A new Gallup report reveals that only 54% of American adults reporting drinking alcohol in 2025. Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
The percentage of Americans who report drinking alcohol has hit a nearly 90-year low, according to a recent Gallup poll.
The results of Gallup’s annual Consumption Habits survey, released Wednesday, revealed that only 54% of U.S. adults reported drinking alcohol in 2025. This figure represents a three-year decline from 67% in 2022, and falls below the previous record low of 55% in 1958.
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Another record low from the 2025 poll: Only 24% of drinkers said they had a drink in the past 24 hours, down from 32% two years ago.
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Gallup’s survey of roughly 1,000 U.S. residents, which the company has conducted since 1939, was consistent with other reports on declining alcohol consumption and sales. While there are many contributing factors to the slump — cause for deep concern within California’s $55 billion wine industry — Gallup’s data largely points to the shift in how Americans view alcohol’s effects on health. For the first time since 2001, a majority of Americans surveyed — 53%, up from 45% in 2024 — said they believe drinking in moderation, defined as one or two drinks a day, is bad for their health. In 2018, just 28% of Americans surveyed believed alcohol had negative health impacts.
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Perception has changed drastically since the 1990s, when a “60 Minutes” episode about the French Paradox — the belief that a stereotypical French diet heavy on butter, cheese and wine lowers the risk of heart disease — launched a decades-long wine boom. Gallup added questions about beliefs on alcohol’s impact on health in 2001: Through 2011, the percentage of people who believed alcohol was bad for them “hovered near 25%,” states the Gallup report, “roughly equal to those who considered drinking beneficial.”
Yet since then, “the medical research has turned,” said Gallup expert Lydia Saad, who authored the report. Today, only 6% of respondents said they believe alcohol is good for one’s health, another survey low. The shift has occurred as new studies have called the French Paradox hypothesis into question, offering evidence that alcohol has negative impacts on health and can even increase the risk of several types of cancer. In 2023, the World Health Organization declared that no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health, and earlier this year, the U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory that stated alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in America. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines could follow suit this year with a potential change to its recommendation on alcohol consumption. The Gallup report likens alcohol’s decline to tobacco’s in the 1960s after the U.S. surgeon general’s warnings, which “marked the start of a long-term decline in smoking.”
“We’re seeing how quickly Americans have absorbed the information that drinking is likely bad for your health,” said Saad. “The more these findings are reinforced by health authorities, doctors, the federal government, the more likely it is that people who have resisted thus far in believing alcohol is bad for their health may change their minds.”
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Moreover, Saad said that while “people who say drinking is bad for your health are still drinking,” the data reveals that many are cutting back. The average number of drinks consumed over the past seven days is 2.8, down from 3.8 drinks a year ago and the lowest figure since 1996. Forty percent of drinkers said it had been a week since they last consumed alcohol — a 25-year high. Those concerned about alcohol’s health effects are having fewer drinks on average than those who aren’t, the data shows.
Read on for other key takeaways from Gallup’s report on alcohol consumption.
Consumption decline demographics
The report embodies one of the wine industry’s greatest challenges: recruiting Millennials and Generation Z. According to Gallup, young adults ages 18-35 have become progressively less likely to drink over the past two decades, but that trend has recently accelerated. Only 50% of young adults reported drinking alcohol in 2025, down from 59% in 2023 and 72% in the early aughts. Young adult consumption has remained steady over the past year, however; the views around alcohol’s impacts on health are strongest among young adults. Sixty-six percent believe moderate drinking is harmful, according to the survey.
“If young people are conditioned to think a glass of wine is bad for their health, that can affect lifetime consumption,” said wine publicist Gino Colangelo, “which is very risky for the wine world.”
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The decline in drinking is also pronounced among women and white adults (both down 11 percentage points since 2023), the report states, plus Republicans (down 19 percentage points in two years to 46%).
Wine takes a back seat to beer, again
Beer is the beverage of choice for Americans, which has been the case for almost the entirety of the survey’s history. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they preferred beer compared to liquor (30%) and wine (29%). Young adults are the least likely to drink wine, the report states, and women (44%) are significantly more likely than men (14%) to choose wine.
This report partially conflicts with California alcohol consumption trends per state tax data. While wine consumption hit a 30-year low in the 2024 fiscal year, beer consumption dropped to its lowest rate since 1965. Spirits, on the other hand, reached a high since the mid-’80s, largely driven by the growth of the “ready to drink” category, which includes canned cocktails like High Noon.
Other contributors to alcohol’s struggles
The Gallup data shows that the economic downturn could also be a factor in declining consumption. Drinking among adults with an annual household income under $40,000 has dropped 14 percentage points to 39% in two years; whereas drinking in households making $40,000-$100,000 a year saw just a 4 percentage point decline to 54%. Drinking among households making over $100,000 a year declined 13 points to 66%. The latter “could be partially financial,” Saad said, “but it could also be (due to a) greater awareness of health risks because income and education are correlated.”
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