Have you noticed less alcohol in the world? I haven’t, I don’t think, but then again as a non-drinker maybe I wouldn’t. The main thing limiting my friends’ drinking seems to be that a well cocktail in a Hell’s Kitchen gay bar is like $15. If anything I remember reading that problem drinking had reached new heights in 2020 during the widespread pandemic closures. So last weekend’s WaPo Magazine article claiming that drinking is on the decline caught my eye: From Dry January to Fake Cocktails, Inside the New Temperance Movement.
It’s interesting, but I’m not sure it’s convincing, and I’m curious what you all may have observed. It paints a picture of a culture where alcohol is on the outs: major brands are making more alcohol-free drinks; lots of bars serve premium alcohol-free cocktails; being “Cali sober,” where one consumes cannabis instead of alcohol, is on the rise; trade groups are freaking out. But I looked into some of the actual figures quoted and they’re pretty misleading. It cites things as trends that pretty clearly aren’t, like the percent of Americans in this survey who drink. Is 60% “tied for the lowest level in two decades”? Sure. But, I mean, look at it:
On the other hand, the trade groups freaking out are freaked out:
In February, Silicon Valley Bank released its State of the Wine Industry Report, as it has for the past 21 years. Usually, this is a rather businesslike document[…] This year, however, the report struck a tone of great alarm. The era of “neo-prohibition,” it warned, is upon us: “The anti-alcohol lobby continues to push an agenda … that starts by concluding that all alcohol consumption is bad and then backs into the research. The cumulative negative health message is eroding public faith in the science that proved moderate wine consumption was healthy[…] When will the wine industry show up to help promote well-researched, positive science on moderate consumption?”
Wow, dramatic! But… this seems to be more wine-specific?
I’d love to see drinking be less romanticized. It’s not great for you. It’s fairly addictive–not for most people, but for enough. But this article is pretty flimsy, even for a trend piece. What do you all think? And of course this is an open thread.
(As an aside, this detail had me cackling. I have my differences with AA but for crying out loud!)
Holly Whitaker published a more pointedly anti-alcohol book, “Quit Like a Woman,” in which drinking is portrayed as useless, toxic and anti-feminist. Whitaker went on to publish an opinion piece in the New York Times with a headline that dismissed Alcoholics Anonymous as “The Patriarchy” and then raised millions to create Tempest, an online alcohol-counseling service geared toward women that costs $59 per month.
Misterpuff
California Sober – that’s me tonight … and no hangover tomorrow.
Major Major Major Major
@Misterpuff: can confirm that it’s a trend!
Han
I’ve definitely noticed an upswing in Facebook friends announcing they’re Giving Up Alcohol and have Never Felt Better. Which, great, maybe the price of decent scotch will come down.
HumboldtBlue
@Misterpuff: @Major Major Major Major:
On the other hand, I’m a drunk.
I should probably do something about that.
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
I don’t drink at all and I loathe being around drunk people (especially those who think they have a much higher tolerance than they do…trust me, dude, I can tell you’ve had a few). So I’d be glad if this were real, but who knows
ETA not that it matters for me since I don’t leave my apartment. BUT EVEN SO.
Fair Economist
There’s been a big shift in the scientific research. For a long time there was broad belief for a health benefit from moderate drinking (the “French paradox”, etc.) although the research wasn’t compelling due to a number of methodological issues. (My fav was that a top reason for teetotaling is health problems.) But now the research has swung around solidly to the view that any alcohol is bad for you, because of the risks of stroke, drunk driving, cirrhosis, and assorted other issues. An occasional drink isn’t horribly bad; it’s a plausible choice, but the new view does change the environment booze companies have to operate in, in a way that’s probably bad for their business overall.
I don’t think the alcohol industry is facing immediate catastrophe, but they certainly face a risk that alcohol consumption may become viewed as a “bad thing” and so the current social presumption that alcohol will be available at almost all social functions might be a thing of the past. Offering drinks to guests takes on a very different vibe if most people think of them as harmful.
