Man Walks Into A Bar, Drinks More (But Not Too Much!) Than In 2005

With the world wildly in flux, let us give thanks for the comparative stability of people’s vices. One recent Gallup survey found scant change in the number of people who smoke, but a decline in the average number of cigarettes per smoker. Now, another Gallup poll, on people’s drinking habits, yields a fun-house-mirror image of those findings. The proportion of adults who drink alcoholic beverages stands at 64 percent—within a single percentage point of where it has averaged during more than a half-century.