Why are older Americans drinking so much

[Lorenzo]

My new bride and I were visiting my 93 year-old aunt at her retirement community in Florida. She was a very proper lady, always well dressed, lived almost her whole life in NYC, and her husband had left her in good financial shape. As we sat down at the coffee table, she asked my wife and me what we'd like to drink. We had no idea if my aunt was still drinking alcohol at age 93, and my wife wanted to make a good impression, so she hedged and said, "Oh, I'll have whatever you're having." My aunt replied, "Well, Scotch it is!"

She had a second Scotch with her steak when we all went out to dinner later.

My dear aunt lived to 100.

 

[pacergal]

I would call my self a limited social drinker. I will have a single drink when out with friends or co workers, or on vacation. So maybe a drink a month or less. One exception, is on vacation with very good friends, once a year, we have a drink or two for lunch and dinner! That is the only time I exceed my personal limit.
Now, pretty much none.
History of alcoholism in my family and in DH family, so I am very judicious for myself and as my kids were growing up, they did not see me drink hardly at all.

 

[Qs Laptop]

The headline, "Why are Older Americans Drinking So Much" is classic clickbait. It assumes a conclusion. Notice the title is not, "Are Older Americans Drinking So Much?"

Indeed, I read the article several times. Nowhere did I see statistics showing that older Americans were drinking so much. There was a line about, "From 1997 to 2014, drinking rose an average of 0.7 percent a year for men over 60" and some stats about alcohol related deaths among those above age 55 had been increasing.

But nothing that showed a percentage increase in alcohol consumption among those over age 65. In fact, the article states, "The proportions of people over 65 who report using alcohol in the past year (about 56 percent) and the past month (about 43 percent) are lower than for all other groups of adults." That statement is a direct contradiction of the article's premise.

Also, note that there is not one response in this thread from anyone that said they were drinking more now than when they were younger.

Based purely on the title of the article and the facts it presented, I think this was a big fail. I expect more from the NY Times.

 

[rk911]

I guess I'm the outlier. I've had alcohol in my mouth twice in 74-years. The first was a sip of wine at a NYE party in 1967. The second was around 30-yrs ago when a waitress brought me the wrong drink.

 

[Winemaker]

Also, note that there is not one response in this thread from anyone that said they were drinking more now than when they were younger.

I might have left that out.

As I was involved in coal mine management and a member of the mine rescue team/fire brigades, the only real time I imbibed was on my days off or on vacation. I never had alcohol on w*rkdays. All changed when I retired and was able to actually have time to stop and smell the roses, I mean, stop and smell/taste my food/wine.

 

[bloom2708]

Drinking removes the past and the future and brings people into the "now only".

It is a sport and allows people to compartmentalize. It is poison to the body which is too bad.

Drinking as a hobby (all too common) is a pretty terrible hobby.

Drink as little as possible. Try mocktails, hop water, NA beers. Anything to trick yourself.

Unpopular opinion? Sure.

 

[friar1610]

I was a pretty hearty drinker - mainly beer and wine - during my working career and first half of retirement. Woke up one morning about 10 years ago and decided I didn’t want to drink any more so gave it up cold turkey and haven’t has a sip since except for a very occasional non-alcoholic brew. I sleep more soundly now but otherwise no discernible changes to my health or how I feel. My new go-to beverages are unsweetened iced tea in the summer and seltzer or coffee in the winter.

 

[Sunset]

...
Isn't there some kind of reaction that you have to worry about when you try to beat alcoholism, cold-turkey? The "DTs" or something like that? I remember my one housemate, the one who could outdrink me and my other housemate put together, got one serious case of "the Shakes" as I always called it, when we were coming back from a day trip to Luray Caverns one time. He had probably cracked open a beer or two first thing in the morning, but then went the whole day without drinking, and was getting a bad craving on the way home.

Quitting cold turkey from alcoholism is more dangerous and deadly than doing the same for heroin.

With heroin you will feel like you are going to die, with booze you will feel like you are dying and may die. (only applies to alcoholics)

The safe way to come off booze is to decrease intake over time to reduce physical dependency, obviously a difficult thing to do without "help".

 

[Teacher Terry]

Andre, if someone gets the DT’s when they quit drinking they are definitely an alcoholic. Many people quit drinking because they realize it’s a problem long before that stage.

Lewis Clark, my sister never wanted to get married or have kids and people have said some horrible stuff about it throughout the years. She’s 78 so it was more of an unusual choice back then. She was really beautiful so not a lack of opportunity. People would ask me why she hadn’t done either too.

I could never imagine asking someone anything so personal especially people you don’t know well. I have been asked by strangers at parties why I wasn’t drinking. Ugh!!

 

[Teacher Terry]

Drinking removes the past and the future and brings people into the "now only".

It is a sport and allows people to compartmentalize. It is poison to the body which is too bad.

Drinking as a hobby (all too common) is a pretty terrible hobby.

Drink as little as possible. Try mocktails, hop water, NA beers. Anything to trick yourself.

Unpopular opinion? Sure.

