For the first time in Gallup’s 90-year polling history, a majority of Americans now view moderate alcohol consumption as bad for one’s health. Just 54 percent of American adults say they drink alcohol, and 49 percent tell pollsters they’d like to cut back in 2025.
In particular, Gen-Z seems to have gotten the memo on alcohol’s dangers. Adults under 35 are the least likely to drink, with fully 40 percent living an entirely dry lifestyle. Women are most likely to have cut back their consumption between 2020 and 2025, which fits a pattern: COVID lockdowns showed people alcohol’s ugly power.
Many middle-aged and older folk who’ve cut back recently cited the COVID-19 lockdowns as a source of clarity about their drinking patterns. Without daily obligations or anyone to see or judge them, many people livened up the boredom and isolation with an afternoon cocktail. And then a lunchtime cocktail. And without an early commute and in-person meetings, not to mention the existential dread of a global crisis, perhaps it would be okay to stay up late and have one more in the evening. Zoom meetings became online happy hours. Everything from true crime to personal finance advice was paired with a cocktail recipe and a boozy delivery service. Disposable income rose, fueled by stimulus checks and the largely closed entertainment sector. Spending at liquor stores soared in the weeks after checks were mailed, and a survey from Wallethub estimated 24 million Americans spent some of their stimulus money on alcohol.
Casual critics of capitalism might see the profit motive in companies keeping Americans drinking alcohol, regardless of its dangers. Young people can likely recall the denials and cynical obfuscations of Big Tobacco and might be justified in finding fault with Big Booze as well. Most people imagine alcohol execs as something like the Merchants of Death in Thank You for Smoking: shady characters representing human vices, conspiring to fill our shopping carts with vodka, cigarettes, and loaded firearms.
No doubt, alcohol is pushed on us by brands that want us to associate various formulations of ethanol with the fulfillment of every desire: be cool, popular, confident, loved, and an excellent dancer. The elixir is in the cooler full of ice near your beach volleyball game, or delivered to your table from a handsome stranger. Alcohol product placements and tippling characters saturate streaming services.
But unlike advertising, markets are value-neutral. They don’t tell us what we should want; they deliver whatever we’re willing to pay for. Yuengling is the nation’s oldest brewery, and if tomorrow they learned that Gen-Z would be going teetotal, they’d be the nation’s largest kombucha and sparkling water distributor by next year.
Zero-Proof Imitators
Non-alcoholic adult beverages have the same problem as atheists: it’s hard to affirmatively define yourself with a name that only says what you’re not. So it has been for “near-beer,” “zero-proof liquors,” “spirit-free analogues,” “nosecco,” and perhaps most condescending: “mocktails.” But the zero-proof market segment has entered an era of true innovation, not just imitation. “NA” and “AF” options are no longer niche.
Young people want to enjoy the same adult, elevated social spaces and events they’ve associated with traditional drinks. Established brands recognized the demand for alcohol-free options that could be consumed in the same situations. Like foodways, drinking customs are part of our social and familial landscapes: being able to grab a Heineken 0.0 from the fridge along with Dad’s Coors Light preserves the social texture without the dose of poison. An alcohol-free cider or craft mocktail at the office party lets nondrinkers fully participate in the celebration, without prompting uncomfortable conversations. Sales of nonalcoholic alcohol imitators are growing fast, and national distributors of wine, beer, and spirits have rolled out new offerings.
Alcohol-free offerings from several well-known beer brands.
Indeed, savvy beverage brands aren’t just de-alcoholicizing their standard offerings, but instead branching out into kombuchas, tonics, infusions, malts, probiotics, and craft sodas.
Adult Alternatives
Nondrinkers also show interest in beverages with mind-altering and mood-enhancing effects similar to alcohol, but want to avoid its downsides (which range from headaches and hangovers to cancer and coma). Drinks derived from cannabis and infused with the compounds of psychedelic mushrooms are now legal in many states, and are pretty safe compared to alcohol (no lethal dose of either is known). While the availability of recreational cannabis is known to reduce rates of alcohol consumption and abuse, cannabis consumption hasn’t risen significantly over the past five years, so it’s unlikely new users are a major contributor to drinking’s decline.
Among the less-safe iterations of this trend are products containing kava and kratom. These mild stimulants have more in common with espresso and energy drinks than alcohol, but many users report addictive properties and changes in health that look a lot like alcoholism and drug dependence.
Markets also tend to be great at, well, marketing, so don’t be surprised by the explosion of special collections, targeted sales, and branded merch for Dry July and Sober October. Merchandisers like “Doing It Sober” and “Sober Motivation Shop” have cashed in on the trend, and so have thousands of tiny artisans who now create sobriety-minded accessories. Part of the sobriety aesthetic is smashing stigma as a service to others. The motto on one hoodie reads: “Recover loudly to keep others from dying quietly.”
