Drinking finally slows after pandemic spike, but not for every age group

Americans are drinking less for the first time since the pandemic, but alcohol use remains higher than it was before 2020, according to a study published Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. The decline in drinking rates, though modest at roughly 1%, is welcome news after heavy alcohol use spiked sharply during the pandemic, said senior study author Dr. Brian P. Lee, a liver transplant doctor at Keck Medicine of USC in Los Angeles. However, Lee said, “these trends haven’t been even across the board.” While both heavy and occasional drinking declined among Gen Z and millennials from 2022 to 2024, drinking increased in people ages 50 to 64, according to the study, which used data from the National Health Interview Survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lee and his team looked at survey results for four years: 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024. Overall, men reported a larger decline in drinking than women did from 2022 to 2024 — 2.4% compared with 1.1% — but heavy drinking declined by 9% among women compared with 7.7% among men. The survey defined heavy drinking as either five or more drinks per day or 15 or more per week for men and four drinks per day or eight drinks per week for women. Gen Z adults reported