KEY POINTS:
- An increasing percentage of young Australians are drinking less or abstaining from alcohol.
- Gen Z has been described as a generation of “caution” and “worry”.
- Sobriety is becoming increasingly normalised in both religious and non-religious communities.
Once known to her friends as a “big drinker”, Victoria Butterfield says her days of getting drunk are already far behind her.
The 20-year-old grew up in western Sydney and is studying social work at Western Sydney University.
Though she may have one or two drinks, Ms Butterfield says she has zero interest in waking up with a hangover.
“It's very repetitive. You know what's going to happen and that it's not going to feel good the next day,” she said.
Young Australians ditch the booze
Ms Butterfield is one of many young people who have chosen to dramatically decrease their alcohol consumption or abstain completely.
According to statistics from the federal government's Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), young people are driving an increase in people abstaining from alcohol.
From 2007 to 2019, the proportion of people aged 14 to 17 who abstained increased from 39 per cent to 73 per cent, while for people aged 18 to 24, it rose from 13.1 per cent to 21 per cent.
The institute's 2019 National Drug Strategy Household Survey also showed 0.9 per cent of 15-24 year-olds drank daily (the lowest of any age group), 21.4 per cent drank weekly (also the lowest of any age group) and 18.8 per cent drank less than monthly (the highest of any age group).
However, young people who do choose to drink remain some of the highest-risk alcohol consumers out of all age groups.
Specifically, people aged 18 to 24 were more likely than other age groups to consume 11 or more standard drinks on one occasion at least once a month, according to the AIHW.
Jacinta Martinez, 24, is studying oral health therapy in Wagga Wagga, in country NSW. She’s also chosen to dramatically reduce her alcohol intake and now only has a drink with dinner maybe once a month.
Ms Martinez said her decision made it hard to navigate certain social settings.
Jacinta Martinez has dramatically reduced her alcohol consumption. Source: Supplied / Jacinta Martinez
“I found that I felt a bit isolated because I didn't want to join in on that.”
Australia’s binge-drinking culture
Getting drunk has long been a rite of passage for newly-turned 18-year-olds and Ms Butterfield said that was the exact reason she started drinking.
However, she said that getting drunk just wasn’t practical once she started to focus on her studies, while also working 30 hours a week.
“If I get pissed on a Friday or Saturday, it throws my whole week off. I just don't see the fun in it,” Ms Butterfield said.
“I feel like just naturally I can be quite an extroverted person, so I felt like I didn't even need the drinks anyway – like I was just doing it because everyone else was doing it.”
Generation Z more 'cautious'
Amy Pennay is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at La Trobe University and has been researching the decline in youth drinking for the past eight years.
She said she’s still trying to work out exactly why Generation Z (people born from the mid-90s to the early 2010s) is a generation of “caution” compared with what she describes as a previous “generation of excess”.
“Young people are more worried about their futures, in terms of economic security … and then about global issues as well,” she told SBS News.
Along with worrying about the state of the world, Dr Pennay explained how young people are facing a double-edged sword when it comes to social media.
On the one hand, young people are socialising more online and potentially using the screen as the “social buffer” that alcohol has typically provided.
On the other hand, parents can easily monitor and track what their children are doing online.
“Kids are worried about doing something silly and posting it and other people seeing it, including future employers,” Dr Pennay said.
The normalisation of sobriety
The sobriety trend started in the early 2000s, particularly in North America and Scandinavian countries, so it's unlikely that social media is the only factor causing the decline in youth drinking.
Though it could be helping to normalise drinking less, with TikTok hashtags like “sobertok” promoting sober lifestyles.
“Normalisation is one of the things that we keep coming back to,” Dr Pennay said.
She explained that, as an increasing number of Australians chose not to drink – whether for cultural, religious or health reasons – there was a knock-on “social contagion effect”.
“Once something becomes normal and normalised, it's much easier to become part of that group,” she said.
Ms Butterfield said she’s often not the only one out of her friendship group not drinking.
“I have Muslim friends as well and they don't drink for religious reasons,” she said.
“I think talking to them has opened my eyes a lot … I have one really good friend who I go out with a lot and she has never had alcohol in her life … and she is such a fun person to hang out with.
“She doesn't need alcohol to do that and she will always say, ‘it's not so much about the alcohol, it's just about the energy – like, once you feel good, who cares.'”
For Jacinta, moving from Sydney to Wagga Wagga for her studies and a decision to prioritise her mental health were major factors in choosing to cut back on alcohol.
Jacinta said she had witnessed many of her friends struggle with mental health issues, particularly during the pandemic, and started to think alcohol only made things worse.
“The two times that I've gotten properly drunk since cutting back have just been really unpleasant and, if anything, have just confirmed that I really don't want to do it anymore.”
