– credit, Fred Moon, Zeynep, via Unsplash
Gallop reported in August that since it began tracking the US drinking rate in 1939, it has never been lower than in 2025.
Last year, just 54% of Americans polled on average said they consumed alcohol. The question didn’t regard frequency, but basically asked: do you abstain from drinking entirely.
54% marks the third year of consecutive declines, something the Gallup survey had never seen before despite some years in which the drinking rate fell below 60%.
It follows updated recommendations that suggest any amount of alcohol may negatively affect health compared to previous decades where it was believed that small or even moderate amounts may be protective.
Leading the decline in the broader sense are women and youth. The drinking rate among women surveyed fell 11% since 2023 to just 51%, while the young adult drinking rate fell 9% over that time to 50% in 2025.
The largest percentage declines were seen in those making less than $40,000 per year, and registered Republicans, which Gallup recorded as falling 19% since 2023, or put in other words, 19% of the Republicans that were drinking in 2023 now abstain from alcohol.
For the first time in Gallup’s trend, a majority of Americans—53%—say drinking in moderation is bad for one’s health, reflecting an emerging scientific consensus driven by higher quality and more diverse datasets.
In 2018, that opinion was held by just 28% of surveyed Americans, but it’s grown substantially since then year-over-year. Among youth, 66% of respondents believe drinking is bad for your health, compared to 50% and 48% for the two higher age brackets.
Even among those who do drink, Gallup reports, alcohol consumption is falling. “40% say it has been more than a week since they last consumed alcohol, the highest percentage since 2000,” the polling agency wrote in a release on their data.
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“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.”
A 2022 population-based study of US adults found that 32.9% of the adult population has two or more conditions out of 20 common, chronic, diseases that significantly affect health and disease treatment, such as obesity, diabetes, or gut dysbiosis.
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Certain organizations like the Commonwealth Fund and the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker suggest that the US leads the world, or at least ranks among the worst-performing nations, for per-capita population with two or more chronic diseases.
Alcohol can aggravate existing chronic diseases through inflammation and gut microbiome disruptions. It may be that for the good of the nation, the nation as a whole could do with cutting back on the sauce for a few decades until we get our health house in order.
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