Excessive – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

Andrea Carbone, a 51-year-old paralegal who lives in Florida, wasn’t a big drinker for most of her life. But when the pandemic broke out, she was constantly worried about her job, her health, and the safety of her children.

While many people were able to work from home last year, Ms. Carbone had to go to the office. Some mornings, she cried in her car as she drove down deserted streets and highways to her downtown Tampa office, which looked like a ghost town.

As her stress levels increased, so did her alcohol consumption. Before the pandemic, Ms. Carbone had a glass of red wine with dinner most evenings. But by May their intake had risen significantly. “I noticed that I had a glass of wine as soon as I got home, then a glass with dinner, then we sat down to watch TV and I had another glass or two,” she said. “At the end of the night I drank a bottle.”

Ms. Carbone is far from being alone. The widespread fear, frustration, and social isolation associated with the turbulent events of the past year – pandemic, civil unrest, political upheaval – made stress soaring and many people increased their alcohol consumption. Women and parents of young children appear to be particularly badly affected. A nationwide survey commissioned by the American Psychological Association in February found that one in four adults said they drank more to manage their stress in the past year. This rate has more than doubled for children with children between the ages of 5 and 7.

Another study published in October on the JAMA Network Open found that Americans increased the frequency of their alcohol consumption by 14 percent year over year. However, the same study found a 41 percent increase in the number of days women drank heavily, defined as four or more drinks in a few hours.

“Women have left the labor force disproportionately compared to men. They’ve done a disproportionately large amount of the work around the home, childcare, and child rearing, ”said Michael S. Pollard, lead author of the JAMA study and chief sociologist at RAND Corporation. “So it stands to reason that women would also increase their alcohol consumption disproportionately.”

The mental harm of the past year has resulted in sharp declines in physical health, including widespread weight gain and insomnia. Hospitals across the country have reported an increase in admissions for hepatitis, cirrhosis, liver failure, and other forms of alcohol-related illness. Almost no group was spared.

Driftwood Recovery, an addiction and mental health rehabilitation center in Texas, had so many requests for treatment over the past year that it has a two-month waiting list. Vanessa Kennedy, Driftwood’s director of psychology, said many of her clients are parents who started drinking heavily because they struggled to balance their daily jobs with home schooling and other parental responsibilities.

“They are used to their children going to school happily and having an experienced teacher teaching their children while they go to work and focus on doing well and financially supporting their families,” said Dr. Kennedy. “Her work roles are at odds with her parenting roles, and it has been difficult for her to make room and do these things well.”

Dr. Kennedy has treated a wide variety of patients who turned to excessive drinking in the past year. Some lost their jobs or closed their businesses, leaving them without a daily structure and means to support their families. Others were college students who felt socially disconnected when they were sent home to attend a virtual school, or older adults who drank because they were depressed about being depressed about being able to see loved ones or hugging their grandchildren .

Prior to last year, Gordon Mueller, a retiree who lives in Rochester, NY, rarely consumed more than a drink or two a day. But when the pandemic broke out and the economy and stock market stumbled, Mr Miller was consumed with fear as he followed the news and worried about his retirement account. When Mr Müller sought refuge with his wife at home, his alcohol consumption rose to seven drinks a day: vodka cocktails in the afternoon, wine with dinner and a whiskey nightcap before bed. “We had no idea whether we would get through financially, let alone get sick and possibly die,” he said. “It was just a lot of fear and boredom. Those were the two emotions. “

But many people have found new ways to curb their drinking. In December, Mr. Müller reached out to Moderation Management, an online community that helps people who want to drink less but don’t necessarily have to abstain. He participated in Zoom calls with fellow members and used the organization’s private Facebook group for tips and advice on reducing his alcohol consumption. Then, in January, he decided to give up alcohol for a while to see how he would feel.

“I’m happy to say I haven’t had a drink this year and I feel a lot better: I sleep better and can do more,” he said. “The nice thing about this moderation group is that it’s not all or nothing. You can never drink again or you are a failed alcoholic.”

