Colorado sees one of the nation’s largest drops in alcohol use

By Thomas Mitchell | Westword

Alcohol consumption has been on a steady decline across the country, and Colorado is near the top of that trend, according to a new analysis of data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Don’t get it twisted: Substance-abuse counselors in Colorado still have a lot of work. Along with continuing to rank in the top ten for adults who drink, Colorado also outpaces national averages in daily cannabis use, and it has topped the country in cocaine use for two of the last three years. But slow motion is better than no motion.

Alcohol Use on the Decline in Colorado

Around 54 percent of Americans said they drank alcohol in a recent Gallup poll, the lowest reported number since the survey operation began tracking American alcohol consumption habits in 1939. Colorado was slightly above that number in 2023, when SAMHSA’s most recent information was taken, with 58.6 percent of Coloradans saying they had consumed alcohol within the last thirty days.

In fact, Colorado had the seventh-highest share in the country of adult alcohol drinkers in 2023, SAMHSA’s data shows. But that’s still an improvement from 2013, when 66 percent of Colorado adults said they had alcohol within the last month and just three states — New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Wisconsin — had more drinkers among their population.

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