Britons fall out of love with booze, survey finds

Britons are falling out of love with booze as a new survey by the Office for National Statistics found the number of adults drinking has fallen to its lowest level since 2005.

The lifestyle survey, compiled by the ONS from a poll of nearly 8,000 people over the age of 16 across the UK, found that the number of adults who reported drinking alcohol in the last week had fallen from 64.2% in 2005 to 56.9% in 2016. As the sample was representative of the population, this was equivalent to around 29 million people across the entire population, the ONS said.

Furthermore the number of self-confessed teetotallers had risen by 2 percentage points, to around 20.9%, equivalent to around 10.6 million people.

While the number of adults drinking in the last week had fallen to its lowest point, there was a marked divergence in the habits of younger and middle-aged people. The most harmful drinking was to be found among middle-aged drinkers who were drinking every day, while those aged between 16 and 24 were the least likely to be drinking – around 46% of those aged 16-24, compared to 64% of those aged between 45-64.

There was also a difference by region, with England having the highest proportion of drinkers, at 57.4% and Scotland the lowest, at 53%. Perhaps surprisingly, the South West reported the biggest proportion with 70% saying they had had a drink in the last week, compared to the lowest region, London, at just 47%. However binge-drinking was more common in the North East of England (40.4%), despite the fact that the proportion was highest in Scotland (32.3%) and Wales (29.7%), compared to the whole of England (26.2%).

Other variations uncovered by the survey found that men were found to be more likely to drink than women, around 62% of men compared to 52% of women, and although the number of those confessing to binge-drinking on their heaviest drinking day in the week (drinking more than 8 units for men, or 6 units for women in one day), was fairly equal among the sexes for lower consumers, the proportion of women binging decreased the older they got.  Of those who binged, beer was the drink of choice for men, accounting for around 67%, while 70% of “binging” women preferred wine. And while  binge-drinkers in the younger aged category tended to opt for spirits and liqueurs, wine was the most popular option for people aged 45 and over.

But non-bingers are less likely to drink stronger drinks or spirits, or strong beer, lager or cider.

Wine tended to be the choice of drink for the higher earners too. The survey also found that the more people earned, the more they drank, with around 77% of those earning more than £40,000 drinkers compared to 53% of those earning between £10,000 – £15,000 – although women made up a higher proportion in the lower earnings brackets.