UKH

I understand that young people are drinking significantly less than my generation and I am wondering why.

As an example, my step-daughter turned 18 last Friday. She went out with friends and went to few bars and a club in Manchester, but only had one alcoholic drink all night.

We went out for a meal and drinks as a family in Manchester last night and she only had two alcoholic drinks, thankfully later on when I was buying drinks in the very expensive 20 Stories, she was happy to drink coke.

Don’t get me wrong, a sensible approach to alcohol and not feeling the need to get hammered is no bad thing. However, I does contrast somewhat with my experiences of being that age.

I've heard some say it's living in a world where *everything* is recorded. We probably have a few blury photos and the odd scar as hazy souvenirs of our youthful excess, these days it's on the internet before the world's stopped spinning and it'll still all be there in 40 years when they're interviewing for a top job or running in an election.

That can't be all of it, I'd have surely been too young and stupid to fully understand that back then (still am now!) but I guess higher prices, reduced pre-18 availability, changing amount of leisure time teens spend in and out of the home, availability of more specific and affordable drugs, alcohol advertising regulation, and simply rebelling against what went before all play into it too.

jk

In reply to marta5:

Young people are drinking less, I’m not generalising. There is plenty research.

I obviously just gave an example with a sample of one, it’s not meant to be conclusive proof.

Instagram vanity. No one wants a photo of themselves shit faced looking a state up on insta. 

Which whilst the end net result is no bad thing the reasoning to get there is somewhat depressing. 

Isn't it more because they've seen their parents shit-faced too many times?

I've just turned 30 and I'm currently finishing up a PhD. I've noticed that the people starting PhDs who are nearly a decade younger than me are drinking less. A few years ago, PhD social events were glorified piss ups, now they're much more prim and proper, with alcohol consumed in sensible quantities as an accompaniment to food.

I'm not sure social media is the full story. We all had facebook when I started my undergrad 12 years back, and it was awash with drunken and disgraceful photos from nights out. For sure, we had practically no understanding of the possible effects it could have in real life. But I'd have thought if that was the case, there'd be a general understanding to simply avoid taking/posting pictures later in the evening.

I wonder if the current trends of craft beer and gin have led to an appreciation of quality over quantity?

No guilty on that one hopefully. 

Pathetic isn't it? My 13 year old hates the stuff. Can't even stand the smell of it.

When I was 13 I could do a full bottle of QC Sherry down the park easily.

E

Many young professionals-in-training pass though my dept. In the last 6 years there has been a marked drop in not only the amount they drink but in the number that drink at all. The main reason given is that everything is recorded on phones and they are terrified of doing something that could jeopardise their career. There is unquestionably a herd mentality which makes not drinking socially easier (very different from my days as a student) and it is rather nice to see groups of youngsters in the pub having a laugh while drinking cups of tea rather than a gallon of ale. However, and maybe it's my NW European attitude to growing up, but I can't help thinking that living a young adulthood without an escape valve may be storing up problems for later in life.

I think part of it is that they are more aware of the detrimental affects of Alcohol now. There's so much on social media about mindfulness etc, and not harming yourself is a big part of that.

As a current undergrad, I've got some thoughts, but with the obvious caveat that this is anecdotal, with a dataset consisting of me, and the people I know at uni.

I don't buy the "it's to avoid having drunken photos on social media" argument. People I know tend to curate what they post, not just to avoid potentially compromising pictures, but also to present a more sanitised, aspirational version of themselves online. Anything less public-image-friendly can be shared using messaging apps (Snapchat and WhatsApp are commonly used for this.) ​​​​​​Part of this is because parents and other relatives are now on Facebook and Instagram, so you wouldn't post things there that you wouldn't want them to see.

The main culprits as I see them are cost and health.

Student housing is now a lucrative market, and landlords will charge what the market will bear. I will spend nearly double my student maintenance loan on rent for the next academic year, and £1 pints are a thing of the past, at least in the South West where I'm studying. Part of the rising cost of pub booze is that their rents must have increased, some of it is to do with supermarkets undercutting and taking the cheap end of the market. If you have to choose between more nights out, or a holiday, most young people will drink less to travel more.

