The new cannabis beverage boom isn’t really about replacing booze. It’s about replacing everything people lose when they stop drinking.
Nobody toasts with water.
That’s not a complaint, it’s an observation about how deeply alcohol is woven into the rituals that hold our social lives together. The clinking glass. The round bought for the table. The champagne at midnight. We’ve built an entire culture around the idea that celebration requires a specific kind of drink, and for a long time, if that drink didn’t work for you, the message was clear: figure it out or sit it out.
For a growing number of Americans, that bargain isn’t landing anymore.
The Quiet Exodus
The numbers tell one story. Gallup polling in recent years has shown that Americans are drinking less; specifically, younger adults are drinking significantly less than previous generations. The sober-curious movement, once a fringe wellness experiment, has become a legitimate consumer category with its own shelf space, its own influencers, and its own vocabulary. Dry January used to be a novelty. Now it’s a gateway.
But the more interesting story is the one that the data can’t fully capture: the personal, often invisible reasons people are stepping back from alcohol. Not just hangovers or calories. Real, complicated reasons. GLP-1s. Medication interactions. Chronic illness. A family history that makes every drink feel loaded. The slow realization that the thing you’ve been doing since college doesn’t actually make you feel good anymore.
I know that story because I’m living it.
In 2023, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. MS affects nearly a million Americans, and it has a way of quietly rearranging the ordinary parts of your life, your energy levels, cognitive sharpness, and what your body can handle …
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Author: Leah Kollross / High Times
