American Catholics abandon the bottle as their drinking habits change

A historic shift in U.S. drinking habits shows Catholic drinking is reaching record levels, although scientific experts caution against attributing the decline solely to religious or cultural changes.

In the United States, the proportion of Catholic adults reporting drinking alcohol has fallen to 55 percent, according to a Gallup report by analyst Frank Newport.

This marks a decline compared to the period 2002-2004, when 79% of Catholics reported consuming alcoholic beverages. During the same period, self-reported alcohol consumption rates among Protestants remained stable at 54%.

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“Alcohol consumption fell significantly both among the group of those with no religious identity and, in particular, among Catholics,” Newport writes in the analysis.

However, experts have urged caution when drawing sweeping conclusions from subgroup survey data.

Dr. Joshua Gowin, an associate professor in the department of radiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus who studies the effects of alcohol on the brain, noted that self-reported survey numbers can fluctuate depending on sampling.

Historically, Catholics were much more likely to drink than Protestants, but a sharp decline in alcohol consumption among Catholics has completely eliminated this long-standing gap. (iStock)

“There’s definitely a general trend of decreasing alcohol consumption across all groups,” Gowin told Fox News Digital.

“When it came to subgroups, it was not clear or necessarily convincing to me that one group was showing a general trend that was not reflected in the other groups,” he continued.

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“It seemed like only one data point showed this effect…which made me a little skeptical that this was a broader phenomenon versus a single survey sample.”

Despite the methodological limitations of tracking specific religious subgroups, researchers agree that broader social and health trends are driving a change in overall alcohol consumption habits.

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Gallup’s findings indicate that a majority of Americans now view moderate alcohol consumption – defined as one or two drinks per day – as bad for their health.

In the latest survey, 52% of Catholics believe that moderate alcohol consumption is bad for your health, alongside 56% of adults with no religious affiliation and 48% of Protestants.

Perceptions regarding the health risks of alcohol have changed, with a majority of all religious demographics now viewing moderate drinking (one to two drinks per day) as unhealthy. (iStock)

Gowin noted that this public shift reflects decades of neuroscience and medical research.

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“Twenty years ago, there was still sort of a back and forth between some of the benefits of alcohol and some of the things that we already knew were potentially harmful,” he said.

“It’s not like the serious problems have gone away.”

“Over time, we have gained much more clarity about the things that are bad for our health…the scales have simply tipped more in favor of evidence of negative health effects.”

Gowin pointed out that large-scale neuroimaging studies now consistently associate higher alcohol consumption with reduced brain volume, reinforcing public health warnings.

The report’s author cautions that the decline could reflect normal survey variation rather than a long-term cultural shift. (iStock)

Researchers also attribute changing consumption patterns to broader societal changes, including changes in social behavior and loneliness.

Much of alcohol consumption in the United States has historically occurred in group settings, and changes in how people gather socially may influence drinking habits, they believe.

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At the same time, experts caution that a decline in general social drinking does not mean serious alcohol problems have gone away.

“One of the things that’s a little contradictory… is that even though the overall prevalence among all adults is declining for the number of drinkers, there are actually a greater number of alcohol-related deaths in recent years,” Gowin noted.

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“It’s not like the serious problems have gone away.”