Less drinking among younger Australians has not outweighed harm within older cohorts, explains Professor Nicole Lee of the NGO Hello Sunday Morning and 360 Edge consutancy, who goes on to outline some of the applications and limits of artificial intelligence.
Alcohol Review – Issue 117, October 30th 2025
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In this issue: Alcohol policies are “smart investments”; Youth harm; UK licensing review panned; Alcohol a productivity problem; Alcohol-free ads ambiguous; Industry-biased bot. Plus Trump’s impact; Alcohol and gender violence; Understanding “hangxiety”
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News
Alcohol policies are “smart investments”: “Strong alcohol policies are among the smartest investments you can make,” said the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer this month.
Bid to quantify youth alcohol harm: The WHO’s EU-backed programme to reduce alcohol harm today launched an effort to quantify the burden alcohol places on young people to inform better alcohol policy.
Experts pan UK licensing review: The UK government’s current plans for alcohol licensing reflect the views of industry advocates. This “regulatory capture should be resisted by anyone with an interest in fair and effective governance” say its critics.
Alcohol a productivity problem: “When nearly half of young professionals are calling in sick after workplace drinking, it’s not just a hangover, it’s a productivity crisis,” says the UK’s left-leaning IPPR think-tank, calling for minimum pricing and tax rises.
Alcohol-free ads often ambiguous: “The trial [of AI analysis] found a higher rate of potential issues among alcohol-free product ads–around 48%–largely because of missing or unclear ABV information,” said the UK’s ad self-regulator, something especially problematic with spin off from an alcohol brand.
Bot to refer patients to alcohol industry: “Patients who engage with the [AI Surgery Assist] chatbot and mention alcohol concerns… will automatically be signposted to [alcohol industry funded] Drinkaware’s information and self-help tools.”
Feature
Assessing Trump’s impact on alcohol harm: The Trump administration has taken a chainsaw to efforts to reduce alcohol harm. Here Mike Marshall, CEO of the US Alcohol Policy Alliance, helps make sense of the bewildering news flow.
Opinion–Alcohol must be part of gender violence plan: It is impossible to address the high level of men’s violence in Australia without tackling alcohol use head on, write Anne-Marie Laslett, Cassandra Hopkins and Ingrid Wilson.
Understanding “hangxiety”: “People prone to anxiety or low mood, or those who drink to cope with stress, experience hangxiety more intensely – not because hangovers create new problems, but because alcohol temporarily dulls negative emotions,” write Rebecca Rothman and Blair Aitken.
Understanding ‘hangxiety’
by Rebecca Rothman and Blair Aitken*
You wake up after a night out. Your head’s pounding and a wave of unease hits before you’ve even looked at your phone. Restlessness, self-doubt and flashes of regret creep in as last night’s conversations start to replay.
“Hangxiety” is not a clinical term but the anxious, uneasy feeling that follows drinking is widely recognised. Most people expect a headache, but the emotional comedown can hit just as hard.
Alcohol disrupts brain systems that regulate mood and stress. It boosts gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a calming chemical, and suppresses glutamate, which keeps you alert. That’s why confidence rises and worries fade.
As your body processes alcohol, this balance flips. Calming signals drop, excitatory ones surge and your nervous system swings into overdrive.
Alcohol also disrupts the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis – the body’s stress system – spiking cortisol, our main stress hormone.
Combine that with poor sleep, dehydration and low blood sugar, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for feeling on edge.
To understand how common these feelings are, we analysed 22 studies spanning four decades and involving more than 6,000 adults worldwide. Our systematic review published today included lab experiments, surveys and interviews capturing real-world experiences.
Despite differences in study designs and the challenge of asking hungover people to accurately recall their experiences, the results were consistent: hangovers triggered higher levels of anxiety, stress, guilt, irritability and sadness.
Certain traits make hangxiety hit harder
People prone to anxiety or low mood, or those who drink to cope with stress, experience hangxiety more intensely – not because hangovers create new problems, but because alcohol temporarily dulls negative emotions.
When the effects wear off, those feelings return in sharper focus, which can amplify stress and worry.
