{"id":37213,"date":"2021-08-27T11:23:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T11:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americas-drinking-problem\/"},"modified":"2021-08-27T11:23:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T11:23:00","slug":"americas-drinking-problem","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americas-drinking-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"America&#8217;s Drinking Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An article in <em>The Atlantic<\/em> claims that America is in one of &quot;our periodic crises over drinking.&quot; Journalist Kate Julian details the crisis:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Since the turn of the millennium, alcohol consumption has risen steadily, in a reversal of its long decline throughout the 1980s and &rsquo;90s. Before the pandemic, some aspects of this shift seemed sort of fun, as long as you didn&rsquo;t think about them too hard. In the 20th century, you might have been able to buy wine at the supermarket, but you couldn&rsquo;t drink it in the supermarket. Now some grocery stores have wine bars, beer on tap, signs inviting you to &ldquo;shop &rsquo;n&rsquo; sip,&rdquo; and carts with cup holders.<\/p>\n<p>Actual bars have decreased in number, but drinking is acceptable in all sorts of other places it didn&rsquo;t used to be: Salons and boutiques dole out cheap cava in plastic cups. Movie theaters serve alcohol, Starbucks serves alcohol, zoos serve alcohol. Moms carry coffee mugs that say things like &ldquo;This might be wine,&rdquo; though for discreet day-drinking, the better move may be one of the new hard seltzers, a watered-down malt liquor dressed up&mdash;for precisely this purpose&mdash;as a natural soda.<\/p>\n<p>Even before COVID-19 arrived on our shores, the consequences of all this were catching up with us. From 1999 to 2017, the number of alcohol-related deaths in the U.S. doubled, to more than 70,000 a year&mdash;making alcohol one of the leading drivers of the decline in American life expectancy. These numbers are likely to get worse: During the pandemic, frequency of drinking rose, as did sales of hard liquor. By February (2021), nearly a quarter of Americans said they&rsquo;d drunk more over the past year as a means of coping with stress.<\/p>\n<p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[446],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3380,3404,3513,3829,3831,4112,4379,4821,4912,4978,4982,5028,5086,5169],"tax_ctp_topics":[396],"class_list":["post-37213","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-addiction","tax_ctp_tags-alcohol","tax_ctp_tags-bondage","tax_ctp_tags-drinking","tax_ctp_tags-drunkenness","tax_ctp_tags-habits","tax_ctp_tags-liquor","tax_ctp_tags-responsibility","tax_ctp_tags-self-control","tax_ctp_tags-sin-nature","tax_ctp_tags-sinful-pleasure","tax_ctp_tags-sowing-reaping","tax_ctp_tags-stress","tax_ctp_tags-tolerance-of-sin"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>America&#039;s Drinking Problem - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americas-drinking-problem\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"America&#039;s Drinking Problem - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An article in The Atlantic claims that America is in one of &quot;our periodic crises over drinking.&quot; Journalist Kate Julian details the crisis: Since the turn of the millennium, alcohol consumption has risen steadily, in a reversal of its long decline throughout the 1980s and &rsquo;90s. Before the pandemic, some aspects of this shift seemed Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americas-drinking-problem\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americas-drinking-problem\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americas-drinking-problem\/\",\"name\":\"America's Drinking Problem - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-08-27T11:23:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-08-27T11:23:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americas-drinking-problem\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americas-drinking-problem\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americas-drinking-problem\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"America&#8217;s Drinking Problem\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"America's Drinking Problem - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/americas-drinking-problem\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"America's Drinking Problem - CT Pastors","og_description":"An article in The Atlantic claims that America is in one of &quot;our periodic crises over drinking.&quot; Journalist Kate Julian details the crisis: Since the turn of the millennium, alcohol consumption has risen steadily, in a reversal of its long decline throughout the 1980s and &rsquo;90s. 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