In terms of health, I have always lived in a world where we were being told that alcohol and tobacco are harmful, and it feels like a lot of people have internalised that in a way that encourages them to moderate. I can't have drink without weighing up in my head whether or not I feel it's worth it, both for the hangover (although mine are especially bad for the amount I drink), and the risk of heart disease, liver damage, and cancer that I'm exposing myself to. I also notice a drop in my sporting performance the next day, and frequently I'd rather have a good run the next morning than a pint now.

I still drink, but I don't think I've exceeded 21 units a week more than twice a year during my degree, and probably half the time I won't drink anything in a week. I'd guess this is a little lower than the mean, but multiple nights out a week is not the norm I see.

The young people where I am seem to have a lot of anonymous, casual sex arranged through various mobile phone apps, and will openly discuss it all as a normal part of life.  I think it helps fill the void left by not getting smashed 6 nights a week.

I’ve been researching small private islands with houses on in Nova Scotia in preparation for Wintertree Jr reaching that age.  It’s the only sensible option.

"Young people’s class A drug use is up from 6.8% in 2007 to 8.4% in 2018, and the 2016 school survey reported 10% of schoolchildren had used drugs in 2014 but that rose to 15% in 2016"

Maybe they just prefer other drugs? There's a wider variety now and you could even buy synthetic substitutes of illegal drugs in shops for years until the loopholes were closed.

Must have a lot to do with cost. My local is in a student town, when I started drinking there it was £1.20 a pint for the local beer. Over the years that price has gone up and up to £3.50 a pint! For exactly the same beer. Mix that in with tuition fees skyrocketing, price of rent going up etc, the money just isn't there. 

That's really interesting. Out of curiosity, are you vegetarian or vegan?

Only in the UK could avoiding alcohol be seen as a potential cause of problems in later life

May they all find a non-harmful escape valve.

Veggie - thought I'd give it a try for a week, and that was nearly 3 years ago!

I do think there is an element of the 'I think about the impact of what I put in to my body' with both the vegetarianism and the low alcohol consumption - I hadn't really considered it much before

Too coked out their heads to bother about booze. 

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a correlation between meat consumption and alcohol consumption.

I've noticed a feeling similar to what you described in my attitude towards eating meat in the last year or two. I've found it harder to justify eating meat knowing its harmful impact on the environment and I've cut my consumption quite considerably. My hypothesis is that people a decade younger than me have been subjected to that sort of moral pressure throughout their formative years and as a result have adopted a more puritanical (for want of a better word) attitude in general. And that feeling of every decision in daily life being a moral dilemma also influences their behaviour regarding drinking.

We were talking about today's youth, not the Tory party.

Maybe many young people agree with this:

youtube.com/watch?v=jK8fAUlqbow&

Seems to be far less socially acceptable to engage in what would once have passed as drunken antics. Real world connotations, be that for future employment or social ostracism.

Rebellion against the previous generation is probably part of it. They're probably listening to shit music to spite us.

Could always be less advertising too.

A study involving nearly 10,000 young people in the UK found that the proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds who say they never drink alcohol rose from 18% in 2005 to 29% in 2015. The study also found that young people who did drink alcohol were drinking less nowadays and that binge drinking rates were falling.

The researchers said the drop in numbers of young people drinking suggested a shift in attitudes towards alcohol. They say this could be due to increased awareness of the health risks of alcohol, as well as changes in the way young people spend their leisure time.

The researchers observed a decrease in drinking in most groups of young people, including those in employment, in education, and with generally healthy lifestyles, and across all income groups.

However, there was no decrease among smokers, some ethnic groups and people with poor mental health. This may indicate a need to reach out with more support to certain groups.

Current UK guidelines advise men and women to drink no more than 14 units of alcohol a week; equivalent to 6 pints of average-strength beer or 10 small glasses of low-strength wine.

The researchers who carried out the study were from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London.

All of the above but also the generation who graduated in the late 70s and early 80s were the children of the last of the heavy industrial drinkers who would stop on their way home from work and slake a genuine thirst (no obesssion with hydrating in those days) by necking a dozen pints of McEwan's Best Scotch or Double Diamond then staggering the last few hundred yards home on foot. Clumps of nitrate-loving nettles along towpaths and footpaths testify to several centuries of this working men's culture. 