Hangxiety also hits harder when people act out of character while drunk. Saying or doing things that clash with personal values can trigger embarrassment or shame the next day, fuelling harsh self-criticism and intensifying emotional distress.
People who struggle with emotional regulation – recognising and managing your emotions in healthy ways – face particular challenges.
Good emotional regulation might mean noticing stress and choosing to go for run or call a friend, rather than reaching straight for a drink. It’s pausing to ask “what do I actually need right now?”
Without these skills, people get stuck in cycles of self-blame, amplifying the emotional rebound.
What traits make it less bothersome?
Not everyone experiences hangxiety the same way. People with higher emotional resilience – the ability to adapt to stress and keep perspective – tend to cope more effectively.
Reframing “I’m falling apart” into “my body’s recovering” shifts hangxiety from crisis into something temporary.
Social support helps too. Sharing a laugh about the night before or talking it through eases isolation and shame. Knowing you’re not alone makes the experience less overwhelming.
Bad hangxiety doesn’t stop people drinking
You might assume a brutal hangover would deter future drinking, but most people in our review saw hangovers as a routine inconvenience or rite of passage.
Rather than reducing their alcohol intake, people relied on short-term fixes such as, drinking water or eating beforehand to lessen the severity of their hangover.
When alcohol becomes a coping tool for stress, hangxiety can actually reinforce the cycle. Alcohol dulls discomfort, but when it wears off, the same feelings return, prompting another drink for relief.
This loop helps explain why even frequent hangovers rarely lead to meaningful behaviour change.
If you’re experiencing hangxiety, aside from planning to drink less next time, to get through the day:
- hydrate, rest and eat well to support your body’s recovery
- skip the “hair of the dog”. More alcohol only delays the crash
- ground yourself with slow breaths or a short walk to calm the nervous system
- reach out to friends or loved ones. Connection eases both guilt and anxiety.
In the longer term, reflect on why you drink and whether it’s become a way to manage stress.
If you’re drinking daily to manage emotions, if hangxiety disrupts your work or relationships, or if anxiety lingers long after the hangover fades, it’s time to seek professional help. A GP or a psychologist can assess whether underlying anxiety or problematic drinking patterns need support.
Hangxiety is more than a bad mood after drinking – it’s your brain and body recalibrating after chemical turbulence, where brain chemistry, personality and coping strategies interact.
Some people feel it mildly, others more deeply, depending on levels of emotional awareness, resilience and support. Understanding this can help replace self-criticism with self-compassion, and perhaps rethink what the “morning after” really means.
*Note: Rebecca Rothman, PhD Candidate in Clinical Psychology, School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology and Blair Aitken, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University of Technology. ■
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
Assessing Trump’s impact on alcohol harm
The Trump administration has taken a chainsaw to efforts to reduce alcohol harm. Here Mike Marshall, CEO of the US Alcohol Policy Alliance, helps make sense of the bewildering news flow.
Alcohol policies are a “smart investment”, says WHO
“Strong alcohol policies are among the smartest investments you can make,” said WHO Regional Office for Europe and the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer today at a two-day event launching two Handbooks on Alcohol Policy and Cancer Prevention.
“You can prevent more cancers with a taxation increase than you can with advice from doctors. If you want to prevent cancers you have to think about population policies in the long run,” said Jurgen Rehm, from Canada’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (pictured).
“The WHO European Region, and especially countries of the EU, are paying too high a price for alcohol in preventable cancers and broken families, as well as costing billions to taxpayers,” said Dr Gundo Weiler Director for Prevention and Health Promotion at WHO/Europe.
The pair recommend governments: increase taxes and minimum prices; raise minimum alcohol purchase age or drinking ages; reduce alcohol outlet density or opening hours; implement bans on alcohol marketing; create government monopolies to control alcohol sales.