Kent
I have no idea what the actual trends are. But with three daughters ages 16, 18, and 23 I’m all in favor of less drunkenness, especially at colleges.
ruemara
I’ve been wrestling with a ton of health issue this year but the biggest one is hypertension. I can’t drink. Drinking increases renin production and my pressure is ridiculously sensitive. So I’ve discovered unalcohol. Brews meant to be sipped or added to mocktails to provide reasonable liquor kick but sans alcohol. There’s more options now and I’m seeing more traditional brewers & distillers try their hand at making alcohol free beverages.
Now if vegan cheese makers, coffee roasters and tea makers would take the hint and expand their low sodium or decaf options.
ian
These are the people who are paid to sell a product that kills people. Lets just drop this from the national institute of health
I’m not going to bang on people for drinking- each to their own. However the Silicon Valley Bank deserves a decent public scolding. Neoprohibition? get the f*** out of here. No one is trying to ban your products. Coming out swinging against PSAs about the dangers of alcohol abuse is low even for a trade group of booze vendors.
P Thomas
I wound up in rehab back in 1989 (marijuana, drug test, etc). I had a “high bottom” if you speak the drug rehab/AA lingo. Never a major drinker, but I stopped from then on.
I’m 69 now, and I’m in decent shape. (Only one medication, if that means anything). None of the people I know are really “hard” drinkers like we used to be, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen them drunk (mostly). There are, of course, some who have had serious issues (breast cancer…thyroid…). I do wonder, and of course I’ll never know, if my not drinking has “significantly” aided my health, or if I’m a nice statistic. But, I do wonder.
My friends ( around my age) have all stepped back from alcohol. The big wine coolers are being emptied out. The trips to the wineries are no longer a big deal. They still drink, of course….and I’m sure being in marijuana legal states, they do smoke some stuff. (Somehow, even being legal, they seem to hide it even more than before!)
Alcohol is a known carcinogen. Since…1968. Whenever I bring this up to people, they don’t believe me, or accuse me of being “anti drinking” since I don’t drink. They never like reading this article.
https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/alcohol/alcohol-fact-sheet
And, this article from 4 years ago: Did Alcohol Cause My Breast Cancer? (or any of 7 other types of cancer?)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/04/did-drinking-give-me-breast-cancer/
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: the science has definitely shifted, and the article gets into it. I remember the big “unsafe at any speed” study a few years ago, it seemed overeager to me, categorizing like, falling down and spraining your wrist, as damage due to alcohol. The stuff is bad enough without juking the stats
The article mentions some other well regarded study just contradicted it, but I didn’t look into it and don’t trust journalists to read studies so I’ll just note that the article says it.
I feel like I’ve mostly talked about this study at drinky house parties, though. Haha
scav
They did rather make a spectacular leap from “All people aren’t buying our product.” to “We’re being prohibited!!!!”
HumboldtBlue
Potus: Tonight, Kansans used their voices to protect women’s right to choose and access reproductive health care. It’s an important victory for Kansas, but also for every American who believes that women should be able to make their own health decisions without government interference.
Laertes
“When will the wine industry show up to help promote well-researched, positive science on moderate consumption?”
It’s hilarious that they assume that well-done science will inevitably support that implausible conclusion.
It’s likely that the only way you’ll get results that show any health benefits at all is if you do observational (not controlled) studies, such that people too sick to drink drag down the teetotaler numbers and make light drinking look healthy.
Amir Khalid
When you examine the data it does indeed look like there’s really no temperance movement outside a WaPo feature writer’s desperation for a catchy story idea. Unless there were bar owners griping about their booze going unsold, and data from the alcohol trade to back it up, I wouldn’t take this one seriously.
Redshift
Many of my younger co-workers have embraced non-drinking fads like “dry January” and so forth, but the rest of the time they drink much more regularly than I do, or ever did, so I don’t see a trend. I’m glad there are more interesting non-alcoholic drinks like mocktails that have become part of the social scene, instead of it being you’re either having alcohol or a coke, but on the flip side, there is alcoholic lemonade, seltzer, etc., so again, I doubt the producers have much to worry about.
I’m dubious that health research will have much influence. For most people, “red wine is good for you” was an excuse or a joke, not an object of serious research, and I don’t expect opposing research to have any more effect.
Major Major Major Major
@scav: cancel culture at its worst!!! Halp I’m being oppressed
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: the Gallup data does show that # drinks/week has gone down a bit more robustly… that’s the only real decline number that seems plausible to me.