Nowadays there are too few pubs and people need to drive to work, booze is too expensive and we are better educated about habitual heavy drinking. 

I remember going into a big pub in Newcastle in about 1974 where there was a full-size upstairs room dedicated to shifting as much beer as possible in  as short a time as possible. There were bell pushes around the room and when you pushed, a waiter in a white jacket would appear, take your order then reappear with a tray laden with pints, which would be consumed with gusto, anybody who flagged would be derided and there was a real atmosphere of menace, which is where the old cliche about never looking at another bloke's pint came from.  Brewers like the Holt family of Manchester became fabulously weathy by supplying this culture to the extent that they had to give away some of their wealth by funding cancer research. Their 144-odd pubs are nowadays mostly deserted and they can only be hanging on by virtue of the fact that they own all the buildings outright.

I know of a guy in his 60's (at a guess) who's friends used to call him the coca-cola kid, because he used to drink that or hardly much alcohol at all, and has never smoked, and to look at him and his 'larger than life' working class Geordie personality it could seem a surprise, and he used to talk about all of the people who took the mickey now all being dead because of the drinking (and smoking) habits they used to enjoy. 

I think its a combination of getting hammered of a weekend going out of fashion and becoming less socially acceptable and a healthy lifestyle being promoted/talked about with more vigour.

Alongside the the widespread use of cocaine and other recreational drugs.

Im 30, and up until a wedding last weekend i hadn't been properly drunk in years, haven't been out on a weekend since my early 20's and very rarely drink at all.

This I can well believe. My late teens to late 20s were spent on council estates hanging out with the un employed poor folk. I just hot back from a funeral of a good friend from back then who I lost touch with about 15 years ago. Roy died of COPD complications at 74 whilst enjoying a fag in his living room. There were about 30 people at the funeral and everyone except myself and his 9 year old granddaughter lit up walking out of the crem. This included his 14 year old grandson. 

The students i speak to suggest that drug use is the new booze. Apparently the dealers drive onto campus in tidy cars and wait for customers from the halls.

I don't remember this being such a common place thing when I was in uni in the early 2000s, but maybe I just didn't move in them circles. 

I might have been tempted to say something like 'It's nice to keep my lungs clear' to the 9 year old if I could have done subtly without it seeming judgemental to the other people.  That's really sad that the 14 year old has started already, if that's him set for life. I'm thankful all the time that my parents helped me to quit at 18 after 2ish years as a smoker, I've apparently passed the age at which my cancer risk is back to normal more or less (I read it takes 18 years). 

When my Mrs was growing up in the arse end of rural North Wales, the underage teens drink of choice was sherry and Benylin slammers. 

Kids today. No sense of adventure.

I'll give some credence to that one - delivery of drugs via text or WhatsApp is pretty standard, as it means the dealer isn't sat in one place for the police to find on a patrol.

The stats further up referencing increased drug usage don't seem unlikely, although it's worth remembering two key points - between 2007 and 2016 police funding and border force funding dropped dramatically due to austerity (i.e. don't just blame 'the youth', it's a complex societal problem with not enough resources being allocated to it), and more drugs got added to class A, so the same drug use shows up differently in the two years.

Totally agree.  My son was eighteen on Saturday, we went for a meal in Manchester then the Halle Last Night of The Proms.  He had NOWT to drink!!  He does drink at weekends etc, but very (boringly) sensible about it.

Presumably it's the same reason they can't get on the property ladder, they're spending all their money on smashed avocado on toast and posh coffee.

I’d like to say it’s because they’ve all had a good read of David Nutt’s “Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse”

If I'd had mashed avocado when I was younger perhaps I'd have drunk less over the years!

I work in alcohol research and the short answer is that nobody knows why young people are drinking less. But the same thing is happening in most high income countries, so any explanation that relies on specific conditions in the UK doesn’t really work.

A lot of people suggest substitution to drugs, but cannabis usage has been falling too. It is, unsurprisingly, hard to get decent figures on usage of harder drugs in young people, and recorded levels are low so any trends are hard to distinguish from sampling error/statistical noise.