They make some really good non alcoholic beers and I love beer so I have one every evening while I watch the news. They used to be awful but now you can’t tell the difference with many of them like Athletic Brewing Company and Laquita’s. Obviously there’s a demand otherwise breweries wouldn’t bother making them.

 

[flyingaway]

My father drank some liquor almost every day, about half a shot glass, as long as he could get off his bed, until about three months of his death at 91.5. That age is good for me.

 

[statsman]

Pretty much no alcohol except for some holiday meals at home. Usually this involves a bottle of one of Schramsberg's sparkling wines split among four (with DW only having enough for a toast). For me, his averages out to having alcohol once every 2-3 months.

 

[Jeffman52]

Interesting topic and one that I should pay attention to as I retire in 7 weeks.


I never had much of a taste for drinking when I was a teenager or young adult. Oh I would drink to get drunk but only for that purpose. Back then I would rather smoke a doob and be stoned.

Eventually I got a job where they did drug tests and I layed off the pot and then there was having a family and kids. I didn't drink for about 20 years, although I did get stoned a few times fishing with friends over the years. Funny enough when I ordered a Corona at the Mexican restaurant, my almost grown kids were shocked.

But then came the era of craft beer where I found that I really like some of the beers that are not just standard lagers and pilsners. That for me started about 10 years ago. And for the first few years I still didn't drink very much by many's standards even though there were more choices that I liked. About 6 years ago we moved to Cincinnati OH and man... there are so many craft breweries here, and so many festivals that drinking is whaat its all about. Thanks kinda dangerous LOL. Today I probably have a beer or two a day, skipping some days here and there. (Which is within US guidelines for males). I do have a few no-alcohol beers that I also drink when I feel like a beer but don't want to deal with alcohol.

But.... and again good timing on this thread, I think now is a good time to really be careful about how much I partake. I would hate to spend all my newfound time in retirement dealing with health issues due to "excess", instead of skiing and hiking and all the other things I have planned.

 

[Lorenzo]

Interesting topic and one that I should pay attention to as I retire in 7 weeks.


I never had much of a taste for drinking when I was a teenager or young adult. Oh I would drink to get drunk but only for that purpose. Back then I would rather smoke a doob and be stoned.

Eventually I got a job where they did drug tests and I layed off the pot and then there was having a family and kids. I didn't drink for about 20 years, although I did get stoned a few times fishing with friends over the years. Funny enough when I ordered a Corona at the Mexican restaurant, my almost grown kids were shocked.

But then came the era of craft beer where I found that I really like some of the beers that are not just standard lagers and pilsners. That for me started about 10 years ago. And for the first few years I still didn't drink very much by many's standards even though there were more choices that I liked. About 6 years ago we moved to Cincinnati OH and man... there are so many craft breweries here, and so many festivals that drinking is whaat its all about. Thanks kinda dangerous LOL. Today I probably have a beer or two a day, skipping some days here and there. (Which is within US guidelines for males). I do have a few no-alcohol beers that I also drink when I feel like a beer but don't want to deal with alcohol.

But.... and again good timing on this thread, I think now is a good time to really be careful about how much I partake. I would hate to spend all my newfound time in retirement dealing with health issues due to "excess", instead of skiing and hiking and all the other things I have planned.

Craft beer. Oh yeah. I started brewing as a hobby when I received a kit as a gift in the early '90s, and then the craft breweries started popping up everywhere. Brewing and sampling beer are a part of my life, and my wife shares that passion. We've visited breweries and beer festivals around the US and some in Europe--beer tourism. And then there are the wineries. And bourbon in Kentucky, and whiskey in Scotland .... Alcoholic beverages can be fascinating. Unfortunately, many people have had a bad relationship with alcohol, and of course even the healthiest person is not immune to long-term effects.

 

[Out of Steam]

I'm at about two beers a week right now, down from three or four in the past year because of a new medical diagnosis.

Like several people here, I know someone who took to drinking too much in retirement. Though my guess is that most people who drink excessively in retirement were doing it before retirement.

 

[Calico]

Calico, I really believe that there’s a strong genetic component to alcoholism since it tends to run in families even if the behavior isn’t modeled for children. <snip>

I suspect you're right, which is why I am so relieved that my nieces and nephew seem to have (so far) escaped unscathed from the family history. I hope it continues.

 

[Amethyst]

Thank you for pointing out the verbal clue that makes people click! Anything that makes people think they are being compared to other people, seems to make them want to investigate.

We need a thread on "Weird Semantic Tricks that are Hallmarks of Clickbait."

I read 3 respected newspapers online: NY Times, Wa Po and Wall Street Journal. They all employ lots of clickbait. No doubt if they didn't, readership would drop.

The headline, "Why are Older Americans Drinking So Much" is classic clickbait. It assumes a conclusion. Notice the title is not, "Are Older Americans Drinking So Much?"

I.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Thank you for pointing out the verbal clue that makes people click! Anything that makes people think they are being compared to other people, seems to make them want to investigate.

We need a thread on "Weird Semantic Tricks that are Hallmarks of Clickbait."

