[frandroid]

> “The flake-out rate is so much higher at events now,” says Gretchen Goldman, a research director in Takoma Park, Md.

> This summer Goldman sent an invite to 100 colleagues for casual after-work drinks at some picnic tables just outside the office as a goodbye party. She was taking a new job with the federal government. Fewer than 10 showed up.

Maybe don't have an event where people have to BYOB at work?? If I'm doing a going away thing I'm going to a pub.

[rhplus]

Assuming most of these people were going to be driving home office in evening traffic, perhaps many realized that a couple of drinks weren’t worth risking a fender-bender with bonus DUI for.

[yieldcrv]

Here in LA - below the Valley - a lot of people are dry or drastically cutting down their alcohol intake. Not a selling point.

[appplication]

Why is that? I’ve personally been drinking a lot less, but that’s because I absolutely hate hangovers and it just doesn’t feel worth it to me. I do enjoy a nice drink, I just never find it worth it anymore. It’s interesting to me that it would be happening more broadly.

[yieldcrv]

That’s why everyone else is doing it, or very many.

Additionally, weed doesn't cause hangovers or its not a validated side effect, a little brain fog for some.

There is very little “I used to be an alcoholic” or “I’m pregnant”. No excuses necessary and most people don't need one. It’s normal enough not to matter.

People are content avoiding it as a carcinogen as it is for basically every organ in the digestive tract. On the carcinogen front and weed consumption, many people aren’t smoking their weed (or not primarily or not often), they use edibles or drinks too.

So there’s a burgeoning shift in patterns, but its common enough for it not to just be recovering people that garner the imagine of being sloppy at one point. Very well adjusted people are just not interested.

But its not just weed as a competitor. I run into completely sober people too, they just never started anything and aren't interested. No religious thing, no belief system. People from multiple different circles. I go out with an in shape woman and there’s a non-negligible chance there’s no vice.

My patterns going out haven't changed much, but I’ve stopped buying six packs. Its made a surprising difference, I appreciate it.

[jimbob45]

It’s expensive and if you have kids, you’re potentially unfit to be a parent for 1-3 hours which your partner may find off-putting.

[twobitshifter]

I have a suspicion, just a suspicion, that it had something to do with COVID. For me, alcohol flipped to unpleasant right after I got it. Might just be a coincidence of course.

[fallingknife]

100 people? I can't think of even 10 at any previous job who I knew well enough to want to have drinks with on my last day. That's probably the main issue here.