1st BATCH OF FILES AVAILABLE NOW!

For years, around half of American adults believed that consuming one to two drinks per day "makes no difference" to health, roughly aligning with current US government guidance. Between 2001 and 2011, the rest of the population was fairly evenly split, responses to an annual poll from Gallup show: about a quarter of adults saw "moderate drinking," as pollsters called the practice, as "good" or "bad for health." In 2015-2018, the gap widened slightly, with fewer folks feeling like a little bit of drinking was actively "good" for you. But by 2023, something shifted. Just 10% of adults said moderate drinking is "good", while 40% believed that it's bad. In the last two years, feelings flipped further. Now over half of adults age 18+ think one to two drinks per day is "bad for health," Gallup reported this week, while just 37% think it "makes no difference." The finding that 53% of adults age 18+ feel this way came alongside a continued decline in self-reported consumption, which fell to 54% this year. That's the lowest level Gallup has tracked since it started asking Americans if they "have occasion to use alcoholic beverages" in 1939. Results showed other signs that Americans moderated their consumption in the past year, too. And they follow widespread messaging about alcohol's impact on health, often claiming "new evidence" that harm begins earlier than previously thought. Results of the Gallup poll released this week confirm that such claims have taken hold, regardless of how shaky their foundations may be.Shifting Views by Age Group Young adults, aged 18-34 are considerably more likely than older adults to believe moderate drinking is "bad for health." In 2018, about one third of the age group felt this way, compared to only about a quarter of both 35-54 year olds and 55+ adults. The prevalence of this attitude passed the 50% mark among young adults by 2023 and jumped to about two-thirds in 2024, where it held this year. Older adults, aged 55+ remained least likely to accept this view. But 48% of this age group reported feeling this way in 2025, up almost 20 points in just two years. Half of 35-54 year olds believe moderate drinking is "bad for health" now, up from less than 40% in 2023.Negative Attitude Linked to More Moderation In its own writeup, Gallup linked responses to questions about consumption and feelings about alcohol's impact on health. However, "adults who think moderate drinking is bad for one's health are just as likely as all others to report they drink alcohol," the company explained. In fact, 55% of folks who believe 1-2 drinks per day is bad for them still consume alcohol. Yet, instead of abstaining altogether, those folks are more likely to report having fewer or no drinks in the past week.Increased Abstinence Among Women, High/Low-Income, Republicans But again, abstinence did become more prevalent, too. A couple years ago, women were as likely as men to say that they drink. But in the past couple of years, results returned to a gender split seen earlier: 57% of men say they drink compared to 51% of women. Gallup identified larger changes among individuals from low-income households (less than $40,000 per year) as well as high-income households (over $100,000), though the latter are still far more likely to drink than the former (66% vs 39%).Among the more surprising shifts showed up along political party lines. In recent years, politics mattered little for alcohol consumption. Republicans were as likely as Democrats to drink even just two years ago. But that changed dramatically (though results could be skewed by a relatively small sample or other response biases). Fewer than half of Republican respondents (46%) said they drink, down 19 points in two years, compared to 61% of Democrats, a figure that barely budged. For years, left-leaning papers like the NY Times and Washington Post have been far more likely to publish articles claiming that harm begins at lower levels of alcohol consumption. But such stories became more widespread recently. It appears that this broader audience is more likely to believe them. Can those views be reversed just as quickly?

Concern That Alcohol "Bad for Health" Rising Among US Adults, Gallup Sez

Publishing Info