Alcohol has been Europe’s social lubricant of choice for centuries. From Scottish whisky to French wine and German beer, the continent’s identity is fermented into its very culture. Of the ten countries with the highest alcohol consumption globally, nine are in the European Union. Adults in the WHO European Region knock back an average of 9.2 litres of pure alcohol annually—making them the planet’s heaviest drinkers. Slowly, however, this is changing. Europe is sobering up.
According to WHO data, per capita consumption across the continent has fallen by nearly a quarter over four decades—from 12.7 litres of pure alcohol in 1980 to 9.8 litres in 2020. Ireland and Lithuania have led the way, each cutting consumption by over two litres in just a decade. Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and Finland have followed suit with reductions exceeding 15 per cent. Even France, where casual wine drinking begins almost at birth, has seen meaningful declines.
The trend is not uniform. Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland have bucked it, with consumption rising. But the overall trajectory is unmistakable. Europe’s relationship with alcohol is being deliberately, if gradually, renegotiated.
The young and the restless
If this were merely ageing populations drinking less, it would be unremarkable. But the driving force is generational. Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, are reshaping drinking culture in ways their beer-swilling parents never imagined. A French study found that the proportion of 17-year-olds who have never consumed alcohol has multiplied from less than five per cent in 2002 to nearly 20 per cent in 2022. In Britain, more than a quarter of those aged 16 to 25 describe themselves as teetotallers, compared with just 15 per cent of those over 55.
Health is one reason, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic. Mental health awareness has risen—and Gen Z, who experience higher rates of anxiety and depression than prior generations, are more likely to seek treatment. Many see alcohol as counterproductive to their mental health goals. Others cite the omnipresent smartphone camera: getting embarrassingly drunk is rather less appealing when the evidence will instantly be circulated on social media.
Economics plays a role too. Europe’s young have endured years of inflation, stagnant wages and housing unaffordability. Research from Savanta suggests that financial pressures have accelerated an existing generational shift in attitudes toward alcohol. Put simply: when you cannot afford to buy a house, a round of overpriced cocktails becomes harder to justify.
America, that other great drinking nation, is experiencing something similar but even more pronounced. Gallup’s 2025 survey found that just 54 per cent of American adults now drink alcohol—the lowest figure in nearly 90 years of tracking. Among those under 35, the drop has been precipitous, falling from 72 per cent two decades ago to 50 per cent today. For the first time, a majority of Americans believe that even moderate drinking—one or two glasses a day—is bad for health.
From stigma to status
Perhaps the most striking shift is cultural. Not long ago, ordering a soft drink or coffee in a pub was a social peculiarity. The only adults who did not drink, the assumption went, were recovering alcoholics, designated drivers, or those abstaining for religious reasons. Whatever the personal motivation might have been, not drinking required an explanation.
No longer. The ‘sober curious’ movement, a term coined by author Ruby Warrington in 2018, has made abstinence not merely acceptable but aspirational. Dry bars—establishments serving exclusively non-alcoholic drinks—are proliferating. Mocktails appear on restaurant menus without apology. Even the language has shifted: drinks are now marketed as ‘alcohol-free’ rather than ‘non-alcoholic’, a subtle but meaningful reframing from absence to choice.
The market has noticed. The EU’s low and no-alcohol beverage market grew from 7.5 billion euros in 2021 to nearly nine billion euros in 2023—a rise of 17 per cent in just two years. Non-alcoholic beverage launches in Europe are growing five times faster than alcoholic ones. Heineken 0.0, Guinness Zero and their ilk now rank among the trendiest drinks for young consumers. The global non-alcoholic spirits market, valued at 336 million euros in 2024, is projected to nearly double by 2032, with Europe commanding 45 per cent of sales.
The bill comes due
The economic implications of declining consumption are substantial—and largely positive. Alcohol’s costs to European society are staggering. The WHO estimates that alcohol-related harm costs high-income countries around 2.6 per cent of GDP annually through healthcare expenses, lost productivity and criminal justice burdens. Applied to the EU’s projected 2025 GDP, that translates to roughly 520 billion euros per year.
Alcohol causes some 800,000 deaths annually in the WHO European Region, nearly one in four among young Europeans. It is a leading risk factor for cancer, cardiovascular disease and liver cirrhosis. Every percentage point reduction in consumption means fewer hospital admissions, fewer road deaths, fewer workplace accidents. Health systems straining under demographic pressures could scarcely wish for a more cost-effective intervention than a population that simply drinks less.
There is, admittedly, a counter-argument from those who mourn the decline of social drinking. Alcohol has historically served as a social adhesive, facilitating everything from revolutionary plotting in colonial American taverns to awkward first dates. In an age of loneliness epidemics and declining in-person socialisation, some worry that removing this social lubricant will only accelerate atomisation. Run clubs and book groups are fine, but they have yet to produce anything as consequential as the Boston Tea Party.
Yet this concern may be overblown. Gen Z are not abandoning socialisation; they are reinventing it. Recent data from IWSR suggests that young legal-drinking-age consumers are actually re-engaging with alcohol after pandemic-era lows, just in more measured ways. They are drinking less, yes, but drinking better—favouring quality over quantity, experiences over oblivion. The industry calls this ‘premiumisation’. The rest of us might call it growing up.
The transformation is neither complete nor irreversible. Pendulums swing; cultural shifts can be temporary. Currently, however, the trend lines point in one direction. Europe, the continent that invented the wine region and the beer garden, that gave the world whisky and schnapps and pastis, is learning that conviviality need not come in a bottle.
Photo: Dreamstime.
