I think there is a big back lash against alcohol happening

[toepick]

It used to be common place to post pictures of drink but now it seems a bit taboo

More and more public figures on SM denouncing alcohol

It's become almost trendy to be alcohol free
Less of a boozing culture amongst young people

Could alcohol become a thing of the past?

When I was young it was completely acceptable and not really questioned to get wasted every weekend. Now I realise how toxic that is even if it seemed fun at times.

I have never liked alcohol.
I drank when I was kid to be on the cool kid group, but I always hated.

I despise the impact it has on society.
Walking down the street on a Sunday morning and seeing pools of vomit.
Don't like the cost to the tax payer to police people having a "fun" night out that involves drunkenness, brawling, vandalism.
I hate men who have a drink and turn nasty and hit their missus or kids and wish any woman living with that would leave as soon as she able.

I'd ban alcohol, I would have 30 years ago if I could have.

And drugs are cheaper unfortunately

I've noticed a decline in drinking and rise in young people getting weed or even other drugs, my eldest loves to gossip and some of his wee pals are taking ketamine just to sit in their bedrooms on xbox, it's frightening.

I don't drink because of my personality after a few. Such a twat I am.

Not mean, not aggressive, just so fucking ridiculous. I turn into another person.

I cringed watching Meg from motherland get trollied because my partner called Meg for months 😆

I've managed to introduce myself unwittingly to a few local criminals, a gangster from Manchester who I went and sat with on his quiet table because I was concerned he looked lonely, he was very nice and even bought me a malibu and coke but apparently he murdered people in the 70s.
I've given a severely disabled man a piggy back up stairs after getting him to do shots of jager with me, I once sat with a nice group of fellas waiting for my pals and it turned out it was most of the Arctic monkeys, once I ended up fuck knows where in a drug den and I in my infinite pissed wisdom put on music and did the dishes and had a wee hoover around whilst everyone else is snorting cocaine I'm just casually replacing the toilet roll after sending some annoyed coke dealer the 24/7 garage for cleaning supplies.
Not that I remember but I once had a dance off with a security guard to Beyonces single ladies. I've seen the video. I can't dance for absolute shit.
I also can become other peoples problem when I'm pissed, one too many and I'm very vulnerable and I have been hurt a few times when drunk, beaten up and worse trusting anyone/everyone.

I did eventually stop drinking after one heavy night I started an impromptu conga line around a pub with the worst reputation and it plays no music. Genuinely lucky everyone joined in and nobody glassed me.

My parents are absolutely horrid drunks so it became a level of rebellion being cheery when pissed.

This is a "discussion" I'm currently having with my family. I have a 14yo and at family gatherings people have started asking whether he'd like "just a small beer", which is an absolute hard no from me!

There's such a cultural narrative, that I'm sure we all grew up hearing, which is that everyone will end up drinking, so it's best to introduce it slowly and openly, in a positive social setting. My argument is that we shouldn't start from the assumption that everyone will end up drinking!

I drank heavily and dangerously as a teen (despite, or quite probably because of my family's very relaxed attitude to alcohol) and I don't drink at all any more. We all know that if alcohol were invented tomorrow there's no chance it would be legalised. I think it's really positive that more people are challenging our deeply ingrained culture of drinking.

I drink but not much. I got put off by my dad and aunty who drank too much (dad would get aggressive and aunt gossipy and push boundaries.)

Alcohol is a poison.

I will say, though, that I've read articles about how teenagers/young adults aren't drinking any more because they're so worried about making a fool of themselves and having it permanently recorded on social media. But, as a teacher, this doesn't tally with what I see!

Is it really uncommon for younger people to drink? My nephews, niece's, eldest DD, her boyfriend are all young and all enjoy drinking . Pretty much all DDs friends drink.
However they prefer drinking at home because it's cheaper than going out and I think that's certainly true for a lot of people.
My youngest DD doesn't drink at all (too young for pub anyway) as she hates the taste of any she's tried. Don't think it's anything to do with being cool.

Similar here.
Never liked the taste of most alcohol so wasn't bothered to drink.
I my 20s and 30s people found it really strange and would often try and get me to drink or ask if there was some "real" reason I wasn't drinking (like being an alcoholic).
It seemed unfathomable to a lot of people that I just didn't want to/didn't like the taste of drink.
I'm my 40s now and some people are still shocked by it 🤷🏻‍♀️

Not really noticed it

Now it seems it is taking random tablets at music festivals , at the back of pubs then complain they need to be tested for them because have no brains in their head

I remember when they had off licenses here but I also think you could still buy booze in normal shops.

Vodka also costs £30 a bottle in Norway which will curb its consumption!

That's not my experience or observation. Edit: i mean with older people drinking is still glam and cool with 40 plus.
Young people are smoking cigs and weed, vaping and taking drugs. Alcohol is too expensive at pubs and they'd rather drugs at a party, i think calories are a factor. Young people are obsessed with gym and muscles.

