Last call
Why are so many people in so many countries around the world drinking less? Tim Naimi on the spread of sobering research about alcohol’s adverse health effects, the tightening of economic pressures, and the myth of the moderate European drinker.
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When England’s national football team lost the UEFA Euro final to Spain last July—after having lost the previous Euro final to Italy in 2020—a brawl erupted outside a pub in Solihull, a town on the outskirts of Birmingham. Dozens of men and women traded blows. It was a big, drunken mess. But spectacularly bad scenes like this, along with everyday bar fights, are becoming rarer. Across England and Wales, 65 percent of a notable decline in violence from 2014 to 2024 is on account of men from 18 to 30 not getting into as many fights as they used to. The biggest factor? Less drinking.
Alcohol is losing its grip on British youth. This year, 28 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds reported teetotaling—a 10 percent jump from 2014. The nonalcoholic beer Guinness 0.0 has become a major earner for Guinness’s parent company, Diageo. Sales of low- and no-alcohol products in the U.K. rose 47 percent last year.
The shift is global, especially among younger generations, whose alcohol consumption has dropped across most high-income countries over the last couple of decades. The number of U.S. 16- and 17-year-olds who said they’d had a drink in the past month has fallen by 58 percent since 2002. A 2023 Gallup poll found the share of adults under age 35 who say they drink dropped 10 percentage points—from 72 percent to 62 percent—since 2003.
