Americans Are Drinking Less: That's Great News!

Gallup released their annual survey about Americans' drinking habits, and it made news headlines. They found that Americans are drinking at the lowest rate ever recorded:

From 1997 to 2023, at least 60% of Americans reported drinking alcohol. The figure fell to 62% in 2023 and to 58% in 2024, before reaching 54% today. Prior to the most recent poll, the rate has been under 60% fewer than 10 times, including 58% in the initial 1939 poll and a one-time low of 55% recorded in 1958. The highs of 68% to 71% were all recorded between 1974 and 1981.

What's more, of those who say they do drink, the amount of people who recently had a drink was also at a record low:

Among Americans who do drink, consumption patterns are shifting. A record-low 24% of drinkers say they had a drink in the past 24 hours, while 40% say it has been more than a week since they last consumed alcohol, the highest percentage since 2000.

Factoring in all drinkers, including those who did not drink in the past week, the average number of drinks consumed over the past seven days is 2.8, the lowest figure Gallup has recorded since 1996. This is down from 3.8 drinks a year ago and closer to 4.0 drinks over the seven years prior to that. The highest average number since Gallup has tracked this is 5.1 drinks per week, recorded in 2003.

Many reasons are cited in the report, and chief among those reasons is that a majority of Americans now believe that drinking is just not good for you:

For the first time in Gallup’s trend, a majority of Americans, 53%, say drinking in moderation, or “one or two drinks a day,” is bad for one’s health. Just 6% say it’s good for one’s health, while 37% believe it makes no difference. Today’s belief that moderate alcohol consumption is unhealthy follows increases from 28% in 2018 and 39% in 2023 to 45% a year ago. By contrast, from 2001 through 2011, the percentage with this view hovered near 25%, roughly equal to those who considered drinking beneficial.

As a critical care physician, I am celebrating these findings.

There is almost not a day that goes by that I do not witness the devastating health effects of alcohol. Alcohol is not only a known hepatotoxin (it damages the liver), but it also is a known cardiotoxin (it damages the heart) and a known neurotoxin (it damages the brain). I have seen brains on CT scans of chronic alcohol abusers that have shrunken to such a degree that it makes them seem decades older than they really are.

I have lost count of the number of patients who come into the ICU with chronically damaged livers from their alcohol use, and very frequently, I have to deal with acute alcohol withdrawal delirium in patients admitted to the ICU for other critical illnesses, and it can greatly complicate their already very complex critical illnesses.

And, worst of all, alcohol is a known carcinogen. The CDC says on its website about alcohol and cancer:

You can lower your risk for cancer by drinking less alcohol or not drinking at all...All drinks that contain alcohol, including red and white wine, beer, and liquor, increase the risk of cancer.

At this stage, it is really indisputable.

So, when I read that Americans are drinking less, I said, "Halleluiah!" This is something to be celebrated, and as a critical care physician, I hope this trend of less and less Americans drinking continues.

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