Quit Lit and Sober Influencers
Across our consumption landscapes, sober-focused communities are making themselves known. While it wouldn’t be in keeping with group norms to share links to their stories, a quick internet search turns up the online support community r/stopdrinking — perhaps the most reliably supportive, wholesome place on the internet. That Reddit forum had 30,000 members when The Washington Post profiled it ten years ago, but now boasts half a million. No prices are listed here, and the cost is measured in service: support, mutual aid, people sharing their talents freely. Free recovery forums demonstrate supply and demand in the most human way possible.
Books and podcasts have also proliferated, with Quit Lit finding all the usual niches in bookstores: women’s, men’s, spiritual, subversive. Podcasts like Sober Awkward, Recovery Elevator, and This Naked Mind reach the sober-curious right in their homes and headphones, reducing the stigma of seeking help, or even self-identifying as needing help.
Creator networks like Patreon also shift the traditional model of exchange. Most of the content is free — which is a surprisingly successful money-making strategy on the participatory internet. A variety of cooperative, collaborative, commercial relationships gives people the ability to support their supporters, in a virtuous feedback loop.
Sober Socializing
Social connections can be lubricated by alcohol, so to satisfy the sober socializer, businesses are increasingly offering indulgent adult escapes that don’t center around what can be bought from the barman.
Luxury hotel groups now require their premium locations to have a “sophisticated zero-proof option for the guests that choose not to imbibe.” Non-alcoholic “soft pairings” are appearing in fine dining establishments, where pairing profiles are expected to be just as complex and intentional as the wines for which they substitute.
According to an article in Time “there’s been a wave of sober bars opening across the US,” and this is good news for artisanal and craft beverage makers who leverage unique botanicals and hops for cultivating specialty drinks. The demand can even support whole establishments: Atlanta’s first alcohol-free bottle shop, The Zero Co, opened in 2022.
“The addition of zero-proof cocktails can attract local guests who are seeking out a non-alcoholic option—similar to the draw of local restaurants that include gluten-free or vegan options,” writes Tad Wilkes for Restaurant Hospitality.
Even Nitecapp Magazine lauded the rise of non-alcoholic specialty mixology at high-end hotels, calling it a “refreshing trend…redefining the essence of indulgence.” Marketing consultancies and startup sales teams emerged to help restaurants build out zero-proof menus and experiences.
Sober travel and tour companies promise “clear-headed, connection-rich, booze-free adventures.” Just as there is a market for the all-you-can-drink booze cruise, there’s ready money seeking out sober cruising, and companies happy to fill the gap. Recommendation companies like The Sober Curator provide insights for those who prioritize avoiding intoxicants while traveling.
And because dating is often a bar-based and boozy affair — “I’d like to get to know you better” is often shorthanded with “Can I buy you a drink?” — apps have emerged for those who’d rather do their coupling-up fully conscious: Loosid, Club Pillar, and Sober Love are growing fast.
Why Would Big Bev Support Sobriety?
The profit motive doesn’t make liquor companies “care” about your sobriety, in the sense that they care about your happiness or good fortune, the way Adam Smith used “sympathy.” Instead, the pursuit of personal gain (profit motive) encourages market participants to care about whatever you care about. The producers of non-alcoholic beverages, the purveyors of sobriety podcasts, the luxury hotels mixing up mocktails so complicated you’ll still be willing to pay $15 for juice and herbs — they don’t have to “care” about your health or be emotionally invested in your lifestyle choices. Self-interest via economic activity mimics the effects of sympathy for strangers: people will go to extraordinary lengths to provide what you need — if you’re willing to pay for it.
If you or someone you know has tried to avoid thinking about alcohol, you’ll have noticed that American culture is absolutely saturated in the stuff. Alcohol is prominent in 87 percent of top US movies and infused into your social feed. Overt ads on billboards and neon signs in restaurant windows, brand endorsements on sports stadiums: there’s plenty of money to be made in gussying up the world’s most popular Class I carcinogen.
And sure, earning money is a significant motivator for the makers of SoberMummy teas, the social network Club Soda, and even “Smells Like Sobriety” candles, but it’s hard to see capitalism as the bad guy in building these networks of voluntary support and exchange. As economists are fond of telling students, McDonald’s doesn’t care whether it becomes the premier salad and smoothie outlet in the country, if that’s what you were willing to pay for.
When we demand better, markets deliver better. Raise a glass — perhaps a placeborita or Cos-no-politan — to the future.