Kent
I, for one, have gotten a little tired of the obsessive beer culture here in the greater Portland area. I don’t go out all that much and when I do I get tired of the beer menus with 40 beers on them that I have never heard of, 75% of which are usually over-hopped IPAs.
I just want to settle into my favorite beer and be able to get it again next time. But every time I find something I like I never see it again because it was some “guest tap” or some such.
Just give me a good solid crisp amber, lager, or wheat beer that is balanced and I’ll be happy. But those are actually hard to find
Don’t get me started on the ciders and artisanal meads…
bjacques
My drinking is way down after being Rona’d 2-1/2 months ago and then nursing the missus through weeks of a nasty (non-Rona) cough the doctor finally took seriously enough to prescribe the decent antibiotic that cleaned it up. I lost almost ten pounds. I’m liking that, so trying not to let my drinking (and weight) creep up again. Between us, we used to average at least a bottle of red every night.
pacem appellant
@Kent:
I teetotal now, but that was a pre-pandemic change. I miss beer sometimes, even over-hopped Portland beer.
I recently learned that my barber is a teetotaler now, too. Apparently while on shrooms he had an epiphany, quit drinking, and started working out. To each their own happiness.
Redshift
Since it’s an open thread, I’ll mention that I happened upon a Twitter thread from a HuffPo reporter covering the Alex Jones trial, and it is bananas. He seems to have a lawyer like Bannon’s, both of them approaching the trial with an attitude of “I’ve always gotten away with everything before, so I’m sure I will again.”
Jones’ lawyer asked him questions designed produce answers about whether he had cooperated with discovery and whether he was actually bankrupt, and the answers were not only false, they had been specifically prohibited from bringing those up. Jones did his show while the trial was going on and said one of the parents testifying against him seemed “slow” or “on the spectrum” and suggested he was being manipulated. The plaintiffs introduced it as evidence the same day. When asked by the judge if he understood the things he was not supposed to talk about, Jones said he thought was allowed to do that on his show. Like I said, bananas.
Supposedly his lawyer is working hard for a mistrial, but it seems to me if you could escape justice that way by lying under oath and ignoring the judge’s instructions, everyone would do it.
CaseyL
Well, in my case, I just dropped out of the bar crawl scene quite a long time ago, when I had a mini-epiphany that being around noisy drunk people was no longer any fun. So I can’t speak to what people who still go out on the town are doing.
(I do like a drink with dinner when I’m at a restaurant; and occasionally a drink at home if I’m in the mood. But otherwise, eh.)
LeftCoastYankee
Why do I have the feeling that this article will be nonsense-fodder for FOX et al.:
“Antifa is coming to your town to make you drink non-alcoholic boozes! With umbrellas and fruit!”
Jacel
@Major Major Major Major: But is the size of each drink getting larger?
Kent
I expect they will spin it in the opposite direction. “Look how much more conservative the nation is becoming. People are tired of Biden. This is another sign of that!”
Major Major Major Major
@Jacel: I doubt it.
frosty
@HumboldtBlue: Second that. Maybe I’ll work on it tomorrow.
Mag
I’ve pretty much stopped drinking for two reasons: it’s expensive and I don’t need all the extra calories.
NotMax
Been seeing a definite upswing in stores stocking varieties of crap like hard seltzers. Too, the trend to more expensive brands (think the explosion of single malt scotch labels) probably has impacted sales of more quotidian spirits. Also suspect that while hard liquors may be on a gentle downward slope that wines have more than made up the difference.
Jackie
@HumboldtBlue: Kansas has shown women’s healthcare is not a Democratic, Republican, or Independent issue. It’s a HUMAN issue. No matter your political slant, ALL women want healthcare and the absolute right to determine what’s best for them and their family; to make those decisions privately with their ob/gyn.
NotMax
@frosty
I’ll drink to that!
:)
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: wine sales are down recently actually. It’s those damn millennials.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Vintners no longer chase the two buck chuck crowd.
;)
Feathers
One thing the alcohol industry has to fear is that their business really is selling to heavy drinkers. Over half of sales are to the top 10% of drinkers.
