Canadians are drinking more frequently than they did before the pandemic, with a new report showing a rise in both daily alcohol consumption and weekly binge drinking since 2019.
Documented in the 2025 Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Monitor eReport, released Monday, the findings suggest that habits formed during COVID-19 have not switched back to previous levels and may be contributing to higher levels of psychological distress.
Hayley Hamilton, a co-director of CAMH’s Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, said issues such as alcohol dependence and distress increased in 2020, which was not unexpected.
“There was a sense once the pandemic waned and things got back to normal, then things might revert back to their 2019, pre-pandemic levels. But many things have not,” Hamilton said. “We can see that it continues to have impacts on people.”
The study compares estimates of substance use and mental health indicators in 2025 alongside select previous years, including five years ago (2020), 10 years ago (2015) as well as the year immediately before COVID. Over 49 years, the study conducted 39 repeated cross-sectional surveys among adults 18 and older across Ontario between 1977 and 2025.
Comparing 2019 to 2025 showed some of the starkest changes.
The one indicator that actually went down when comparing 2019 to 2025 was people who reported drinking at all over the last year.
“So it’s not that we’re seeing more people drinking alcohol, but the people who are drinking alcohol are drinking it differently,” said Dr. Leslie Buckley, chief of the Addictions Division at CAMH.
In regard to alcohol consumption, daily drinking among drinkers increased by three per cent between 2019 and 2025. Weekly binge drinking, or five or more drinks on a single occasion, increased by 3.6 per cent. Hazardous or harmful drinking, which looks more at early signs of alcohol dependence, increased by 3.3 per cent, while symptoms of alcohol dependence increased by 4.7 per cent.
Buckley said the data on binge drinking is important, because while public health officials often emphasize the harms of long-term consumption of alcohol on the body, binge drinking is associated with different kinds of harms like falling, accidents and relationship and legal issues.
The other concerning report findings
While the change in alcohol habits was one of the study’s major findings, there are also many other concerning health indicators. Overall, more people are using both illicit and prescription drugs, and there has been a big spike in people reporting mental distress and poor mental health.
Among the overall sample, people reporting moderate to serious psychological distress more than doubled — from 17.7 per cent in 2019 to 36.7 per cent in 2025. Reports of fair or poor mental health rose from 12.9 per cent in 2019 to 29 per cent in 2025 — nearly a third of the population.
Suicidal ideation also increased from 3.9 per cent to 6.4 per cent.
One trend that Buckley highlighted as striking is how non-medical use of prescription opioid pain relievers has nearly tripled, rising from 5.3 per cent in 2019 to 14.7 per cent in 2025.
“It means that people are using it either recreationally or I think actually even more likely to self-treat, whether it’s psychological or physical issues that they’re having,” Buckley said.
Men, women struggling in different ways
The report found some differences among demographics when looking at data specifically from 2025. Men were more likely to report daily drinking, daily smoking, weekly binge drinking, driving after drinking and symptoms of alcohol dependence, as well as use of nicotine pouches, e-cigarettes and cannabis.
Women were more likely to report moderate to serious psychological distress, use of antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications, and fair or poor self-rated mental health.
“There is an ongoing trend of men having increased substance use and problems related to use, while rates of mental health wellness are trending lower in women,” Buckley said. “This is not new and may demonstrate different expressions of underlying struggles.”
Adults 19 to 29 years old were more likely than their older counterparts to report weekly binge drinking, drinking hazardously and symptoms of alcohol dependence as well as e-cigarette and cannabis use, including driving after cannabis use. They reported many of the mental health challenges being seen across the board, but they also noted worries about climate change risks.
Adults 65 and older were more likely than their younger counterparts to report daily drinking, fair or poor overall health, as well as frequent physically unhealthy days.
While the researchers agreed that the pandemic almost certainly played a role in the changes they’re seeing, others said the last decade has been difficult for many, pointing to the housing and affordability crisis, geopolitical instability and “existential crises.”
Steve Joordens, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto Scarborough, said a key factor was how the pandemic ruptured social and family relationships.
“We were already moving towards more isolated, less socially connected, lives before COVID,” he said. “COVID accelerated this trend … Social connection is our great stress insulator. Without it, mental health issues arise as do attempts at things like self-medication.”
