Drinking – like everything else – divides Americans in 2025. Younger Americans are drinking less and less, while older Americans are drinking more and more, according to one Gallup poll.
Just 62% of adults under the age of 35 reported regularly drinking alcohol in 2023, compared to 72% in 2003. By contrast, 59% of adults over the age of 55 said they were regular drinkers in 2023. In 2003, only 49% of older adults gave the same answer.
People between the ages of 35 and 54 had a less significant shift – in twenty years, the number of middle aged adults who regularly drink alcohol increased from 67% to 69%.
While such a significant shift cannot be attributed to one factor, Gallup’s analysis noted that the increasing diversity in the United States could play a role. People of color are significantly less likely to report drinking alcohol than their white counterparts. Sixty-six percent of white young adults reported drinking, compared to 57% of non-white young adults, according to the same Gallup poll.
In addition to people who don’t drink at all, many younger Americans are “sober curious” and experiment with taking breaks from drinking. Last year, 35% of people in the 21 to 24-year-old age bracket successfully participated in Dry January, according to a survey from CivicScience.
Celebrities, like actor Tom Holland and model Bella Hadid, have started popular non-alcoholic beverage brands and spoken openly about cutting back on drinking.
“I couldn’t quite wrap my head around how much I was struggling without booze in that first month — and it really scared me,” Holland told the Rich Roll podcast, of his experience with Dry January. After a month without drinking, the actor decided to continue abstaining until he was confident that he didn’t have a drinking problem.
“I got through March. and started to feel a little bit better, but was still really struggling. So I said to myself, ‘If I can make it to June 1st, which is my birthday, and I can do six months without booze, I will have then proved to myself that I don’t have a problem. I’m just young and enjoying a drink.”
After a year, however, Holland swore off drinking altogether – and created the non-alcoholic beer company Beero.
The ignition interlock device company Smart Start recently sponsored a study analyzing the best cities in the U.S. for sober living. The analysis was based on data including the percentage of residents identifying as non-drinkers, the average number of sober events per month per 100,000 residents, and the percentage of residents binge drinking in the past 30 days.
Click through to see the 5 most sober friendly cities in America.