One thing I’m seeing is that Covid has really cut into social drinking and that people get nervous about drinking too much alone. I’ve always stuck with the advice my eighth grade government teacher gave us: Drinking with other people and a meal, OK. Drinking with a meal or other people but no food, probably OK, but don’t be reckless. Drinking by yourself without food, be careful.
trollhattan
@NotMax: The hard seltzers have muscled in on a lot of shelf space out of nowhere and I’m not surprised if their sales are primarily taken from the hides of other sectors.
If sales overall are flat then they’re just fighting one another over the same customers.
Is the $85 bourbon thing about done yet?
Jackie
I’m betting there’s a lot of inebriated republicans after Kansas’ results tonight. Including Justices Alito and Thomas😁
Noskilz
I’m dubious that drinking is drastically down – at least in Tennessee. I have no difficulty believing that people may be less willing and able to pay bar prices – not picking on bars as such, but that’s expensive and when money is tight, how hard is it to make a martini or bloody Mary or any number of other cocktails that channels like How To Drink can do detailed breakdowns of? Those fancy beers are much more affordable if you pick them up as a six-pack. It’s also possible that if they’ve been making their own cocktails for the last couple years, what gets served in a lot of venues might be rather disappointing.
The weed observation is interesting – people only have so much disposable income, and in areas where weed is legal and readily available, it’s not hard to imagine some of the money people used to spend of booze going toward marijuana.
On the other hand, for people who are really experiencing money problems, booze might just be a luxury they can no longer afford, and there are a lot of people having to make difficult choices about money lately.
I have definitely seen a lot more ads for “non-alcoholic spirits”, which would be more interesting if they were more reasonably priced, which seem to range from things designed to mimic the flavors of conventional spirits to beverages that are just their own particular herbal concoctions. I wonder if at least some of this booze-is-on-its-way-out is hype from these manufacturers – that can only go so far, but lifestyle reporters often seem to be perfectly happy to do puff pieces for companies.
Major Major Major Major
@trollhattan: seltzer is all anybody seems to drink at house parties nowadays.
HumboldtBlue
@frosty:
*clink
@Jackie:
Indeed.
Major Major Major Major
@Noskilz: the article gets into how some of that is obviously people trying to cash in on “wellness”, but it also sounds like a lot of this is being made by existing alcohol producers…
frosty
Absolutely true. Once you make your own it’s easy to tell they poured sour mix from a bottle
NotMax
@trollhattan
Lucky enough to have a Costco here with a liquor department (not all do) where can get a 1.5 liter bottle of Bulleit* for 35 clams, as opposed to a 750 ml bottle at the market for $32.
*Fond of their bourbon, moreso of the rye.
;)
HumboldtBlue
HumboldtBlue
Anarchy reigns at Knuckle Bump Farms. The animals have totally rioted.
HumboldtBlue
Vin Scully calling a game while Knuckle Bump Farms does its thing.
Well, ya know, Emmanuel Todd Lopez is originally from, ball one to Howard, from Pascagoula, and he was struggling as a newborn, strike one on the inside corner, when Emily noticed his plight, a ball outside, and while the vets were concerned he may not make it, Emmanuel took a turn for the better, like a trolley dodger from yore… that’s strike two on a changeup, and here comes Princess with a chance to chomp an arm or rear up in love, while Jones begins his windup, and it’s strike three on the outside corner to end the inning.
Keith P.
@HumboldtBlue: Norm MacDonald and Artie Lange (Klein) telling Bob Uecker stories is gold.
opiejeanne
@HumboldtBlue: Vin Scully was a great part of my childhood, listening to the Dodger games on the radio with my dad in his workshop, helping him build ham radios from Heathkit.
How Scully managed the myriad of anecdotes before PCs were a thing is a mystery.
WhatsMyNym
@Major Major Major Major:
Nobody wants to share the good stuff.
JWR
@HumboldtBlue:
Hah! Who knew Emu’s (?) behaved just like cats? (Damn attention whores. ;) )
HumboldtBlue
@opiejeanne:
He worked hard at it. I recall watching an interview about his process and he was a classic noseybody, he’d call the mom, the local newspaper, the local reporter, the local bar, the teacher or youth coach, and as his stature grew the easier it was to get answers and anecdotes and childhood stories.