The IARC Handbook Volume 20A evaluates the impact of reducing or quitting consumption on cancer risk while Volume 20B focuses on alcohol policies to reduce consumption. ■
Gender violence plan needs to reflect the role of alcohol
by Anne-Marie Laslett, Cassandra Hopkins and Ingrid Wilson
Globally, up to one in three women who live with a male partner report he is a heavy drinker. Evidence shows men’s drinking increases the severity and frequency of violence towards women and harms to children.
Yet in Australia and worldwide, most policies to address gender violence still fail to consider the significant role alcohol plays.
Our new research, published last week, reviewed and analysed the evidence in three major international reviews about men’s drinking.
We wanted to understand the range of impacts that men’s heavy drinking has on women and children worldwide. We also examined whether alcohol policies and interventions specifically address these harms.
Our study shows the impact on women and children is profound – but the harms are often understudied and overlooked. Here’s what we found.
Women carry the burden
We already knew that men’s heavy drinking exacerbates physical violence, leads to more intimate partner violence experienced by women, and to more severe injuries.
However, our new research reveals a much wider range of harms that occur to women when men drink heavily. Heavy drinking can include binge drinking and alcohol dependence.
The psychological impact on women can be profound. We found men’s heavy drinking can contribute to controlling behaviour and irrational sexual jealousy towards partners, sexual aggression and coercion, and emotional abuse that includes humiliating or insulting the partner.
Women also reported alcohol-related harms that are not widely studied or understood. These included women experiencing social isolation and economic abuse, where household resources are diverted to the man’s drinking.
Financial problems for the family can have serious flow-on effects. For example, buying alcohol may not leave enough money for essentials such as food and clothing. Money issues can trigger conflicts which then escalate into violence towards women.
Men’s alcohol use can also lead to missed work or unemployment. This can reduce the family income and put more pressure on women to work extra hours, often alongside existing caregiving duties. They may then be at risk of other harmful situations or exploitation, such as being forced into sex work – reported by some women in lower income countries.
Children become more unsafe
The impact of men’s heavy drinking on children has been even less well studied than its effect on women.
Yet our research shows when men drink heavily, their children are more likely to experience neglect, poor mental health, disrupted schooling and family instability – all of which negatively affects their development.
Men who drink heavily often prioritise alcohol over their children’s needs and this can create dysfunctional family environments. Their children are also more likely to become the targets of violence and witness violence against others.
As a consequence of these sometimes unstable and unsafe family environments, children may often feel less emotionally close to fathers who drink heavily. Evidence shows fathers who drink heavily are less involved in parenting.
A gap in policy
Alcohol research and policy, and general policies, seldom target the diverse impacts of men’s drinking on women and children.
Our study highlights an uncomfortable reality: to prevent violence against women and children, we also need to focus on men’s drinking – and the wider social and economic inequalities that contribute to harms to women and children.
We need interventions that explicitly target the social norms around masculinity, including those that encourage and normalise heavy drinking and reward aggression.
But we also need to address other societal factors that can amplify problematic aspects of men’s heavy drinking – including men’s histories of trauma, mental health and social disadvantage – without diminishing their individual accountability.
Addressing the link between alcohol and gender violence
In Australia, the current National Plan to End Gender Based Violence pays minimal attention to alcohol.
However, in 2024, the federal government led a rapid review into preventing gender violence. It drew specific attention to the role of alcohol and called on states and territories to change their liquor regulations. For instance, by restricting alcohol sales, delivery timeframes and advertising.
Our research supports these recommendations. And suggests we need more nuanced alcohol strategies that are tailored to specifically address harms from men’s drinking and consider when, why and how men drink.
Strategies to reduce harmful alcohol use should be integrated with broader gender-based violence prevention. For instance, by combining interventions for men who are in treatment for alcohol problems and use violence, and reducing alcohol consumption at home, for example, by limiting home delivery.
Men’s heavy drinking can be seriously harmful for women and children. This means we can’t address the epidemic of men’s violence in our community without tackling alcohol use head on.
Note: Anne-Marie Laslett, Professor, Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, La Trobe University; Cassandra Hopkins, PhD Candidate, Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, La Trobe University, and Ingrid Wilson, Associate Professor, Health and Social Sciences, Singapore Institute of Technology ■
This piece is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.