the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ — Fewer Americans are drinking alcohol than at any point in more than eight decades of polling, according to new data from Gallup.
The 2025 Gallup poll, released yesterday, found that only 54% of U.S. adults say they currently drink alcohol — the lowest rate since tracking began in 1939. The decline comes alongside a record-high 53% of Americans now viewing alcohol as harmful to health.
From 1997 to 2023, the drinking rate held steady in the low-to-mid 60% range before dipping to 58% in 2024 and now to its historic low in 2025.
Young Adults Driving the Decline
Analysts say the drop is being driven largely by adults aged 18 to 34, whose drinking rate has fallen 9% in just two years. Notably, two-thirds of this age group now believe that even moderate drinking — defined as one or two drinks a day — is harmful, a sharp rise from 34% in 2018.
While older adults have also grown more cautious about alcohol, the change has been less dramatic.
Health Concerns and Policy Shifts
The downward trend aligns with growing medical research on alcohol’s health risks. In January 2025, the U.S. Surgeon General called for warning labels on alcoholic beverages to alert consumers to cancer risks and President Trump is a well known teetotaler.
Federal guidelines currently recommend that men limit alcohol to two drinks per day and women to one — but public sentiment suggests that even these limits may be losing support.
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This has been coming for years.
and now its here.
and there’s nothing you can do about it. the youth today are much smarter than Bud Lite.
Not smarter.
Just using different drugs.
100%. And they’re so much smarter, they’ve all outsourced their brains to ChatGPT, so they can do much more important things like making dance videos for TikTok.
Weed, in all it’s variables, has become the preferred alternative.
I get my liquor at Bottle King in Glen Rock, it’s free most of the time.