JWR
@opiejeanne: I don’t know if there’s any truth to this, but CBS’ sportscaster Jim Hill said earlier tonight that Vin Scully had a photographic memory, and the best advice he ever got from him was “names and numbers”, that if he could remember those two things, he’d never have a problem. I don’t know if by “numbers” he meant jersey numbers or stats, but Vinnie had ’em all.
ETA what @HumboldtBlue said.
Ruckus
I stopped drinking alcohol 21 yrs ago. I wasn’t a heavy drinker, I had just realized that I didn’t need alcohol so I stopped. I think it’s possible that the pandemic showed people that they didn’t need alcohol either. It is likely they may have needed better jobs, or better relationships, even if it’s with the same person they’ve been with or the same job. They drank to hide from the crap in their lives. The pandemic was either a reason to change or a reason to reevaluate their lives and to remove or fix those things that didn’t seem like they were helping, like drinking alcohol can become.
emmyelle
Cali-sober? That’s insulting. As a proud native and resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who fully enjoys the fully legal fruits of the fastest growing industry in the state, including as a way to drink less, I will not stand for west coast chauvinism.
.
Raven
@Ruckus: 30 years here and it’s just normal to be sober.
Evap
I really love my wine, too much at times. On the other hand, I’ve discovered recently that there are really good non-alcoholic beers now. The only problem is that they cost the same as regular beer. If only they could make a decent non-alcoholic wine.
Tarragon
I stopped drinking due to a headache disorder. Poor sleep and alcohol are reproducible triggers for nasty headaches. I’d rather not end up lying on the floor vomiting from the pain. Again.
Of course I say that and today I’m up at 4:30 because a smoke detector decided it needed a new battery.
David 🌈☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Narya
I stopped alcohol before and after my surgery this year—even tried some NA spirits. And I’ve consciously looked for low ABV beers (the really high-octane stuff requires sharing and sipping). My friend and I have decreased consumption a bit, but I think some of that is awareness of age affecting how it feels. OTOH, next week I’m heading to my favorite yearly event, a great beer festival, where even studious water drinking and judicious consumption only reduces one’s eventual state. OTOOH, I really don’t have to taste everything. So yeah, I’ve reduced my consumption a bit, but it feels more like I’m being intentional rather than abstemious. My understanding is that people used to drink a lot because it was safer than the available water supply.
PST
I see some changes in attitude around me, but not the faintest hint of a thirst for prohibition. For about 35 years I entertained clients frequently, most of them British, and I certainly saw a steady decrease in the amount of alcohol consumed. Alcohol with lunch simply stopped being part of business culture in places where it had been common. One change in my own life has been the substitution of quality for quantity — nursing one really good beer, for example, instead of pounding down crap beer like a college student — but all the hard seltzers and similar junk point in the other direction. I gave up beer to help lose weight. The only exception was for a BJ meet-up. Down 75 pounds so far. I think I will find a way to mention that every time I post anything for the rest of my life.
geg6
Well, I don’t give a shit what this dubious article has to say. You will have to pry my wine glass from my cold, dead hands. We drink wine with dinner a few nights a week. We don’t get drunk and we are fine. Haven’t changed our consumption a bit and see no reason to do so. I hang with lots of non-drinkers but that’s always been true. I know several problem drinkers but that, too, has always been true. The wine aisle at the liquor store seems as well stocked and well trafficked as always. This sounds like bullshit to me.
The Castle
With marijuana now legal in many places, there is psychoactive drug substitution going on – people who smoke weed rather than drink now. I think the industry is very concerned about this.
Related to this, the opiate catastrophe, which is killing over 100,000 people a year, has reduced drinking through drug substitution and, well, killing a lot of people many of whom would otherwise be heavy drinkers.
The pandemic really crushed social gatherings. Social occasions are a big reason why people drink, and even now, these are not quite back to prepapandemic levels.
People stopping their alcohol use for health reasons is probably less important. In any case, net negative health effects of light to moderate alcohol use (1 drink/day, maybe 2) are very small or nonexistent. The recent research purporting to show that any alcohol use is negative is not compelling. But the effects of moderate to heavy use (more than 2/day, especially 6+/day) are real and get exponentially worse, and would be a good reason to cut back or quit.
