New Alcohol Guidelines + Advice For Young Men?? When the Science Is Clear and the Message Gets Fuzzier

I didn’t think they’d add cancer warnings to bottles of alcohol, but I did not see coming that they would walk back the skimpy guidelines that existed.

The US government just released updated dietary guidelines, and despite overwhelming evidence from meta-analyses published in the most respected medical journals, despite a World Health Organization report stating clearly that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption, despite alcohol being classified as a Group 1 carcinogen alongside asbestos and tobacco, the official guidance managed to do something truly impressive.

It didn’t get clearer. 
It got way murkier.

For decades, the guideline was at least specific. Limit intake to no more than one drink per day for women, two for men. Not perfect, but concrete. (By the way, I genuinely didn’t know this and believed that two drinks were all good which meant if I had three that was pretty close!)

Now? That guidance has been scrubbed.

At the press conference, Dr. Oz offered what might be the most absurd blend of our cultural confusion around alcohol by saying people should ideally drink none but that alcohol is a social lubricant, and socializing is one of the most important things for health so just don’t drink it for breakfast.

Really?! We’re not going to try to help people use the science that exists to make an informed choice?

What was even more galling recently was hearing Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU and a very loud cultural commentator about the plight of young men, argue on Real Time with Bill Maher that young men should drink more and take more risks.

In his words: “The single worst thing that has happened to young people is the anti-alcohol movement. The risks to your 25-year-old liver are dwarfed by the risks of social isolation.”

(Sound of me hitting my head against the wall.)

Alcohol is served at social gatherings so it’s ok….is that sound reasoning? My daughter smokes cigarettes in Paris because it’s social. The French get up in the middle of meals to go outside and smoke together. And she wasn’t hooked on nicotine at all. Until she was! Although I couldn’t afford it, cocaine seemed social to me in college. It was snorted at parties, and yes, it created a bond and caused people to take risks.

Also, is there really an organized “anti-alcohol movement?” To answer that you have to follow the money!! Oh, that’s right….there ISN’T any money in getting people to drink less! Plus if you look at data from 2019 to 2023, total $$ spent on alcohol in the US is up, even if volume might be slightly down, ie people are spending more on some premium brands.

Yes, Gen Z is drinking less (and let’s not forget that the youngest of them are only 12!). That’s true. But no one told them not to drink. I mean, did you see a huge ad campaign — like a “this is your brain on alcohol” type ad trying to get younger people not to drink?!? Nope, I didn’t think so!! We know from experience that messaging like that would backfire anyway. On the contrary, a friend just texted me about a billboard featuring what look like teenagers in an ad for White Claw.

Maybe Gen Z simply doesn’t want to do their parents’ drug. Maybe they’re looking at us and NOT thinking, Wow, y’all are winning.

What’s striking is not that they’re drinking less. It’s that this has sparked so little curiosity. Ask them! I spend a lot of time with Gen Z via my daughter and her circle and then the vast majority of my regular running group in Paris are 29 and younger. They are caring, thoughtful, and concerned. They want deeper connections and seek it in smaller circles. They’re savvier than we were (are). They sniff out and won’t tolerate hypocrisy. They question authority and status quo and want to know why about everything! They talk about their feelings more readily, they advocate for themselves and they see the connection between doing substances and increased anxiety for instance. I admire the hell out of them!

If some of them are lonely, your BIG idea Prof Galloway is just get them numbed or drunk (or expelled or killed)? OK, Boomer!

By the way, what have we done — Boomers and Gen X — to create and nurture institutions and traditions that this generation might find meaningful and might be able to plug into?! Anyone?

Back to the idea that alcohol is social….it CAN be. It can feel euphoric, it can lower inhibition. But our brains look for all the ways it is social and forget that it is just as anti-social, or even more so. It’s NOT SO social when you cancel your plans because you’re sleeping one off from the night before. It’s NOT SO social when you can’t remember what you did, or even the name of the person you spent an hour talking to while in line for the bathroom. It’s NOT SO social when you ditch your date to chase a hotter guy (not that I ever did that 😩). It’s NOT SO social when big, nasty arguments break out amongst good friends or family members. It’s NOT SO social when you stumble or fall, or say something you regret. And it’s NOT SO social when you don’t even know about interesting things happening near you because you rarely make plans in the evening because that’s when you drink.

And unfortunately, really BAD things do happen. 66% of domestic violence, 60% of sexual assault, violent crime and homicide, and 25% of suicides involve alcohol.

Alcohol can be FUN! It feels good to the human brain. But it’s extremely unwieldy. Many doctors, health practitioners, wellness experts and therapists find it so difficult to manage that they come to me, to other coaches like me, or go to meetings or rehab facilities. Alcohol CAN be fun. It can relax us. And it’s also more-ish (we want more of it!). And then our tolerance grows so we are quickly drinking way more than 1 drink per day. Alcohol first numbs the part of the brain responsible for decision making. Oooh, that’s inconvenient. We can’t selectively numb so when we use alcohol to dial down our social inhibitions, we also dial down our joy and pleasure, resulting in feeling flat or worse. And that part of the brain isn’t even fully formed until the age of 26, so recommending that the number one solution to what ails young men is alcohol?! It’s cynical actually. And depressing.

But here’s the part no one seems interested in exploring. What if Gen Z drinking less isn’t a crisis? What if it’s an experiment?

The tragedy isn’t that young people are drinking less. The tragedy is that our supposed leaders, and our public health messaging are so steeped in alcohol culture that they can’t imagine social life without it.

I’d so love it if Professor G would spend even a fraction of his time exploring how Gen Z ARE connecting. Maybe they have ideas we could all use. I helped a young man kick a ketamine addiction and he now loves hanging out in a sober bar where very cool kids come to play chess. My daughter and friends do drink, but they sometimes don’t drink and play a wicked game of cards. Maybe a rock climbing gym is a better place to take risks and meet girls.

All of us deserve guidelines that respect science. We deserve conversations that respect reality. And young people deserve to be told the truth, have their choices respected and not sold a old myth dressed up as wisdom.

Let’s stop pretending alcohol is the price of belonging or the way to dare, to stretch, to take a risk.

We’re way more creative than that. Aren’t we?!