There’s a really nice report online from a few years ago that sets out the main theories and some of the evidence for/against them:

http://www.ias.org.uk/uploads/pdf/IAS%20reports/rp22072016.pdf

Having 2 daughters aged 19 and 23 gives a narrow perspective. It’s just viewed as an out of date habit enjoyed by the older generation. There are plenty of other things to spend  money on which were not available to us. 

Despite some posters comments on here about drugs, drug use is generally frowned on.

its social peer pressure that’s driving it down.

Linked at all to smart phones/social media? 

In the pre tech days (my generation) used to use the park, street corner etc for our socialising (drinking, smoking, sorting out the social pecking order etc) with the occasional run in with ‘older lads’ (getting chased normally).

Has a different outlet to gain an awareness of the ‘self’ (online) reduced to need to aimlessly (physically) meet up so much to get the social connections/cues we once did? 

Just bar room psychology but may have its merits? 

I wonder if, among other factors, that the lack of this influence in the young lives of today's youth has led to being less 'in touch' with alcohol in the formative years and drinking seeming less normalised. I remember when I was in single digit ages still, it wasn't uncommon for my dad to come back from the pub ten pints worse for wear on what seemed a weekly basis, but this became much less frequent and eventually unheard of by the time I was at secondary school.

I was a teen in the 2000s and drinking was massive among my friends from the age of about 15. I didn't notice drug use until I went to a vastly better school in a vastly more wealthy part of Newcastle for 6th form, where most of my friends smoked huge quantities of weed. And nothing harder until university, where everytime I went out everyone seemed to be on pills.

I've also climbed with a different university's climbing club for the past few years. The impression I got from hanging out with them was that everyone these days gets smashed on a regular basis - but drug use is uncommon at best, and seems virtually unheard of beyond smoking weed. I assumed that was representative of the wider youth population and assumed that drinking was still a big thing but drugs were becoming less acceptable.

For me personally, age 30, the enjoyment is too little and the hangovers too great to justify going out and getting wasted. It's just not fun beyond a few pints in the pub after work or on a climbing trip.

Out of interest, what field is the PhD in? I'm just finishing up mine in Chemistry, and there is a pretty strong drinking culture in the department (the Christmas meal, for example, invariably involves everyone getting totally and utterly hammered). I've kind of wondered for some time whether this is a kind of acknowledgement among those of us that do synthetic work that we are getting exposure to far nastier things than alcohol on a daily basis in the lab, and so shouldn't worry about a few drinks (also the main reason I don't plan on doing lab work in the future if I can avoid it). That said, my girlfriend is a physics PhD student and her colleagues get wasted pretty much every Friday after work, so maybe I'm wrong. Interested to know anyway.

Having been working in the Alps with Uni groups over the last 5 years, I would say that drinking hasn't gone out of favour with them. Those that wanted to drink, did so and had plenty of it. But they generally were a bit more sensible about it, with a number of them only having a couple of beers, so that they could do more kayaking the following day.

Only a bit more sensible mind, as one group managed to have a student break her leg in three places, due to drunken 'play' fighting!

Perhaps it's worth flipping this question around. Why did/do older generations drink so much?

My last Post Doc, 20 years ago,  was at the Lab Louis Neel in Grenoble, France, and in that time there were many PhD defences followed by a party. All were very civilised, with no-one getting hammered. 

Very interesting thread this, but not fully supported by evidence, viz. recent headlines about record drug related deaths in Scotland. (Differences with England probably about more dangerous supply rather than different consumption behaviours).

Anecdotally certainly seems a different attitude to alcohol amongst the younger generation but my stepsons do a great job of drinking almost nothing in our company but still having occasional blow outs with their mates. Much les central to their social lives, though.

Its okay, those of us in the UK at the time were making up for it.  Whilst getting more citations per  researcher and per unit of funding. (*)  I suppose you could argue your lot were getting circa 8x the citations per unit of alcohol...

(*) not that that means half as much as the makers of league tables want you to think.

HaHa! I prefer the French way.

Regularly getting wasted or having a reputation for being able to drink lots isn't 'cool' any more.

There's nothing more boring than conversations revolving around the completely unimpressive feat of having a few drinks - something the older generation do constantly.

Being 'laddish' is out of fashion. Booze isn't an excuse for acting out any longer. 