EarthWindFire
I’ve noticed a shift with my late millennial and early Gen-Z colleagues. They’re either drinking craft beer or not at all. Granted, these are educated professionals with discretionary income who work at home, so no facing high gas prices.
There was an interesting discussion of mocktails in our book group chat. The general consensus was that NA wine is horrible.
Gvg
I think that down trend is a minor blimp they are over blowing. On the other hand there was something of a change in attitude from the 80’s to the 90’s with MADD and less tolerance of drunk driving and drunkenness which was nice. I don’t drink. I did not intend to be a non drinker, but when I turned 18 in the early 80’s I found out I hate the taste of all alcohol and a few sips make me nauseous. Well, as a matter of fact I have always been a picky eater that hates a lot of foods, so this probably should not have been a surprise and I don’t like not being in control either. I had no problem hanging out with my friends at the time but over time, I just haven’t kept touch with what is going on in social drinking.
it occurs to me though that such a small blip might just be caused by trade disruptions from the pandemic like all the other things we try to buy, and have little to do with peoples deliberate choices. Way to soon to care since it’s not my industry.
PST
It is commonly accepted, I believe, that nutritional epidemiology in general is a complete mess. The name to google, if you’re interested, is John Ioannidis, a physician-scientist at Stanford, but there are many others saying the same thing. A remarkable percentage of published results turns out to be irreproducible, when put to the test, but the magnitude of the problem is hard to measure because there isn’t much research money for replication. Defenders tend to admit that there are major difficulties but throw up their hands and say this is all we have so we just have to try to make it better. Almost all studies in humans are observational, not controlled and prospective, or very short term. They rely on faulty memory. Most important, they are plagued by “confounding variables” and uncertainties about the direction of causation. For example, is a glass of wine a day with dinner good for you? or is the income, leisure, and lifestyle consistent with a glass of wine a day with dinner good for you? Conversely, does it hurt me to drink more? or am I drinking more because I hurt? The fact that there is a correlation doesn’t mean that an individual will benefit from starting/stopping if drinking itself is just a surrogate for some other factor. This isn’t just a problem with alcohol research, it is across the board. It is at the base of all the contradictory advice we got about diet. Many have characterized this as a scandal, and they are talking about the academic research itself. Popular reporting of such results is just as terrible as you would expect.
Gin & Tonic
So do I need to change my nym?
Ken
I can understand people’s various issues with AA, and that it’s not a fit for some, but they are committed to keeping it free.
RevRick
The Temperance Movement in the US began in 1826 when the Connecticut minister, Lyman Beecher, ( father of Henry Ward and Harriet Beecher Stowe) preached a six-part sermon series on Intemperance. This led to the establishment of the American Temperance Society, which encouraged drinkers to take a pledge of moderation by signing their names and adding a T after it – hence tee-totalers.
Alcohol consumption had become a huge problem in America by the 1820s, when it averaged two gallons per person a year. When you consider that women generally did not drink, slaves were forbidden to drink, and few children did, you had a lot of habitually drunk white males in society. Initially, women became the backbone of the ATS, casting their movement in terms of spousal and child abuse and the pauperization of families.
This activation of the voices of women, coupled with the Second Great Awakening, soon gave birth to an enormous petition campaign against Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears Indigenous removal, and thence to the start of the Abolitionist Movement. In the decade that followed, there was an explosion of associations dedicated to various forms of Social Improvement.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Gin & Tonic: Nah. Just look up what the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy has to say about gin and tonic, and pick your planet. :)
Ohio Mom
@Kent: That beer culture is everywhere. I can’t count the number of microbreweries that have sprung up and continue to spring up in Cincinnati. Even my little suburb has two of them.
Last winter I found a stew recipe that required a can of ale so I went looking for a single can of ale. I found some in a corner of Trader Joe’s.
Most of the shelf’s contents were local beers flavored with what I thought were unlikely additions, various fruits and berries, pumpkin spice of course, chocolate, and I forget what else. It occurred to me that maybe the market is people who don’t like the taste of traditional beer?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@trollhattan: Just stay away from Heaven Hill products or anything else that’s overhyped. My bourbon of choice is Wild Turkey 101 which makes it near the top of just about every bourbon best value list, but their higher shelf products (Russell’s Reserve) are still reasonably priced.
