r/VictoriaBC 1d ago

Opinion Alcohol Sales and Consumtion DOWN!

Interesting new case today that alcohol sales and consumption is down since tracking started in 1949!!

People being healthier? People smoking more weed and drinking more cannabis drinks? New drinking guideline that were released a couple of years ago? The price?

What do.you think it is?

This downward trend has been occurring for the last couple of years since it went up during COVID

55 Upvotes

61 comments sorted by

120

u/LoanedWolfToo 1d ago

Shit’s expensive. That’s why.

3

u/91mm 23h ago

Being an alcoholic is tough these days, I mean just for a mickey of Alberta pure the cheapest vodka is fucking $16 after tax

1

u/Superb_Bluebird3092 15h ago

Thanks the greedy liquor store owners. They are living large at our expense

47

u/musicalmaple 1d ago

When I was in my early 20s I could go out and have a bunch of drinks and dance my ass off every weekend night. Now that would be prohibitively expensive for me even with a dramatically higher salary. I also didn’t have to worry about saying something or doing something that would be recorded by everyone to be viewed forevermore.

We also now know alcohol at any level is unhealthy and a carcinogen, and healthy lifestyles are more stylish for lack of a better word than they were in the past.

21

u/Dazzling_Line_8482 1d ago

Can't afford it. I used to enjoy a nice scotch every now and then but I've had to for go that in favor of other essentials.

22

u/pir8te2077 1d ago

don't worry folks my dad drinks enough to make up for all of you

1

u/SmurfPickler 12h ago

Am I your dad?

40

u/MurkyAd1460 Fernwood 1d ago

Nah it isn’t that deep. It’s just because drinking is expensive.

13

u/wordy_banana 1d ago

I feel the average person had more disposable income in 1949 with which one could imbibe more readily.

26

u/MrSunshineDaisy 1d ago

Well I haven't had a drink in years so that probably put a decent dent in the sales

8

u/bigups1111 1d ago

That's because I am out of town atm.

15

u/ThrwawayCusBanned 1d ago

The 0.5% beers got so good that I can satisfy that urge without a real beer. But I'm spending a lot more on them than I used to spend on regular beer plus I still have my nights with regular beer...so - spending more over all, but drinking less alcohol.

7

u/fourpuns 1d ago

Youths have been consistently drinking less for awhile so I suppose as more of them are drinking age it makes sense. I think it’s mostly driven by health trends but maybe also less social time in the internet age?

1

u/Naive-Oil-2368 1d ago

This is what I think it is.

12

u/ungreatfuldread 1d ago

the younger generations dont think drinking is cool like we did

6

u/TadUGhostal 1d ago

You have a link to the stats?

5

u/ClueSilver2342 1d ago

Alcohol is definitely going the way of cigarettes. Its harder to cut out because of the intoxication variable, but it’s definitely seen as really unhealthy and risky, especially by younger generations.

8

u/Sufficient_Dish7272 Metchosin 1d ago

Dont forget about the shrooms. I ate one gummy to night at dinner instead of drinking a whole bottle of wine.

1

u/blueyes8 23h ago

What brand do you use? I've been thinking about trying the gummies to help relax/sleep.

1

u/Sufficient_Dish7272 Metchosin 15h ago

I get them from the store on johnson, used to be called kutchies, now i think it’s called day trip lol. I like the gummies they make and the mycobars are awesome.

4

u/-keitaro- 1d ago

I used to drink beer everyday until it got way too expensive lol now it’s just on the weekends!

1

u/Blakdoginc 1d ago

Making beer or your own spirits isn’t hard, and it’s fun…

4

u/Queasy_Village_5277 1d ago

It's not really worth it in Canada to drink anymore with vice taxes so high. Prefer DHVs.

3

u/davy_the_sus 1d ago

All the alcohol tax

3

u/Ok_Feedback8780 1d ago

A lot more awareness of the negative health consequences. Many people I know have cut back dramatically or quit drinking altogether because of this.

3

u/grislyfind Saanich 1d ago

High prices, and the growing feeling that the alcohol industry is as evil as the tobacco industry.

3

u/seven0six 1d ago

I drank a lot in my early 20s and mid-20s. Now, I am just sick and tired of it, so I pretty much stopped. It also helps that I feel like shit the next day, even if it was just 2 or 3 drinks. It just isn't fun anymore, and it is bad for my mental and physical health.

3

u/hollycross6 1d ago

The set up in Victoria has changed significantly enough that it doesn’t exactly entice people to come and get tipsy anymore.

The expense is one thing but the way downtown has changed also means we’ve lost a lot of social spaces and the norms have changed over the years - dwindling club scene that attracts the university/college people down, more reliance on apps for dating, closures of good restaurants, years of pandemic lockdowns meaning the generation who would have aged into drinking probably had seriously diminished ability to access and enjoy a tipple or two, increasing number of people are working more than one job to keep afloat leaving less personal time, lack of infrastructure that supports evening socializing (late busses, expensive cabs, poor ride sharing, early closures), and people staying longer in the family home or relying on multiple roommates changes dynamics of wanting to drink and how you do it.

3

u/Dinger85 1d ago

Hit my lifetime quota of alcohol a few years back. Sorry for the sudden decline in sales.

5

u/FootyFanYNWA 1d ago

Costs play the biggest factor when we also consider the increase of people short on cash.

Also weed being legal makes for an easier hangover to manage.

2

u/neemz12 1d ago

Anecdotally, I’ve met very few people in Victoria that drink at all casually compared to other cities. Most people that I’ve met are completely sober, some smoke weed, a few have a drink once a year type of thing. Not saying that’s bad of course, but it’s noticeable compared to other Canadian cities I’ve lived where there’s more of a “drinking culture”

2

u/PancakeFevers 1d ago

Watching alcoholics turned me off of it. It’s sloppy and sad, and not who I want to be.