I agree OP. I haven't had a drink in 6 years since I was attacked by a drunk husband of a friend on a night out. I can't bear being around people who have one too many and start to lose control and as a sober person, the shift in people's behaviour until the influence of alcohol is quite alarming.
Neither of my Dc's (early 20's) are big drinkers, nor are their friends. It seems to be too expensive and they would rather have a green juice or protein shake. Drugs however, seem to be much more accepted than a generation ago.

@Lwrenn that made me laugh!

Dh and I are big drinkers - we love it, love going to the pub but we have cut back enormously for health reasons - our kids drink occasionally - they'll come to the pub with us for a beer or two but that'll be it - the odd cocktail maybe.

They don't seem to drink with their friends the same way we did - that's a good thing - although they also do that weird thing of going to the pub and sitting on their phones rather than talking to each other - what's with that?

Couple of thoughts here. You can do a few searches and you'll find that alcohol comes up in the most dangerous drugs in the world and responsible for being among the highest causes of death and fatalities. Won't quote statistics. The health problems entailed with overconsumption are well documented.

You can easily find this info. You'll also find complicity among breweries for advertising alcohol and conflating alcohol consumption with good looks, youth and financial success.

And I know here on these forums is one place where I don't need to bang on about the correlation between alcohol and domestic violence and abuse.

Next. I would never, ever condone a 'dry' society because that would be controlling and authoritarisn, and the pressures would be moralistic. Nonetheless it does seem that some countries have had a history of over doing it a bit.

I've done counselling for people with drink problems and one issue came up time and time again - and this was people who wanted to stop or cut back on their drinking yet they were under huge pressure from families and friends to drink, especially at social occasions. The person's decision to go dry was NOT respected, and they were teased and pressured. People often told me they turned up at Christmas and New Year and weddings and such, and said they were on the lime sodas, and the reaction was disbelief, and often borderline hostile. Like they were 'letting the side down' and 'being a wet blanket' and 'don't know how to have a "good time".' You can see the tribalism and social coercion here.

For the record I went teetotal 24 years ago because of my boy. Best decision of my life.

So if there is a backlash against it, fine by me. It's going against the grain right now because of 'pub culture' and whatever. When the backlash evens out I hope we have a more tolerant society.

PS. Oh yes. I was also once nearly killed in a car accident because i was a passenger in a vehicle driven by a shitfaced driver, so there's that too.

Still a lot of drinking at my dd's uni. Perhaps not as much as we did in the mid 90's but they go out a few nights a week ('pre's' first in the flat to keep the cost down).

She tells me they are anti drugs. I hope that continues.

What is worrying to me is that alcohol is being replaced by new varieties of recreational drugs. I'd rather have my kids drink beer rather than ingesting hell knows what.

Same here

I get quite cross when friends and family offer my teens alcohol. If they ask for it, I might allow them to try it, but why would anyone go out of their way to encourage it?!

I think this is true. I was in America recently in a big city and weed and vaping amongst young people was everywhere.

middle aged people like me have seen up close how damaging alcohol can be to our alcoholic boomer parents and mates. Most people I know drink but it’s pretty moderate.

the drunk lads you see on tv or at spoons watching football don’t appeal do they. Im
sure the gym lads don’t want to be captured on film like that.

Yes I remember my grandfather going to Victoria Wine to buy booze. He was no connoisseur so I assume it was not available in supermarkets?

I have definitely cut back and hardly ever drink wine at home anymore. I know lots of tee totallers now but definitely those who partake are in the majority.

I would have agreed with this a couple of years ago but recently local teens seem to be getting back into drink, quite a lot of vodka being passed around.

It's definitely becoming more acceptable to not drink though as an adult and lots of nice non alcoholic versions of mainstream drinks.

I’m decades from menopause but can’t handle more than two drinks at once. It really fucks me up these days and I’m not sure why.

Perhaps I should be grateful for a low tolerance given how bad it is for one’s health and how expensive it has become.

That alcohol and tobacco are legal whereas other drugs are illegal is largely a quirk of history, not something that is medically or scientifically justifiable.
If you go to any A&E department the effects of cheap, easily available alcohol are all around you. Ditto for cancer wards and tobacco. I had to go to A&E about 8 years ago (before waiting times had got as bad as they are now) and I naively thought A&E would be quiet at 9.30am on a Sunday morning. If only - it was full of people who had been on all night benders and were still off their heads. The patient to my right was handcuffed, flanked by two PC's and puking into a bucket as we waited. My brother in law - a long term smoker - has recently had lung surgery (in his 40's). My aunt and DP's aunt, also both smokers, both had cancer in their 50's / 60's. As a society, we hugely underestimate the cost to society of the health impact of alcohol and tobacco.
Having seen how other countries handle alcohol I think the the Norwegian/Swiss model probably works best - keep it legal, but make it prohibitively expensive, to make regular excess usage unaffordable and public drunkenness more of a taboo. For tobacco, I'm in favour of an age-related ban as was recently proposed but not implemented.