I did some binge drinking – pretty much all social – in my college (late ’80s to early ’90s) and post college years. I’m 53 and haven’t really drank to excess except on rare occasions for 20 years. I do still like and drink good craft beer. I agree with the person above that there are too many overhopped IPAs out there – I grew up in West Michigan and I still love Bell’s Two Hearted but other than that most of my buys are Pale Ales, lagers of various styles, Hefeweizens, Saisons Ambers, etc. I do still have 1 or 2 drinks on weekend nights but having 3 is pretty rare and more than that almost never happens anymore.
I haven’t noticed any new temperance movement trend but I’m not plugged in at all to trends anymore so I wouldn’t have.
Kylroy
@Narya: “So yeah, I’ve reduced my consumption a bit, but it feels more like I’m being intentional rather than abstemious.”
I feel like that’s most of what’s going on – drinkers are drinking less, not becoming teetotalers. But to a business based on a hockey stick curve where 10% of the population consumes 80% of your product, that’s still pretty close to Armageddon:
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5876279bbebafb82a7c81c00/1534526204404-E2C6HMIPP4PL35TGPX2X/drinking+patterns.jpg?format=1000w
kalakal
Can’t say from correspondence with my friends & family back in Engerland that I’ve noticed much difference.
I’ve more or less given up drinking in the last decade, basically I only drink about twice a year on special occasions
Grew up in a very heavy northern European drinking culture, my friends & I were basically beer drinkers and we’d get lathered every night. As you get older things gets harder, now if I try it I have a pulverising hangover the next day.
The reasons I gave up were
I’m actually not crazy on US beers, I like bitter and that just doesn’t travel. I would love a pint of Pedigree, Landlord or Black Sheep but I’m not going to get them this side of the pond.
I’ve never been much good at drinking in moderation, I’d rather not bother than just have a couple of beers or wine. I come from a culture where you tended to drink till the booze ran out or you did. I’ve always envied people who can have a couple of drinks and stop at that. I can do it but frankly I’d rather not bother in the first place as I end up spending the rest of the day really, really wanting more
narya
@kalakal: That’s something else I’ve seen. I will have one beer–and often a low ABV one at that–or a glass of wine in the evening, and . . . that’s it; sometimes not even that. When my friend is around, we’ll split a bottle of wine, or a few beers, and we’ve slowed our pace. Having worked at a substance use disorder agency, and having a lot of recovering friends/acquaintances, I also think it’s partly genetic: alcoholism doesn’t show up in my family on either side.
lee
I used to be a fairly heavy drinker on Friday and Saturday nights. I’d fire up a FPS game and drink beer until the wee hours of the morning.
Now I take an edible, fire up the FPS game and drink maybe 1 beer.
Now when we go out for dinner it’s maybe 1 beer with dinner. Never more than 1.
I do think a lot of it is folks like me substituting pot for booze. If you drink a beer before an edible (or any pot) the pot’s impact is greatly increased. So no need for any more booze for the evening.
kalakal
@narya:
That’s another thing, most English bitters are weaker than Lagers 3.8 or 4 %. In England Lager was never really popular until a couple of decades ago when Stella suddenly swept the board. It’s commonly known as wife beater as suddenly drinkers were effectively consuming 20% alcohol by volume with a corresponding uptick in violence
narya
@lee: I haven’t tried edibles yet. I had to quit smoking DECADES ago, because it just got way too strong for me. One of the things I like about alcohol is that you can regulate its effects more easily: I know what a 10% beer will do, or a 2.8% beer, and I adjust accordingly. I’d like cannabis to be that tightly . . . not regulated, but that info provided. And it’s possible that cannabis just isn’t my drug, which is fine; lots of things aren’t!
cope
I quit drinking about four years ago because:
1) I had been drinking for 50 years and thought I would try 50 years without booze.
2) I have a list of people in my head I would like to outlive and quitting alcohol was the one easy, immediate, money saving way to improve my health and thanks to Mr. Limbaugh for crossing himself off my list.
3) My grandkids were at the age I was when my grandparents became important to me and I want to be somebody they remember well
I was a great drinker, happy and witty and generally fun to be around (by my reckoning, anyway) but I don’t miss it.