In Tampa, Ms. Carbone began using a popular app called Cutback Coach, which allows people to track their alcohol consumption and set goals and reminders to develop healthier drinking habits. With the app, Ms. Carbone creates a plan of how much she will drink each week. The app tracks her daily intake, sends her notifications of her goals, and lets her know of her progress, including any calories she’s avoided and the money she’s saved from drinking less. She now has at least two “dry” days a week and has cut her alcohol consumption in half.

“When I see the progress I’ve made, I feel good and I move on,” she said. “I sleep much better. I wake up less at night. I wake up feeling less sluggish, less tired. I’ve been going to the gym more regularly while I couldn’t drag myself there before. “

For people who want to drink less, here are some simple tips that might help.

Try precommitment

Instead of relying solely on willpower, every Sunday plan to limit your alcohol consumption to a certain amount each day of the week and stick to it. This is a tactic known as pre-bind that is used by the Cutback Coach to help its thousands of members. The idea behind this is that by committing yourself to a plan and limiting your ability to step back later, you increase your chances of success. Some other examples of pre-engagements include choosing not to keep junk food in your house and encouraging you to exercise by scheduling a workout with a friend. Studies show that pre-commitment is an effective way to change behavior.

Find social support

Discuss your plan to drink less with your spouse, friend, or family member. They can hold you accountable and help you find healthier ways to manage your stress. For example, plan to go for a walk with your friend or partner at the end of the day instead of opening a bottle. “You may find that you have a buddy who says, ‘Why don’t we play tennis or do something else to relax after work? “Said Dr. Kennedy.” There are many benefits to trying healthy activities instead of wine. “

Create obstacles

Establish rules to slow down drinking. Mary Reid, the executive director of Moderation Management, follows a simple rule that helps her avoid heavy drinking: Each glass of wine she drinks must last at least an hour. “My greatest tool is the timing of my drinks,” she said. “We always tell new members that we have stop buttons, but we just ignore them.” Dr. Driftwood’s Kennedy applies a similar rule. She tells people to alternate every alcoholic drink they have with a glass of water.

Change your routine

Some people drink more out of habit than out of an actual desire for alcohol. Try replacing your usual drink with sparkling water or another beverage. Mr. Miller drank a cocktail every evening while watching the evening news. But when he cut down on alcohol, he drank a cup of tea or soft beer while watching the news and found that it only took one drink to have a sip. “Now I still have a glass in my hand, but it has no alcohol,” he said. “It’s almost as if a glass in hand is the habit and not the alcohol.”

[Follow our live coverage of the stuck ship in the Suez Canal.]

LONDON – The world received another warning this week of the dangers of its heavy reliance on global supply chains. When a single ship ran aground in the Suez Canal, blocking traffic in both directions, international trade was faced with a monumental traffic jam with potentially dire consequences.

The restless vehicle is not just any ship. The Ever Given is one of the largest container ships in the world with space for 20,000 metal boxes that transport goods across the sea. And the Suez Canal is not just any waterway. It is an important conduit connecting the factories in Asia with wealthy customers in Europe, as well as an important conduit for oil.

The fact that a mishap could wreak havoc from Los Angeles to Rotterdam to Shanghai underscored the extent to which modern commerce revolves around truly global supply chains.

In the past few decades, management experts and consulting firms have advocated just-in-time manufacturing to limit costs and increase profits. Instead of wasting money stocking up extra goods, companies can rely on the magic of the internet and the global shipping industry to conjure up what they need, when they need it.

The adoption of this idea has brought nothing less than a revolution to major industries – automotive and medical device manufacturing, retail, pharmaceuticals, and more. It has also brought a bonanza for executives and other shareholders: money that is not spent on filling warehouses with unneeded auto parts is, at least in part, money that can be given to shareholders in the form of dividends.

However, as in everything in life, overdoing a good cause can be dangerous.

Over-reliance on just-in-time manufacturing explains how medical workers from Indiana to Italy cared for Covid-19 patients without proper protective gear like masks and robes during the first wave of the pandemic.

Health systems – many under the control of profitable companies accountable to shareholders – believed they could rely on the internet and the global shipping industry to deliver what they need in real time. That was a fatal miscalculation.

