When 26-year-old Rachel, a graduate student in Milwaukee, hangs out with friends, they are more likely to spend their time at the community theater, local coffeehouses, or volunteering than hanging out at bars or liquor-soaked parties. Despite their city’s well-established drinking culture, she and her other twenty-something friends are mostly sober.
Rachel, who asked that her last name be withheld to freely discuss her substance use, has her reasons for abstaining. She lost a parent to alcoholism, which will make most people more careful of how much they consume, she says. And with more research coming out about the harms of alcohol, increasingly more Gen Zers in general are rethinking their relationship to booze, she says.
