Americans Are Sobering Up at Record Rates — And It’s Creating Surprising Winners in the Vice Market

America has finally realized that hangovers are bad for productivity — a revelation somehow more surprising than decades of medical research saying the same. The nation’s drinking rate fell to a near 90-year low of 54% in July 2025, as people embrace what doctors have long warned: alcohol isn’t the health tonic many hoped for when they traded beer for wine just because it seemed classier.

The sobering reality: Young adults aged 18-34 now drink at a 50% rate, putting them behind older generations for the first time — a sharp reversal from when they led alcohol consumption. This shift comes as 53% of Americans believe moderate drinking harms health, up from 28% in 2018, and as overall consumption continues to fall. The booze business is feeling the squeeze on two fronts:

• In the US, among those who still drink, averages have dropped to 2.8 weekly beverages from 3.8 last year, with only 24% saying they had alcohol in the past day.
• Whereas overseas, Canada’s retaliatory boycott over Trump-era trade disputes has sent US spirits exports down 62% and wine down 67%.

The Vice Stock Revolution

America’s sobriety surge is reshaping the landscape of traditional sin investing, turning past wisdom on its head. Alcohol makers are losing ground as consumers link drinking to cancer and other health risks, while companies selling smokeless nicotine products — from pouches to lozenges — are thriving. These products promise stimulation without the dangers of smoking, attracting health-conscious users who see them as a “safer” vice. The result is a reversal in vice-market fortunes:

• Marlboro-maker AltriaMO
  is up 24.8% this year thanks to its growing nicotine pouch business, while beer giant Molson CoorsTAP
  fell 10.4% as domestic demand collapsed faster than expected.
• Anheuser-Busch InBevBUD
  gained 21.5% despite nine consecutive quarters of declining beer sales, largely due to 33% growth in non-alcoholic beer revenue and international strength offsetting US weakness.

Losing the buzz: Beer’s place in America’s vice hierarchy has been steadily eroding — its popularity has dropped from 47% in the early 1990s to just 34% today, now tied with wine. Meanwhile, nicotine pouches like Zyn have built devoted “Zynfluencer” followings and secured regulatory approval as smoking alternatives. With 56% of adults cutting back on alcohol for wellness reasons and tariffs on aluminum cans pushing up costs, Goldman Sachs warns that beer may soon be “the combustible section of the alcohol category” — essentially the new cigarettes.