Soprano2
In this pub in the middle of the heartland…….LOL No, for real, I haven’t noticed that much difference. That thing about the upper decile is real – whenever regular customer Bruce takes his 4-6 week trip to Wisconsin to see his family, we joke about who we need to lay off while he’s gone! (No one actually, he sits at the bar.) I think the reduction they’re seeing is a combination of things people have mentioned on this thread – inflation has made alcohol more expensive, which means some people are cutting back or cutting it out altogether, because that’s something that’s easy to cut when you’re deciding how to afford things. We have medical pot here, so I don’t know how much of a factor that is, although some people are trying to get recreational use on the ballot. Especially when it comes to going out, the pandemic changed people’s habits – we are still closing at 11:00 p.m. except on Friday and Saturday night because people don’t stay out late on weeknights anymore. People are more conscious about not driving drunk, but I see that manifesting as taking taxis or rideshares rather than not coming out at all. I haven’t seen people drinking fewer shots – if anything, they seem to be drinking more of them! (Not my thing at all.) We’re talking about starting to offer some mocktails, because there are people who want them, but we don’t attract a huge number of under-30 customers where they seem to be the most popular. I suspect a lot of the drop in wine consumption is because of hard spritzers – they’re good when you don’t want something sweet and you don’t like beer, and they’ve managed a rare feat – not being “gendered”, so both men and women equally drink them. I mostly drink when I eat, and almost always just one drink, which is hilarious because I own a bar. Hubby is the same, although he sometimes drinks two or three if we’re there several hours.
My biggest worry is that MADD will go on the warpath to try to criminalize regular drinkers by trying to pressure states to lower the legal limit to .05. I think that’s two beers for a woman. I wish they would just admit that their goal is to make it 0.00, and thus turn everyone who has one beer and drives into a criminal. That’s what the industry should be concerned about, not a slight drop in consumption.
Miss Bianca
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Bell’s! Salut!
indianbadger
As someone sober for a while, I have been happy with the quality of NA beer stuff that’s available now. I never liked spirits, cocktails or wine. Even with beer (my choice of libation), all I was missing was a good IPA in summers. The stuff available a while ago; things like O’Doul’s Sharp’s etc. were terrible. Now the local microbrewery giant, Lagunitas, started making something called Hop Water. This is even better than NA beer as it is just hops+water+carbonation. And there is a beer manufacturer, Athletic Brewing, out of CT; that is making only NA beers. That’s their business model. Plus I have started seeing spirits and even wine that is non-alcoholic. I have not consumed any, so I have no idea if they’re any good.
The way I look at it is, even if you consume regularly. Especially with a group. It would be a good idea to mix in these higher quality stuff (especially beer) with the regular stuff.
Plus this chest beating about reduction in consumption by the Industry groups is exaggerated. Total sales if you include all the new fangled stuff like Hard Seltzer, Cider, CBD Infused stuff, etc., has been steady. And like others have mentioned, Marijuana being made legal is cutting into alcohol consumption I think.
Steeplejack
@Gin & Tonic:
No need to teetoal yourself! But “Gin & Juice” would be more hipster forward, perhaps.
Ruckus
@Raven:
Same. Also my wallet is just a bit fuller, and my health feels a bit better. Not drinking may be the reason, may not be, but still better is better.
stinger
@PST:
As well you should! Something to be very proud of! (Esp. the “so far” part!)
ExpatDanBKK
Having lived and travelled in Asia, Australia, and the EU extensively for 30+ years, I have to say that Americans still have a temperance mentality. A typical night out in Japan, Australia, UK, Thailand, amongst others, would be thought of by an American as a huge binge. In those places, it’s just Wednesday LOL. I see that reading this article. I’m not saying whether this is good or bad, it just is.
ExpatDanBKK
@indianbadger: If you can find it, there is a NA beer from Japan called Hoppy. It has been been around for decades and is very nice. In Japan, it is normally spiked with a shot (or 2 if you are one of my hardcore Japanese mates LOL) of sochu. And yes, over ice despite what the Wiki article says. But I do on occasion drink it without the sochu. In any case, I prefer the white (original). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoppy_(drink)
JDM
More like Clifton Sparks on Schitt’s Creek: “I gave up the drink. Strictly a wine and scotch man now.”