People over 15 in Malta drink roughly eight litres of pure alcohol per year, equivalent to more than three litres of beer every week, fresh data has shown.

A review by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published recently gave a snapshot of the alcohol-drinking patterns among those aged 15 and over.

In Malta, the levels of alcohol consumption are around eight litres of pure alcohol per capita per year, roughly equivalent to 1.6 bottles of wine or 3.1 litres of beer per week per person aged 15 and over, the OECD said.

A more in-depth analysis of people’s habits showed that 21.9 per cent of adults engage in binge drinking at least once a month. This corresponds to drinking more than 80 per cent of a bottle of wine or 1.5 litres of beer per occasion.

Men were found to drink around four times the amount consumed by their female counterparts. While men consume around 12.4 litres of pure alcohol per capita per year, women only drink 3.6 litres per capita per year.

The OECD also reported that around 1.6 per cent of the adult population is dependent on alcohol.

And many are starting young, with 26 per cent of boys aged 15 having been drunk at least twice in their life. The figure goes down to 15 per cent for girls.

“Children who never experienced drunkenness are 27 per cent more likely to perform well at school,” the OECD said.

Despite the island’s drinking habits, calculations by the OECD predict that the life expectancy of the Maltese will only be 0.4 years lower over the next 30 years. This is among the lowest rates in Europe, where the average impact on life expectancy is a reduction of one year.

Meanwhile, based on current consumption patterns in Malta, OECD simulations estimate that diseases and injuries caused by drinking above one to one-and-a-half drinks per day lead to treatment costs equal to 1.4 per cent of health expenditure and a reduction in the workforce productivity.

Do we have a problem with alcohol consumption?

Times of Malta reached out to Sedqa, the national agency that works against dependency, to better understand the extent of the problem.

Children who never experienced drunkenness are 27 per cent more likely to perform well at school

On binge drinking, a Sedqa spokesperson said that the fact that a fifth of adults engage in heavy episodic use of alcohol on a regular basis is “worrying”. The figure is even more worrying given the rampant drink-driving that still occurs on Malta’s roads.

 “As a nation, we still have to work more on controlling both consumption and ensuring that when alcohol is consumed, people are safe. This can be achieved by organising transport and ensuring everyone’s safety is thought of beforehand,” the spokesperson said.

Although the agency has not registered a spike in the number of people seeking help in recent years, the changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic proved a struggle for those who were already dealing with an alcohol problem, the spokesperson said.

“We cannot claim that we have seen a surge in people asking for help over the past two years, but we sure have seen people who struggled with controlling their alcohol consumption. 

“We observed clients already in contact with the agency who were sober or succeeding to control their alcohol intake who suddenly started struggling again due to the loss of a lifestyle or activities that were helping them to remain away from alcohol abuse,” he said.

The lack of gatherings and loneliness this might have brought with it also led to mental health distress that has led to such people struggling the most, the spokesperson said.

During the pandemic the agency also noted a shift where alcohol started being consumed during online gatherings and impromptu online meetings.

“This was mostly seen among youths and less in other cohorts. Much also depended on the level of consumption of alcohol. The social users saw these as innovative ways to use alcohol in their social circles while people with problematic alcohol use, who usually hold and consume their alcohol in their homes, were less affected in their habits of consumption,” the spokesperson said, although social isolation may have led these people to increase their drinking.

Drinking habits today

With pandemic-related closures forcing the closure of bars for months on end, drinks suppliers have noted a change in people’s drinking habits.

A spokesperson for Simonds Farsons Cisk said that overall consumption of alcoholic beverages did not increase, despite more people staying home as bars and restaurants were forced shut.

“Home entertainment has been growing over the last few years as people followed more cooking programmes on television.

“Over the last 18 months, especially during the lockdown period of bars and restaurants, people necessarily spent more time at home and obviously consumed more of everything at home, including alcoholic beverages. But, since there was much less activity in bars and restaurants, one cannot say that overall consumption has increased,” the spokesperson said.

Farsons said there has, however, been an increase in consumption of non-alcoholic beers, which have been “well-promoted over the last couple of years”.