Older adults, according to new data from the UK, are 50 percent more likely than those under 40 to be regular drinkers. Alcohol consumption in the USA, meanwhile, is at a record low.
The youth are more health-conscious, and appear to be increasingly risk-averse as well. This sensitivity to risk, as Whitaker et al. have written, refers not just to health consequences, but also to the potential embarrassment associated with public drunkenness.
On the flip side, many young people are replacing alcohol with drugs—especially cannabis. For Americans between the ages of 19 and 30, daily or near-daily cannabis use is now more common than daily or near-daily drinking.
Finally, young people are spending less time socializing outside and more time socializing at home online. Granted, this is also true of older adults. But the latter have already developed their drinking habits.
It would be absurdly dishonest to deny that there will be happy consequences of younger people drinking less. Drinking alcohol can lead to one of the nastier species of addiction. It is bad for the liver, the pancreas, the brain, and the waistline. It can encourage violent and otherwise pathological behavior. It inspires a lot of very, very embarrassing texts.
Yes, if your child told you they had no plans to start drinking alcohol, you would have to be an irresponsible parent to protest.
But I don’t think it is irrational or self-indulgent to say that if people stop drinking alcohol, some positive and important things will be lost as well. For alcohol—like so much in life—can be used for good or ill.
Firstly, of course, alcoholic beverages can be delicious. You can’t pair a fine Italian meal with a glass of orange juice (well, you can—but it isn’t quite the same).
Still, I suspect that few of us who drink care primarily about the taste. I love pasta—but if I couldn’t eat pasta, it wouldn’t hit me on the same level as if I couldn’t drink beer.
Is that just… alcoholism?
I don’t think so. The plain fact is that alcohol is relaxing. This can be problematic if booze is being employed as a kind of medication, to blunt or treat the effects of trauma, grief, depression, etc. But if a couple of pints are helping somebody unwind at the end of a long work week, there’s nothing wrong with that. Not all unpleasant feelings are the product of discrete problems to be solved, rather than a kind of occasional pressure to be eased.
Alcohol is also an effective social lubricant. Can people make friends, and enjoy time with friends, without alcohol? Of course. But can booze help? Absolutely. Scientific studies—if scientific studies were needed—have confirmed that moderate alcohol consumption can enhance social bonding.
I know this well. I came to Poland (where I’m fortunate enough to still reside) as an anxious, introspective 22-year-old. One evening, bored and friendless, I ventured into a local pub. Perhaps it’s sad to admit that without alcohol I might not have had the confidence—or, quite simply, the occasion—to mix with open-minded strangers and build a social life. But that does not make it untrue.
It’s that social life—and not alcohol itself—that I worry younger teetotalers will miss out on. What will replace the pub and the bar? Time alone on X and Instagram might be healthier in a physical sense. But it’s clearly worse in every other sense. Excessive alcohol consumption has damaged countless relationships, true, but it has also aided the development of countless friendships and romantic partnerships.
I’m not going to tell anyone to drink if they don’t feel like it. But I would advise young people to reflect on what might replace drinking. If it’s something else that is fun and social, great. But if it’s a vape and an app, I’m rather less than convinced that this is progress.
Meanwhile, I’m going to stick with my beer and my wine. I’ve made a lot of poor choices when it comes to drinking—the poor choice to drink and poor choices after drinking—but on balance, I think it has done me far more good than harm.
A beer just seems to make a conversation more rewarding, or a moment of reflection more enriching—much as a ray of sunshine makes a landscape more beautiful. Or perhaps it just brings out my sentimental side.
Cheers. Salut. Na zdrowie!
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