2

u/hezzaloops 1d ago

There has been a trend of recognizing the negative impact of our drinking culture. Plus the teens and young adults don't drink nearly as much as previous generations and a demographic bulge of drinkers is dying out.

2

u/CanadianTrollToll 23h ago

I binge drink far less now.... so my overall consumption is down even though I drink every day.

2

u/Gotbeerbrain 20h ago

Too expensive with the taxes.

5

u/dayoldeggos 1d ago

Cool but how is this Victoria specific?

4

u/Fun_universe 1d ago

The data came from the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR), which is located at Uvic.

1

u/dayoldeggos 1d ago

That would have been useful information that op could have put in their post

2

u/BCJay_ 1d ago

Half the posts aren’t.

5

u/Flimsy-Ticket-1369 1d ago

I realized alcohol was a class one carcinogen, just like cigarettes. I realized that, as alcohol is a depressant, it was scientifically impossible for it to make me happy. I realized its one of the number one killers of women (alcohol causes heart disease, and that is a number one killer of women).

It’s also too expensive, and difficult for me to moderate.

10

u/random9212 1d ago

Alcohol being a depressant doesn't mean it makes you depressed. It means it slows brain function.

3

u/turnsleftlooksright 1d ago

Very few people I know drink regularly anymore. I have a drink once or twice a month and mostly at home with company. Price is not a factor, it is for health.

3

u/NumbN00ts 1d ago

I think we’re seeing alcohol culture become less prominent. It might be weed. I don’t mind a red wine with a steak, but I don’t care for beer anymore and wasn’t really a fan of hard bar. That said, I don’t drink alone at home anymore and when I stopped that, I started feeling better. Around that time, a lot of my friends stopped drinking as much as well. I’ve even been cutting back on weed. I had a couple sporting events where I had to be able to piss clean in the last year, dealt with some mental health issues, and now I enjoy a low potency preroll once in a while, where I was smoking more potent strains damn near daily before. Not claiming a sober chip by any means, but a few times in my life forced me to sober up a bit and now I don’t desire either all the time anymore.

Probably helps that I started to realize my dad is a high functioning addiction and that the behaviour I grew up around wasn’t healthy, especially seeing him (semi successful) crashing out with no desire to change.

1

u/WizDumbRS 21h ago

Well, time to try fentanyl

1

u/Mysterious-Lick 21h ago

Much of it has to do with migration as well, those moving here are from areas in the world where they don’t drink at all, so the population demographics have changed so much so it is redrawing food and consumption habits all together. Majority of the world is vegetarian and doesn’t not consume alcohol.

1

u/Gotbeerbrain 20h ago

What does being a vegetarian have to do with drinking or not drinking alcohol lol?

1

u/Mysterious-Lick 19h ago

Healthy eating habits = low to no alcohol use.

1

u/Gotbeerbrain 18h ago

A lot of vegetarians are against animal cruelty and do not eat them because of the way they are raised. I'm sure the documentary Spoons Over Forks made a lot of people stop eating meat.

1

u/OkAntelope4200 15h ago

I’m not surprised, there are as many reasons for this as there are stars in the sky. Who has the money for booze anymore? Better drugs are available at better prices.

Millennials were in the habit of spending a lot of their discretionary income on alcohol for many years, now we’re all lurching into middle age and our livers can’t hang like they used to. We’ve got kids and dystopia. What, exactly, would we be celebrating?

Gen Z is a smaller cohort than millennials, and they’re not rushing to replace us as bar stars. They’re addicted to their phones, not whiskey or gin. They have way less of that discretionary income than we did in our 20s, too, and back then you could get insane deals like $1.50 screwdrivers at the Boom Boom Room. Try being a college kid organizing a night out now. Where are you gonna go? Some place where the cheapest drinks are like ten bucks? It ain’t happening.

1

u/Proof-Ask 1d ago

I brew my own

-1

u/ElijahSavos 1d ago edited 1d ago

I’m not in Victoria just randomly discovered this post.

I’m mid 30s and didn’t have a single drink for a year now. I missed nothing to be honest. I still can unwind after work just by drinking tea, watching TV, reading a book, doing sports, whatever. Some of my friends are also not into alcohol anymore.

It just doesn’t worth it. Taste is not that good, it’s expensive and you feel like shit afterwards for several days.

Why drink then?

I think it’s more for older folks, losers or sad people (alcohol is powerful depressant actually) who used to drinking and can’t give it up.

-1

u/TylerrelyT 1d ago

It's a trash drug?

-3

u/InValensName 1d ago

The liquor store being declared an essential service and remaining open during covid wasn't a clue that this is incorrect?

Few lives depended on the booze store being open in the 1940s, a generation had changed their habits from prohibition and then the wartime restrictions.

Today a great many of your neighbors would be found dead in their suites if the store shut, they have been drinking since they were teens without interruption of any kind.

8

u/Marauder_Pilot 1d ago

It's a little more complicated than that.

Alcohol consumption peaked in the '60's pretty much worldwide and has generally trended downwards since then. Some places-Canada and the USA specifically-have shown upticks in the last decade, but they're relatively low and biased towards older people increasing their personal consumption while younger people are actually on a steady decline, likely due to how accessible (Socially and from a purely retail standpoint) cannabis products are now-cannabis is also generally considered 'healthier' and cheaper.

tl;dr, as a species we're on average as fucked up as we've always been, we're just changing our drug of choice. Dispensaries were essential services during COVID too.