If this were to be clickbait the thread title should be something like "See if You Can Name Seven Weird Semantic Tricks that are Hallmarks of Clickbait?"

 

[2tswhite]

My father-in-law never, ever missed his evening martini(s). He just recently passed at the age of 95,

 

[Scrapr]

Drinking removes the past and the future and brings people into the "now only".


Drinking as a hobby (all too common) is a pretty terrible hobby.

Unpopular opinion? Sure.

For me it's interesting to sample different whisky & wine. Some of the more popular whisky have a peaty, smoky taste. I try them & don't like them much.
So i sample some others that taste better to me. Pendleton is my go to. It started in a local brewery and a few years ago got bought up by one of the global houses. The same brewery still distills it but it is distributed world wide. It has a good nose & is very smooth.

Same thing with wines. Our region had nothing in the way of wines in the 1970's. In HS one of the founding wineries gave a talk about how our region was going to be changed by wine. And it has in a big way. A couple of the small towns have been transformed by the wine industry, Air Bnb's, hotels, restaraunts, tasting rooms and NYT rated eateries. A couple of grain elevators have been repurposed into tasting rooms. Those elevators had been sitting unused for decades. Same for the small towns. The local University has seminars that are sold out every year.

There is something very nice about sitting with friends over a glass of wine looking out over a valley of vineyards. So for me not a terrible hobby. And the now is a good place to be. I put off a lot of experiences for "later". Then I lost my wife. You know who i wish was able to experience all the now with? Yeah, her. I'm living in the now

 

[Nords]

The headline, "Why are Older Americans Drinking So Much" is classic clickbait. It assumes a conclusion. Notice the title is not, "Are Older Americans Drinking So Much?"

Clickbait or not, it got the clicks. It's been over a decade since I've had an interview go from a major publication (like the NYT) to the homepage of Yahoo!, after traveling through a bunch of their smaller syndicators.

Paula can't share the NYT website details like pageviews, but I got the impression that her topic set new personal records for her column.

I think the sheer number of comments in those two publications, plus the length of this thread, shows that it's a compelling topic.

Also, note that there is not one response in this thread from anyone that said they were drinking more now than when they were younger.

That would be analogous to expecting Olympic athletes to set new world records in their 60s.

Considering the number of times I was blackout drunk during my peak-fitness teens & 20s, replicating that experience with my 63-year-old liver would simply kill me. And when you add in other lifestyle or age-related health risks (for example slower reflexes, reduced pulmonary function, cognitive impairment), then it wouldn't matter whether my liver was able to keep up.*

The point of the article is that this particular age cohort of older Americans is having more alcohol-related incidents today than the same age cohort of older Americans was having in the years before.


*(For those of you who've been on this forum for a couple of decades: no worries about me. I'm still the healthiest I've ever been, and surfing is a key factor in that. Today my biggest challenges are overcoming my genome's tendencies toward creeping osteoarthritis, potential cardiovascular disease, declining hearing, and a family history of dementia.)

 

[audreyh1]

DH’s father - that generation I remember routinely hitting the hard liquor - Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, etc.

 

[athena53]

Drinking as a hobby (all too common) is a pretty terrible hobby.

For me it's interesting to sample different whisky & wine. Some of the more popular whisky have a peaty, smoky taste. I try them & don't like them much.
So i sample some others that taste better to me. Pendleton is my go to. It started in a local brewery and a few years ago got bought up by one of the global houses. The same brewery still distills it but it is distributed world wide. It has a good nose & is very smooth.

I agree. I have a nice collection of whiskies at home. When I want to treat myself I pour one of the really good ones for a nightcap instead of the usual Costco blended. The quantity stays the same.

 

[mebden]

Wow, my dad was very similar. He stopped smoking around 40. Just stopped. I’ve never known anyone who did that.

He drank a lot and did so into his 70’s. Then one day he just quit. That seems like it would be even harder than quitting the smoking.

Personally, I never drank much (at least since I was in my late teens/early 20’s). Now I don’t drink at all - health reasons. I do kind of miss a burger and a beer once in a while after golf, but Que Sera Sera.

Jerry I'm a living example of quitting smoking the day my son was born 24 years ago and never touched another one after that day because as a kid I remember times being at card parties my parents were at that the smoke was so thick us kids would play fire drills of drop and roll and stay close to the ground till parents would get the message and finally open windows and doors to let the smoke out but I still like my Brandy and Beer but not at any levels like I used to be at as hangovers really suck now. LOL

 

[splitwdw]

Neither my grandparents or my parents drink, I'll have to ask them if they drank when they were younger. I don't remember them drinking and there has never been alcohol at any of the family parties. I can remember one uncle bringing a 6 pack to a picnic. My husband and I drank when we were younger but stopped as we got more involved with our car crowd, doing road trips and racing. We all mainly drink ice tea, water or coke. When my husband passed he had 2 cans of beer in the garage frig. A friend just told me I should throw them out because they are a couple of years old.

I am surprised that some of you have had people ask you personal questions about children or drinking. I shouldn't be surprised, should I.