That same dependency explains why Amazon failed to provide adequate supplies of masks and gloves to its warehouse workers in the US during the first few months of the pandemic.

“We have placed orders for millions of face masks that we want to give to our employees and contractors who cannot work from home, but very few of those orders have been fulfilled,” said Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in a letter to all employees last March. “Masks are still in short supply worldwide.”

For years, some experts have warned that short-term shareholder interests have dwarfed prudent management by making companies save on stockpiling.

“The more we become interdependent, the more exposed we are to the fragility that arises, which is always unpredictable,” said Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalization at Oxford University. “Nobody could predict that a ship would go aground in the middle of the canal, like nobody predicted where the pandemic would come from. Just like we can’t predict the next cyber attack or the next financial crisis, but we know it will happen. “

The catastrophe of the moment when engineers are working to extract a huge ship from the Suez Canal has more than 100 ships bogged down at both ends, waiting for a clear passage. Some carry oil – one reason energy prices rose on Wednesday even though they pulled back on Thursday. Some wear electronics, clothing, and exercise equipment.

None of them get where they should go until the traditional ship is freed. The stalemate holds up $ 9.6 billion worth of goods every day, according to a Bloomberg analysis.

Since its use in the 1950s, the shipping container itself has revolutionized world trade. As a standard size container that can be quickly relocated on rails and trucks, it has significantly reduced the time it takes to move goods from one location to another.

Exponential increases in the number of containers that can be stacked on a single ship have effectively continued to shrink the globe. According to Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty, a marine insurance company, capacity has increased 1,500 percent over the past half century and nearly doubled in the last decade alone.

These advances in commerce have resulted in sophisticated and highly efficient forms of specialization, with car factories in the north of England relying on parts from across Europe and Asia. The rise of the container ship has increased the availability of consumer goods and lowered prices.

However, the same advances have created weaknesses, and the disruption on the Suez Canal – the passage for about a tenth of world trade – has exacerbated the strain on the shipping industry, which has been overwhelmed by the pandemic and its reorganization of world trade.

As the Americans struggled with bans, they ordered large quantities of factory goods from Asia: exercise bikes to make up for gym closures; Printers and computer monitors to turn bedrooms into offices; Baking utensils and toys for the entertainment of children cooped up at home.

The surge in orders has exhausted the supply of containers in ports in China. The cost of shipping a container from Asia to North America has more than doubled since November. And in ports from Los Angeles to Seattle, unloading of these containers has been slowed as dockers and truck drivers were hit by Covid-19 or forced to stay home to look after children who are out of school.

Delays in unloading delays in loading the next shipment. Agricultural exporters in the American Midwest are struggling to secure containers for shipping soybeans and grains to food processors and animal feed suppliers in Southeast Asia.

This situation has persisted for four months and has shown few signs of relaxation. North American retailers have been feverishly replenishing depleted inventories and straining shipping lines on transpacific routes during the normally weak season.

The blockage of the Suez Canal effectively removes more containers from traffic. The question is how long will that take.

Christian Roeloffs, CEO of xChange, a shipping consultant in Hamburg, estimated that two weeks could strain up to a quarter of the container supply in European ports.

“Given the current shortage of containers, only the processing time for the ships is increased,” said Roeloffs.

According to Sea-Intelligence, a research company in Copenhagen, three quarters of all container ships sailing from Asia to Europe arrived at the end of February. Even a few days of disturbance in Suez could exacerbate this situation.

If the Suez stayed clogged for more than a few days, the stakes would go up dramatically. Ships now stuck in the canal will find it difficult to turn around and pursue other routes due to the narrowness of the canal.

Those now on their way to Suez can choose to head south and navigate Africa, adding weeks to their travels and burning extra fuel – costs that will ultimately be borne by consumers.

Whenever ships pass through the Channel again, they are likely to arrive at busy ports all of a sudden, forcing many to wait before they can unload – an added delay.

“This could make a really bad crisis worse,” said Alan Murphy, founder of Sea-Intelligence.