Why Are People Drinking Less?

Are people becoming more obedient to warnings around alcohol or is culture changing?

As someone who stopped drinking in 2015, this is the shift I’ve noticed since I first started questioning alcohol.....

2009 ~ Beck’s Blue starts showing up in pubs & bars as an alternative to alcohol. Still niche but Low & No started to find a place in nightlife.

2013 ~ Dry Jan launches and gives people a structured way to try a month without alcohol. While niche… later on it becomes a household name.

2015 ~ Instagram goes mainstream. The influencer is born and lifestyles become something people can share at scale. The aesthetic era begins.

2016 ~ Fitness is aspirational. The selfie and brands like Gymshark shape a new lifestyle identity and hungover isn’t as shareable as morning yoga.

2017 ~ More Low & No brands enter the market and alcohol-free become increasingly visible.

2018 ~ ‘Sober Curious’ arrives through Ruby Warrington giving people a new way to talk about not drinking with less stigma. Language around alcohol was changing with this growing wellness culture.

2020 ~ Short form video takes off. TikTok makes creating & consuming content easier and more accessible. People could hear peer-to-peer from those who had stopped drinking instead of just top-down warnings.

2021 ~ After the pandemic third spaces make a comeback as people crave IRL connection. Run clubs, wild swimming, coffee shops and hiking take off. Wellness continues to grow as more pubs & clubs close.

While Facebook largely mirrored nightlife identity, Instagram & TikTok made different ways of living visible, accessible & attractive. 

They showed what people were doing instead of drinking and for some people not drinking stopped looking like missing out. 

This matters for alcohol prevention because for decades the cultural influence was so closely tied to drinking culture.

TV, films, music, celebs & advertising reinforced the script where drinking was the focus of socialising and then people recreated that culture around them.

But for millennials that has changed because the monoculture has moved on.

We’ve gone from a largely top-down culture where celebs, legacy media & brands shaped what was aspirational and largely gatekept who got to influence culture to one where anyone can become a cultural voice.

Instead of just seeing what celebs were doing we started seeing what our peers were doing.

Gen Z have grown up with that as the norm and they’re drinking less than previous generations. Is that a coincidence?