Sage Rosenfeld never liked how she felt after drinking alcohol. But like many young people, she felt pressured to drink during high school.

She occasionally drank during her freshman and sophomore years at the University of Pittsburgh. She described the effects of drinking as “weird” and “awful” — every time — before deciding to quit altogether.

“I’m not going to force myself to do things that don't actually bring me joy and aren’t fun for me,” said Rosenfeld, who studies digital narrative and interactive design. “I am a homebody, and that's fine. I would have a much better time sitting on my couch and hanging out with my friends than going out and getting drunk and coming home at 4 a.m.”

A growing number of young people are opting to back away from booze, even as rates increase among older demographics.

In 2023, 38% of young adults under 35 said they completely abstained from alcohol, up from 28% in 2003, according to a 2023 Gallup poll.

And in 2025, Gallup found that drinking rates among young people were on a sharp decline post-pandemic. About 50% of these adults reported drinking alcohol last year, a nine-point drop from 2023.

Middle-aged and older adults now outpace their young adult counterparts in alcohol consumption.

Why some young adults aren’t drinking

Gen Z Pittsburghers are choosing to abstain for any number of reasons.

For Ava Hickman, abstention was a no-brainer when she enrolled at Duquesne University. Personal wellness was the main driving force behind her decision.

She said she believes the portrayal of party life in college — full of red cups, jungle juice and bar outfits — is slowly changing. For Hickman and her friends, free time is spent at the gym, on coffee dates, traveling or hanging out at each other’s apartments.

“We had this picture in our mind, informed by our millennial counterparts … filled with a lot of ideas about what nightlife would look like in college,” said Hickman, who studies political science. “But a lot of students in our generation aren’t super interested in drinking.”

Booze-related health concerns are becoming increasingly common among people in Hickman’s age demographic. Young adults are most likely to believe that even moderate drinking is bad for their health; Gallup found 66% held this view in 2025. That’s compared to 50% of middle-aged adults and 48% of older adults.

And in early 2026, spending growth among Gen Z and millennials was stronger for fitness than bars, per a report by the Bank of America Institute. Bars remain on top for Gen X and baby boomers.

Sybil Marsh, a Cleveland doctor who specializes in family medicine and addiction, said she believes heightened publicity surrounding health concerns could play into youth trends. For instance, a World Health Organization study that asserted no level of alcohol consumption is safe for health made significant waves when it was published in 2023.

“One of the reasons there’s been less drinking is because there’s been more public policy and publicity for the fact that even moderate drinking isn’t good,” Marsh said.

Cost is another reason people in general are drinking less, Marsh said. Alcohol spending hit a four-decade low in 2024, according to the most recent report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And some young people who abstain from alcohol are using other substances recreationally.

In 2023, more than 42% of young adults aged 19-30 reported using cannabis in some form in the past year, compared to 27% in 2010, researchers at the University of Michigan found.

Daily use of cannabis more than doubled in the same time span, from 5% of young adults in 2010 to more than 10% in 2023, the study found.

During that same period, the share of young adults who consumed alcohol daily fell from 5.1% in 2010 to 3.6% in 2023.

Increased marijuana use coincided with sweeping legalization. In 2012, California and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational use. It’s now legal in 42 states for medical use and 24 states for recreational use.

Pennsylvania allows medical use, though there remain ongoing efforts to legalize marijuana recreationally. As it stands now, patients who meet criteria for certain medical conditions can get physician approval to buy marijuana at a dispensary.

Rosenfeld has witnessed this trend. More of her Pitt peers smoke weed than she initially anticipated, but she isn’t necessarily surprised by the trend.

“College is not exactly a stress-free situation, by design,” she said. “I think it makes sense why people would lean toward a more relaxing substance as opposed to something that makes you want to party.”

In some cases, she said, she’s seen fellow students become dependent on the drug.

One in 10 adults who use marijuana develop cannabis use disorder, according to American Addiction Centers.

Marijuana now accounts for about half of admissions into substance use treatment for young people aged 12 to 17.

Both marijuana and alcohol can be addictive, Marsh said. Signs of addiction include losing self-control, becoming dependent and seeing impacts on one’s socialization and daily routines, she said.

“When people have a marijuana use disorder, they're not able to control their use anymore,” she said. Then they start to diminish their life.”

Fear of missing out

When Rosenfeld of Pitt initially stopped drinking, she said she experienced “FOMO” — fear of missing out — as she spent social events opting for soda instead of beer.

But between having a clearer head on Saturday mornings and surrounding herself with friends who also don’t drink, Rosenfeld is happy to spend the rest of her college career alcohol-free — and to “sleep in because my bed's really comfortable and I want to sleep in — and not because I'm gonna throw up if I stand up.”

“I still stay up way too late, and I have the regular habits of a college student, like I go a few days without eating vegetables sometimes and definitely don't drink enough water,” she said. “But it feels like those things are all manageable when they're just those things alone.”

Even as Rosenfeld said she believes people remain “chill” about heavy drinking, binge drinking rates among young adults had recently fallen. Between 2021 and 2024, monthly binge drinking rates (five or more drinks in a row) among young adults aged 18 to 25 fell 3.3%, the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found. Declines were observed in the Northeast, Midwest and West.

Sean, a recent Penn State graduate from New York, struggled with addiction to and binge consumption of alcohol and drugs throughout high school and into the start of his collegiate career on the West Coast.

Transferring to Penn State helped him stay sober. He chose the University Park campus for its Collegiate Recovery Community, a program offering peer support and substance-free housing to students in recovery from addiction.

“My entire experience at Penn State was a sober one, in which everything was surrounded by sober people, for the most part,” said Sean, who now attends graduate school in New York and asked that his last name not be used because of his previous addiction. “It definitely made connecting with people who were not sober difficult because a lot of people wanted to drink and do drugs.”

But Sean added he had “enough community and support to where I didn't really feel lonely or that I was really missing out.”

Is Gen Z socializing as much?

Though Hickman, the Duquesne student, said she believes growing alcohol abstention is an overall positive, she conceded that this trend, in part, might signal that young people aren’t socializing as much as they used to.

About 67% of Gen Z adults reported being lonely last year, compared to 65% of millennials, 60% of Gen Xers and 44% of Boomers. Gen Z also experiences higher rates of social anxiety compared to older generations.

Hickman worries that some of her peers just aren’t getting out and connecting with others. On a given week, those aged 15 to 34 spend roughly 14 more hours at home than they did two decades ago, according to a 2024 report based on the American Time Use Survey.

“I hope Gen Z can find a balance, because clearly what's going on right now isn't working,” she said. “Gen Z has been dubbed the loneliest generation, and I think that's really sad, especially now that we have access to social media, we have access to so many different connections at our fingertips.

“But if you're not spending real time with people and building meaningful experiences together, all of those are very shallow.”

Marsh doesn’t see a downside to declining drinking rates. But she also stressed the importance of young people maintaining a social life. Brain development continues into the mid-20s, and socialization plays a key part in that, she said.

“The connections you develop in a bar are not necessarily great anyway,” she said. “Look for alternative ways to meet people.”

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