I don't buy the instagram vanity thing. I do think it's more that we're hyper aware of what other people our own age are achieving, and can achieve, and it's easy to see that drinking probably won't help you get there. 

..... recent headlines about record drug related deaths in Scotland.......

I read, (and am happy to be corrected) that most of the increase in drug deaths relates to older, lifelong heroin addicts. Their destroyed bodies succumbing to one last overdose, particularly as fentanyl is becoming more common. 

Drug use by the young is steady (i accept there is a small rise) . 

Excellent post. There is nothing to be proud of in saying that getting wasted is great fun. 

There are far better things to do in life. 

Nail.head. But not just that, the internet in general. People have more opportunity to waste time online from the comfort of their home than they used to. They can socialise, they can date, they can play games; all things which were often done in the pub. Buying an £800+ phone or £40+ per month phone contract takes a lot out of a socialising budget.  Add to that the need/want to drive the next day and that takes some people out of drinking.  There's definitely a lack of desire / ability in younger people to make their own fun or simply get off their arse and do something too. Going out on the razzle requires effort - getting dressed up, arranging transport out and back, earning money to pay for it in the first place. Lots of people simply can't be bothered when they can plant themselves in front of the internet or Netflix. With the internet and on-demand TV there's ALWAYS something you want to look at. Back in the day if you didn't like what was on telly there simply wasn't an alternative other than a book or the pub.

I'm 40 and I only drink a glass of Champaz Xmas day and some Baileys New Year's Eve. 

I think it must vary from area to area.  I’m on a Scottish island and drinking to excess still features large in the lives of way too many people 

I recall an academic drinking culture where everyone got smashed after meetings and Friday at the pub from midday was the norm.  This was lead by the senior profs who were all serious drinkers and they were capable of drinking all the youth under the table with apparently no need for sleep.  That was twenty years ago and had been the norm forever. 

Nowadays it's all change, you don't find the senior profs in the bar leading a heavy liver bashing session, they are all in the gym trying to eek out immortality on the machines or keep trim for their ultra attempt next week. They are more likely to be slamming back the veg smoothies or vegan protein drinks than a good malt (beer being too wet to get enough alcohol in fast enough).

The younger regular drinkers I know are more concerned with careful appreciation of craft ale (some of it extremely strong) than being pissed.  It's the residual middle aged / middle class left from the post-Tatch era that seem to have serious drinking habits (and problems) downing serious volumes of mid grade red wine and seemingly oblivious to their alcoholic status, much as it has every been.

Interesting topic, and having three lads going through secondary and higher education in a supposedly posh (it's not, if you scratch beneath the cliche) rural area, drugs and alcohol are ubiquitous. Acid and ket and copious quantities of vodka among the a-level age, occasional skunk for gcses. It's quite depressing. But smoking is fairly uncommon. I'd add that they all seem very clued-up about the effects and risks. Perhaps it's a classic case of having nothing to do out here. Hopefully they'll grow out of it - I see signs of that among kids just approaching uni. So I'm afraid I don't recognise the trend. 

If they are smoking Skunk at such a young age, whether or not they grow out of it, is irrelevant. The damage will already be done.

It's the fault of Love Island - bronzed bodies - having an I-phone, tablet, wireless headphones etc - Fast Fashion - an audi A3 - standing around taking selfies and posting them on Instagram, then liking each others posts. 

The sad thing is that it isn't only young people that can be described like this. I encounter people in their 30s, 40s and even 50s who are more interested in demonstrating to the world what they have and how superior they are, rather than enjoying life, friends family and the moment. 

You don't need alcohol to have a good time, but it does encourage comradery and social bonding - Things that are of no interest to a narcissistic sociopaths.

Bit harsh?  

Agree with you about querying the value of documenting your life rather than enjoying it in the moment - although there's a difference between doing it to show off (validation by others) as opposed to the satisfaction of collecting an album of memories through photos or writing a blog that can share good memories or remind yourself of them. I feel the difference between taking my camera somewhere (even without selfies, I don't do those) and being there without camera. Thinking about framing a picture takes one mentally out of the place, to some extent - but it takes you into the interesting place of trying to achieve something well.

