While younger generations are drinking less, adults aged 50 to 64 are drinking more, causing a shift reshaping the US bar scene
Alcohol consumption has decreased across the United States in recent years, particularly among adults under age 40, but there is one older demographic in which more people are drinking than before the Covid-19 pandemic – and more are doing so heavily, according to a new study.
For the first time since before the pandemic, the percentage of US adults who drink any alcohol decreased between 2022 and 2024, according to the report in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. People from 50 to 64, which roughly corresponds with gen X, were the only age group in which drinking continued to increase.
They are likely hurting their health by imbibing, according to the latest science, but they are also helping keep open bars. Such businesses have struggled as younger generations, the drivers of nightlife, move away from booze.
This must be emphasized more. The WHO has made a statement that for usual alcoholic beverages no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health. This happened after carefully analysing a large body of research. Much earlier, alcohol has already been assigned to the highest class of carcinogenic substances, class 1. It sits in the same class as radiation, tobacco and asbestos.
As an older GenX I will say that my drinking hasn’t really increased, but it never really decreased from my college level in the first place.
But I don’t want to live to 80, 90 years old anyways.
Kids are grown, lost my wife to cancer 5 years ago. All of our nest egg went into her end of life care so retirement’s not an option. Everything hurts and I have to work until the day I die.
I got maybe 5-10 years left in me. Tops.
As a fellow gen x’er, I’m sorry for your loss. Take care of yourself, bro.
Just for your information, sitting in the same “class” as tobacco and asbestos doesn’t mean what you insinuated here.
Asbestos is orders of magnitudes more carcinogenic than alcohol, don’t be alarmist
I have never once in my life lifted an alcoholic drink without that information.
Look, have a drink every now and then. It’s fine. Moderation is key, we’re not meant to live forever and a life lived for 150 years in a fuckin bubble is silly.
I get it, it’s a carcinogen we all know. So is smoke, should I stop enjoying a lovely campfire?
Should I stop leaving my home because someone could kill me?
Party pooper
Yes they know that they dont care they’re not looking forward to a long healthy life.
I mean, with all respect, have you seen the state of this fucking world?
No i totally agree
And yet a lot of centenarians have their cocktails before bed. I think it must be the binge drinking that really hurts you. Or maybe the not going to bars and getting diseases from other drinkers part?
So the thing is, most centenarians happen to be from places that are either terrible at book keeping or at some point had a lot of their written records destroyed. There’s a strong chance that most centenarians aren’t actually over 100 years old, that their birth certificates were either faked or mismanaged along the way.
Stress is the number one killer and the core of so many health problems. Alcohol causes physical health problems too, but it is also so good for relieving stress. With any drug just know what and why you’re using and do it intentionally; medical vs. recreational use, and use vs. abuse. Drinking alone out of habit when you’re sad is bad drinking. Having a bottle of wine between friends or a tipple as part of a getting ready for bed relaxation ritual can be good drinking.
Its funny how in spite of all the advances in technology and research a healthy life always comes down to stress, diet, physical activity, sleep and social life. The factors we’ve known about since forever.
Agree on stress being a killer but frankly, this is cope. Alcohol as part of a going to bed ritual is pretty much alcoholism.
I think we’re imagining very different scenes. If you knock back a shot of vodka when you brush your teeth at night that’s probably alcoholism, a little glass of something mixed with a book and a robe in your library after supper isn’t usually.
Your liver doesn’t know that you’re enjoying a good book, sorry. 😔
Y’all have lost the thread.
Nuance and reading comprehension people.
Eh I’m going to take a turn on this. My Garmin watch measures my heart rhythm through the night and can absolutely report super poor sleep for the first few hours if I have 2 glasses of wine with supper, with even 1 glass I can see poorer sleep stats.
I can, however, mitigate a lot of that with 2 Aleve taken beforehand, and of course adequate hydration. So my suspicion is that alcohol is inflammatory, and the inflammation causes all sorts of problems that inflammation typically does. Maybe taking the anti inflammatory is enough to mitigate it all, maybe not. But certainly something bad is happening.
As another example, I occasionally suffer from insomnia tendencies and would absolutely choose poor sleep over no sleep. Some studies have shown you shouldn’t consume alcohol within four hours of bedtime. Everyone should be making sure they are using responsibly and approach subjects with nuance
There is alcohol in lots of food including bread. Your liver is quite capable of handling alcohol.
Baking evaporates all but trace amounts of alcohol…
Our livers can handle most poisons but they all, alcohol included, take their toll.
Bread, yogurt, soy sauce, vinegar, fruit juice
All have alcohol and they are nowhere near the risk of asbestos lol
Wait until you learn about dosages, going to blow your mind
You’ll find relative and absolute risk a crazy concept
It seems you have neither read my comment properly, nor the WHO statement. This is about alcoholic beverages as usually sold and consumed. No statement was made about alcohol content in apples, bread, and alike.
It is
Yeah now you are starting to troll. Click on the link. Read what I have written before the link.
I’m not. Just debating it.
Tobacco contains about 250 carcinogens when combusted, that’s way more harmful than alcohol.
They may be in the same class, but the risk profile is much lower for alcohol. The most common is colorectal cancer, and the risks are minimal
For every 1,000 heavy drinkers over a lifetime, roughly 11 additional cases of colorectal cancer would be expected compared to 1,000 non-drinkers
I think this is a good example of risk through the lens of policy versus risk through the lens of personal choices.
There is no safe amount of alcohol when it comes to a government recommending the use of a substance. The decision to say “one glass a day” by the government has been shown to lead to adverse health outcomes in the population.
You are speaking to the chance that a single individual will experience adverse health outcomes from choosing for themselves to have a glass a day. You are probably right that on an individual basis it is a reasonable risk to take (though I don’t know what the exact numbers suggest).
People often confuse policy level risk assessments with individual risk assessments, without considering the law of large numbers, and how a policy maker must make decisions for the population, not an individual.
I think it’s also relevant to your genes. My family has made whisky since the 1600s, they seem well accustomed to it.
Counter: Bars should have taxes lifted on the first round of beverages purchased in bars. And increased taxes for alcohol purchased in shops. And maximum music dB enforced.
In the current time of AI, music by bands should be required.
Social drinking should be promoted to counter loneliness.