Gen Z and Millennials Are Drinking Less. But Gen X Definitely Isn’t.

Michelob something with almost zero alcohol

My son-in-law has noted that Bavaria has a number of really good NA beers. It's hard to do right, since each flavor compound has different chemical characteristics, but apparently, they've done it.

That said, I don't think that's what's going on here. Rather, it's that many young people in Gen. Z and millenial age groups--1981-2012 births--coped with the COVID lockdowns by drinking heavily, among other things, and now that we're not locked down anymore, they have other things to do. I would guess that the rise in drinking among Gen. X ( "talkin' 'bout my generation" ? ) was less simply because far more people in my generation had well established social networks that helped us weather the storm--and thus there is less "rebound" from COVID era drinking habits.

It's a lot like what happened in the Vietnam War; people were terrified because something like 20% of soldiers were using heroin there, and they figured that because heroin was so addictive, they'd bring that pathology home with them. It turned out that when they got back to ordinary family and community life, they didn't feel the stress, and therefore they didn't feel the need to use heroin anymore. Only about one of twenty Vietnam addicts remained addicts when they got home.

Moral of the story; if you're ministering to someone with substance abuse problems, take a look at the other stresses in their life. You might find that there's something that can be done to show them the way out. To use the COVID analogy, living in community can help.

(not an academic question for me, as my sister-in-law has bipolar syndrome and cirrhosis)