US Study Finds Ages 50 to 64 Drinking More Heavily While Younger Adults Cut Back on Alcohol

NEW YORK — Overall drinking among U.S. adults edged down after 2022, but people ages 50 to 64 kept drinking more — and more of them drank heavily — according to a study in Annals of Internal Medicine.

That band roughly matches Generation X. It was the only age group in the analysis in which drinking continued to rise after the first pandemic years. Adults under 40 were the only group whose rate of heavy drinking fell between 2018 and 2024.

Dr. Brian P. Lee, a hepatologist and liver-transplant specialist at Keck Medicine of USC and the study's principal investigator, said 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." "That combination is particularly concerning," he said.

The share of U.S. adults who drank any alcohol was 66 percent in 2018, rose to 69 percent in 2020 and held there in 2022. By 2024 it was 68 percent — still above the pre-pandemic mark but the first decline since 2018. Heavy drinking, defined as more than 15 drinks a week for men and more than eight for women, went from 5.1 percent of adults in 2018 to 6.1 percent in 2020. It later eased for the country as a whole. In the 50-to-64 group it rose from 5.6 percent in 2018 to 7.7 percent in 2024.

Lee said the leading theory for the pandemic bump was stress. "We saw that with 9/11; we saw that with Hurricane Katrina," he said.

David Jernigan, a Boston University professor who has studied alcohol policy for decades, said the older cohort "drank a lot in high school, and they have continued to drink a lot. Drinking patterns get set fairly early in life, and the sea change just hasn't reached that cohort."

Lee flagged the timing. Alcoholic cirrhosis often appears around age 52, and most alcohol-associated cancers occur at 50 or older, research he cited shows. "Alcohol is a poison for the body," he said.

Public-health agencies have moved away from the idea that a daily glass of red wine is protective. Jernigan said: "The health halo around alcohol has been largely discredited, and the younger generation, particularly the gen Zers, they seem to be getting that health message that alcohol is actually not good for you."

Bars feel the split. IWSR, a drinks-industry data firm, said U.S. alcohol consumption fell 5 percent in 2025 from the year before. Venues that once counted on people in their 20s and 30s after midnight are programming earlier nights and 1980s playlists.

Laura Baginski, 51, started Earlybirds Club in 2024 as a dance party for women who have obligations in the morning. Events run 6 to 10 p.m. She said upcoming dates in Boston, Berkeley, California, and Chicago sold out, as did two nights at Washington's 9:30 Club. "Going out and having a good time is really important for your mental health," she said. "Alcohol is a part of the experience for a lot of people, especially when they arrive at 6 p.m. and are feeling a little like, 'I haven't gone out dancing in so long. I think I need a little liquid courage here.'"

Andrew Bochenek, owner of The Magic Bag in suburban Detroit, said Generation X has shaped his bookings for 30 years. "You would expect that to become less and less and we would try to cycle through the new generations that are coming up," he said. "But in light of what is happening with gen Z and later millennials not drinking alcohol as much, it's made us really lean into the gen X crowds." Alcohol sales at his room are down about 25 percent since 2019. "I don't think it's a bad thing that younger adults are not drinking. I just think that for our business model and for others like us, it's really difficult to maintain that same level of operation when you don't have the income to support it."

He is adding nonalcoholic drinks to reach younger customers. Jernigan said mocktails can still margin well if priced like cocktails, and he compared bar-closure fears to smoking-ban predictions that did not empty rooms. "There are lots of ways around this," he said. "And frankly, the industries are going to have to get used to it because the trend is downward."

The medical point is narrower than the nightlife story. A national dip in any drinking is not a dip in harm if the heaviest drinkers are older and accumulating years of exposure. Lee's concern is that combination: rising heavy use in the age band already closest to cirrhosis and alcohol-linked cancer.

The paper does not assign every extra drink in that group to pandemic stress, nor does it prove bars will fail without Generation Z cocktails. It documents a fork: younger adults drinking less, midlife adults drinking more, and a hospitality trade chasing the cohort that still orders.