Sober clubbing is an in-thing for Gen Z these days. — Filepic
Last week my friend and I went to a hip, young bar. We are neither hip nor young, we were just there to support a friend DJ-ing.
We sat down, looked around, and immediately realised we were indeed out of our demographic. Everyone was young and fresh, not old and beat up, in their early 20s, and could have been a kid of ours.
And as we ordered a couple of beers, as our generation is apt to do, we noticed that none of the younger people were drinking alcohol. Matcha tea ruled the day.
What’s more, these young people were having fun, chatting and smiling, loud and raucous – the lack of alcohol was not affecting them at all. In fact, the only people who looked miserable were the two old uncles drinking in the corner.
It has been written about but discovering it for ourselves was startling: Gen Z doesn’t drink. According to some studies, Gen Z-ers drink 20% fewer units of alcohol per capita than millennials.
In the United States only 38% of young adults drink regularly compared with 60% in earlier decades. A 2025 Ipsos survey found that 65% of Gen Z adults are actively trying to drink less alcohol compared with millennials at 57%, GenX at 49%, and Boomers at 39%.
And this lowered demand is showing up in company data. Global alcohol Diageo reported a 30% year over year drop in operating profit, citing lower demand. In China producers of traditional alcoholic staple baijiu are pivoting to lifestyle-oriented mocktails and low alcohol versions.
But why are Gen Z-ers drinking less?
Well, for one, they’re smarter than previous generations. They’ve been inundated with wellness and fitness goals, and see alcohol, correctly, as harming health. In that survey, 58% of Gen Z cited health as a reason to cut back on drinking.
Another very apt reason is simply this: life is expensive. Arguably more so than at any other time in human history. With inflation steadily rising the past five years, Gen Z just can’t afford to justify spending on alcohol regularly.
Both of these are great reasons not to drink. But I will offer another reason: Gen Z is simply not as messed up mentally as generations prior.
Gen Z-ers are – for all our complaints about them – confident in themselves. Sometimes this confidence seems like arrogance, but ultimately they want what they want and were told they could get it.
Gen Z are a product of gentle parenting. And as we’re learning, gentle parenting might make for unrealistic expectations in the workplace, but it focuses on emotional validation and connection to parents over control.
Let’s be honest, if you’re Gen X or older? You were probably told not to talk back, to toughen up when you hurt yourself, that big boys and girls don’t cry.
You might even have been smacked around by overworked parents who had never touched a parenting book.
This can lead to internalised shame and unprocessed trauma. Which leads to drinking to escape numbness and pain, and to connect in an emotionally “permissible” way with other humans.
For our generation, alcohol might be more about self-medicating than celebration. Let’s be fair, none of us had money when we were young either, but we spent what we had on drinks because we liked it. We prioritised it. Gen Z isn’t doing that.
Children raised with gentle parenting and emotional fluency have more secure attachments, more self-awareness, and have developed non-destructive coping habits.
In short, members of Gen Z don’t need to numb themselves, and thus they can have fun by drinking matcha tea in a bar while being watched by two Gen X-ers wondering why the kids are so all right.