On this I disagree apart from on the very superficial level that alcohol is known to lower inhibitions.

I have never bonded with the people I've drunk alcohol with. The people I've bonded with have been those I've climbed with, paddled with, undertaken mental (or physical) challenges with - all of these are activities not helped by alcohol.

There are many and varied reasons not to drink alcohol - being the designated driver, medical intolerances, not liking the taste, not liking the loss of control. When you're the only sober person in a party determined to get drunk, the value of alcohol-induced "camaraderie" and "bonding" seems more dubious.

If you're drinking alcohol for the taste, that's a different thing - you're less likely to get drunk, and in that case you should have less objection if others in the party drink non-alcoholic drinks that they enjoy the taste of.

The readiness to suspect someone of being narcissistic, selfish or just plain unsociable because they don't drink alcohol strikes me as one of the sadder aspects of British culture (I wonder, is it on the list of "British values" foreigners are supposed to learn?) and the sooner it fades away the better.

Yeah, I put a stop to that one early. Brain-rot for teens. 

Isn't price a factor deterring young people from getting hammered in pubs?

When I started going to pubs (around 1992 in London) a pint of lager was £1.60 (we used to drink Poachers for 99p a pint) while a can of Red Stripe was about 90p.

Now a pint of lager is well over a fiver, but a can is still only £1.20 or so.

So, the cost of drinking in a pub is considerably more expensive relative to drinking off premises.  

Addiction to computer games is as worrying as addiction to alcohol or drugs. There are already stories of young people developing physical symptoms such as flabby enlarged bladders and spurs of bone on the back of the skull pulled down by muscles supporting the head in a down-looking posture. Whether these are true or not remains to be seen but R4 reported this morning that increasing numbers of adolescents are being sent to the Netherlands for treatment for gaming addicition, since no treatment is available in Britain. Could gaming be the next social scourge?

It's my belief that increasing numbers of younger drivers actually drive in the same way as they do in Grand Theft Auto, not understanding that the laws of physics are suspended in computer games.

It all just depends on the person. Maybe she's just not a heavy drinker! I wasn't when I was her age either. Now, however, I can't put the Prosecco down, but that's another story.

I have a nephew who's just turned 18 and he's out every weekend getting 'hammered'.

Not my experience

My sons are 22 and 21 and our house has been used for pre's for a number of years. The amount they put away is astonishing. 

Last week one went to Boomtown festival and 2 of them took their alcohol in on a sack barrow, Pretty normal I think. 

I guess it just depends where you are looking. Drinking in bars is reducing for youngsters like your step daughter because of the high cost

Good point! You don't need any dutch courage to "swipe right" *

Also as somebody else pointed out, cocaine is so cheap these days..a gram of decent gear costs the same as a round of drinks, also far more choice of drugs, and it all costs peanuts.

or £6 for a pint of average lager....

* assuming that is what you do on Tinder etc... 

It doesn't cost that much. Even in London.

It does where I work...in central London (admittedly not the hang outs of 17/18 year olds) but I think the point still stands. ... even if you say £5 (which is what it costs in my rural local) then the cost is still comparable with class A drugs

I reckon on £5 a pint in London, and most of the time I'm pleased to find a round costs slightly less than what I'd reckoned on.

Of course, for £5 you could get properly off your face on E or acid. If that's your sort of thing, it's...somewhat better value.

€7.49 for 20 x 0.5l bottles of German-brewed 5.2% last week. Europe's great

I was thinking maybe £4.40 to 4.80 a pint.

About the same as in Edinburgh city centre.

...and I remember people complaining when it reached £1 a pint....

Not all of Europe. Euros19 for 12 500ml cans of draught Guinness in Tesco's Eire. A lot more elsewhere.

As you know, I’m not in London. £3.50 a pint is about average locally, although £2 a pint is still possible.

Of course, go out in Manchester and many places you can get near to London prices and she does seem to like to go to the expensive place, but just have one drink, rather than the 5 that I would have had (in the cheap dive around the corner).

The thing is though, she isn’t even a big drinker when I’m paying.

"The thing is though, she isn’t even a big drinker when I’m paying."

Maybe you are so irresistible she doesn't trust herself to be drunk around you