, this group still intends to continue to promote online gatherings. The spokesman believes that the epidemic will eventually push some alcoholics to face the drinking problems that have plagued them for many years.

For Marco, this is indeed the case. As a touring player, he is easily contaminated with alcohol and drugs. “Isolation seems to drive me to finally face it (alcoholism problem),” Marco said. “If there is no epidemic, I may not face it. I may continue to drink for 10 years until something really bad happens.”

(Originally titled “Germany more alcoholics want to quit drinking during the epidemic”)