I heard an interview on NPR with a Napa CA winery owner and she was absolutely railing on about the "this new prohibition trend" that was hurting her business. She kept calling it the "Gen Z Prohibition Movement" and overall was pretty rude about it. It was hard to feel sorry for her.

They aren't not drinking because of health risks. Obesity rates among them are higher than among X-ers in their age. They aren't drinking because drinking is a social thing and they are asocial and stuck at home glued to their screens.

Alcohol is a poison and a Group 1 carcinogen. There is no minimum safe dose.

This is a broad trend among Gen-Z. Being healthy is the new flex. A great development in my opinion. I have yet to meet one person who gave up alcohol and regretted it.

One of the things that bothers me about this (though indirect), which I say every time these articles are posted (about alcohol and health) is that we are working with an incomplete data set. It is absolutely true that the physical effects of any alcohol use are bad for your health, the problem is that we have no way to know if the social/psychological effects of moderate drinking outweigh the negatives... there has never been a longitudinal study on the matter, which is very frustrating.

We know that people who meet with their friends once a week for dinner are happier and have better health outcomes. We know that being married increases your lifespan. What story does alcohol with its deep cultural influence and use in social settings play in health outcomes - we don't know. We just know that alcohol is a poison, a poison that humans as a species have adapted to be able to consume and process better than other animals.

Speaking without any evidence whatsoever to back it up, I could totally imagine bimodal health impacts from alcohol where one group increases their health outcomes through moderate drinking as a social lubricant decreasing stress, increasing community, increasing the likelihood of marriage, and another group increases stress, isolation, and negative health impacts through excessive drinking.

Either way it would go, I would like real, empirical, LONGITUDINAL data to direct me on how to view alcohol, as opposed to the current state of things.

I've stopped drinking 1y and half ago and will never go back on it, I save money, health and time.

I may not be going out as much as before, but I've started kickboxing instead and it turns out that people who are serious about sports do not drink, so going to the club is my new, non-alcoholic, socializing.