My family grew beer. I learned everything I could about beer even to the point where I was on a

podcast and I was called Cursed and Ale Wife.

So it was like a huge source of pride

and that's actually how I first impressed you, right?

Yeah, we were at an open mic actually for comedy

and she ordered a beer and she commented on it and said something

very technical about the brewing process and I thought she's cool that's pretty much what happened. Kirsten Logan and Frank Gizera are a married couple.

They live in Rhode Island and they both do stand-up comedy,

which means spending a lot of time in bars and clubs.

Night clubs are naturally dark and there's a lot of people there and a lot of

social anxiety.

Frank and Kirsten would be the first to say they were drinking too much.

But then came the pandemic and things got way worse, especially for Frank.

So now I'm stuck at home all the time and I'm working from home. I don't ever have to leave the house and there's not a ton to do so I just I just drank more and it went from going to buy us you know a couple six packs of

beer for the next few days to going you know now it's a few times a week and I'll

buy the beer but also a bottle of bourbon and then it's twice a week and I also might pick up a nip or two

And maybe I'll have those right when I get home. It's like a little treat, you know, and it just escalated.

I'm curious, when did you first see data on how our drinking had changed? Yeah, so a few months ago, the federal group, the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Addiction

released their annual sales data for consumption trends through 2021 and the report was pretty striking.

Caitlin Gilbert is a data reporter for the well-being desk at the post.

She and our colleague Addiction reporter David Oveye have been looking closely at alcohol consumption in the U.S.

and how it's changed.

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