{"id":3299,"date":"2024-03-30T11:12:31","date_gmt":"2024-03-30T12:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=3299"},"modified":"2024-03-30T12:25:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-30T12:25:20","slug":"why-are-older-americans-drinking-so-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=3299","title":{"rendered":"Why Are Older Americans Drinking So Much?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The pandemic played a role in increased consumption, but alcohol use among people 65 and older was climbing even before 2020.<\/p>\n

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The phone awakened Doug Nordman at 3 a.m. A surgeon was calling from a hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., where Mr. Nordman\u2019s father had arrived at the emergency room, incoherent and in pain, and then lost consciousness.<\/p>\n

At first, the staff had thought he was suffering a heart attack, but a CT scan found that part of his small intestine had been perforated. A surgical team repaired the hole, saving his life, but the surgeon had some questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWas your father an alcoholic?\u201d he asked. The doctors had found Dean Nordman malnourished, his peritoneal cavity \u201cawash with alcohol.\u201d<\/p>\n

The younger Mr. Nordman, a military personal finance author living in Oahu, Hawaii, explained that his 77-year-old dad had long been a classic social drinker: a Scotch and water with his wife before dinner, which got topped off during dinner, then another after dinner, and perhaps a nightcap.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Having three to four drinks daily exceeds current dietary guidelines<\/a>, which define moderate consumption as two drinks a day for men and one for women, or less. But \u201cthat was the normal drinking culture of the time,\u201d said Doug Nordman, now 63.<\/p>\n

At the time of his hospitalization, though, Dean Nordman, a retired electrical engineer, was widowed, living alone and developing symptoms of dementia. He got lost while driving, struggled with household chores and complained of a \u201cslipping memory.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The pandemic played a role in increased consumption, but alcohol use among people 65 and older was climbing even before 2020.The phone awakened Doug Nordman at 3 a.m. A surgeon was calling from a hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., where Mr. Nordman\u2019s father had arrived at the emergency room, incoherent and in pain, and then lost consciousness.At first, the staff had thought he was suffering a heart attack, but a CT scan found that part of his small intestine had been perforated. A surgical team repaired the hole, saving his life, but the surgeon had some questions.\u201cWas your father an alcoholic?\u201d he asked. The doctors had found Dean Nordman malnourished, his peritoneal cavity \u201cawash with alcohol.\u201dThe younger Mr. Nordman, a military personal finance author living in Oahu, Hawaii, explained that his 77-year-old dad had long been a classic social drinker: a Scotch and water with his wife before dinner, which got topped off during dinner, then another after dinner, and perhaps a nightcap.Having three to four drinks daily exceeds current dietary guidelines, which define moderate consumption as two drinks a day for men and one for women, or less. But \u201cthat was the normal drinking culture of the time,\u201d said Doug Nordman, now 63.At the time of his hospitalization, though, Dean Nordman, a retired electrical engineer, was widowed, living alone and developing symptoms of dementia. He got lost while driving, struggled with household chores and complained of a \u201cslipping memory.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3301,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3302,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3299\/revisions\/3302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}