Gen X is drinking more as younger Americans cut back on alcohol, study finds

While younger generations are drinking less, adults aged 50 to 64 are drinking more, causing a shift reshaping the US bar scene

Alcohol consumption has decreased across the United States in recent years, particularly among adults under age 40, but there is one older demographic in which more people are drinking than before the Covid-19 pandemic – and more are doing so heavily, according to a new study.

For the first time since before the pandemic, the percentage of US adults who drink any alcohol decreased between 2022 and 2024, according to the report in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. People from 50 to 64, which roughly corresponds with gen X, were the only age group in which drinking continued to increase.

They are likely hurting their health by imbibing, according to the latest science, but they are also helping keep open bars. Such businesses have struggled as younger generations, the drivers of nightlife, move away from booze.

People in their 50s and early 60s, are those who “we were already most worried about health-related risks for alcohol” and where “we are seeing the highest increases in heavy drinking,” said Dr Brian P Lee, a hepatologist and liver transplant specialist at Keck Medicine of USC in Los Angeles and the principal investigator of the study. “That combination is particularly concerning.”