Peak Alcohol

Why drinking is down and what it means for all of us

Note: The server that hosts the podcast is on Cloudflare, so you may be having trouble listening this morning. If you can’t wait, check out the episode on YouTube, which is linked below.

How did I end up being more strident about soda than alcohol? I have no idea but here we are.

The journey I’ve made is indicative of the best of what we do here at Pantsuit Politics. During multiple conversations over the past few months, Beth has allowed me to swing wildly when it comes to what I describe in this episode as the “treat economy”. She let me rant about online gambling and tattoos and soda until I had fully exercised my frustration at what I see as broad range of behaviors that can be described as everything from exploitive to silly. Once I did that, I could clear the fog of my emotion to see what remains.

I can see the beneficial impact of partaking in treats when an exploitive industry is back on its heels. I can see that nothing is ever as simple as forcing everyone into your decision-making framework. I can see that something is always lost and always gained when big behavioral shifts sweep across the human race.

And as always, I know the only place I want to bring my thoughts on these big changes is to the show and here to this community. -Sarah

Topics Discussed

• The Decline of Drinking in the US

• Outside of Politics: How do I ask my neighbor to stop smoking?

At Pantsuit Politics, we’re able to keep it nuanced because of the support of our community. Join the Spice Cabinet by becoming a free or paid subscriber.

If you know someone who you know would love being a part of the Spice Cabinet, send them a referral link and join our leaderboard!
There’s plenty of room to get treats from Sarah and Beth for spreading the nuance!

Episode Resources

Alcohol Use in America and Around the World

• Joe Rogan & Alcohol Culture (Pantsuit Politics)

• Percentage of Americans who say they drink alcohol hits record low, Gallup says (NPR)

• U.S. Drinking Rate at New Low as Alcohol Concerns Surge (Gallup)

• What Percentage of Americans Smoke Marijuana? (Gallup)

• Why are people drinking less in the US? A beer historian has the answers (Northeastern)

• Tobacco use declines despite tobacco industry efforts to jeopardize progress (WHO).

• A ‘failure to launch’: Why young people are having less sex (LA Times)

• Carbon Hoofprint: Peak Beef Could Already Be Here (Bloomberg)

• New Mexico legislators float alcohol tax reform proposals for 2026 session (Source NM)

• Tennessee only state where alcohol use increased, data says (WKRN)

• Peak Booze: Alcohol Consumption May Be in Terminal Decline (Bloomberg)

• Is Moderate Drinking Okay? (The Atlantic)

• Alcohol Consumption by Country 2025 (World Population Review)

• States are Excluding Soda from SNAP. Should They? (Pantsuit Politics)

• The craft beer bubble has burst, leading to closings and downsizing (Axios)

• The NBA Gambling Scandal (Pantsuit Politics Premium)

Episode Transcript

Sarah [00:00:10] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth [00:00:11] This is Beth Silvers.

Sarah [00:00:12] You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we’re going to follow up on a conversation we had way back in 2022 about alcohol consumption and culture. Apparently, everyone shared our overall concerns because alcohol consumption is dropping in the United States and around the world. Of course, there is quite a bit of nuance to why, and we’re going to get into all of that. Outside of Politics, we’re going to tackle a request for advice we got about a not unrelated topic, which is marijuana consumption.

Beth [00:00:41] Before we get into that conversation, we want to remind you that we would love for you to join us over on Substack with our premium community. Our weekly spicy bonus episode is the unfiltered version of us, things we’re still working out, things that we are workshopping, topics where we really, really need the comments to help us think through those issues together. If you’ve been listening for years and want the full Pantsuit Politics experience, this is it. Seven premium episodes every week for $15 a month. Good Morning, More to Say, and that Spicy Bonus episode. We just recorded one that was an hour and 20 minutes. It is a true bonus episode every week. If you’re already a paid subscriber, this is the last week for you to climb our referral leaderboard. Thank you so much for doing that. The top five referrals by Thanksgiving gets a special gift from our team. So whether you are upgrading or sharing, first, thank you for listening and for being here. Head over to Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com to join in the fun.

Sarah [00:01:36] All right, up next, let’s talk about booze. Alright, let’s start with the United States. A new Gallup poll found 54% of US adults say they drink alcohol, the lowest share in its nearly 90 year history of polling on this topic. While 53% now call one to two daily drinks unhealthy. The first time that has hit a majority of Americans who believe that. And this is backed by the actual consumption numbers. I’m sure we are all reading stories about the drop in craft brewing and that people are not going out to bars as much. So what’s going on? Why are we drinking less in America.

Beth [00:02:33] And to me, those statistics you have to hover for a second and realize the tentacles of those statistics. Why are you talking about this when XYZ or thing is happening in the headlines? Because this is an economic issue. This is an issue that relates to how people feel about each other. It’s a social issue. It is a crime issue. There are so many dimensions to this kind of cultural shift. So it is important to say what’s going on and what are the ramifications of this.

Sarah [00:03:05] Yeah, back in 2022, it just feels like this has changed so quickly and I think it’s because online culture accelerates these changes. There was such a like moment with the wine moms and the robust defense of drinking, the unapologetic this is how I cope narrative that whether people were living it in their daily lives there was definitely an entire like meme culture around this idea that this is how we got through. We got through it by drinking. And drinking was just a part of a daily routine. And I it was particularly, I think the reason we talked about on the show, such a huge part of like online mom culture, was the wine mom subset. And so to see in such a short period of time this pivot to-- I primarily see it at least in American culture as increasingly understood as an unhealthy thing to do. I don’t think this is unrelated to sort of MAHA movement and the wellness industry, because economically there’s just a really big and growing industry of mocktails. So, now there’s a new thing we can sell you if you don’t want to drink.

[00:04:29] And I don’t think this is limited to alcohol. I think to the nutrition angle of it, the American populace became a little smarter when it came to studies, like industry-driven studies, because we heard, by the way, wine is good for you. And also chocolate is good for you. And also butter is good for you. By the way, these were all funded by the butter... I’m painting with broad strokes here. I don’t think that all studies are funded by the industry. But you know what I mean? I do think there was this moment where particularly red wine and dark chocolate were good for you. And then very quickly it became, well, those were funded by industry and the science is a little complicated. And I very vividly remember being with a mental health professional and him saying clearly there is no healthy level of drinking. This is what the mental health professionals have come to. Like there’s no moderate, healthy level of drinking. And, man, did that grow some legs and take off. Now, would I be surprised if in 10 years we’ve circled around back to saying, some moderate drinking has XYZ benefit? I don’t know. That seems unlikely just because of the chemical makeup of alcohol, but it did feel like very quickly it went from this is a thing everybody does and it’s fine and a perfectly acceptable way to cope with modern life too. This is a very unhealthy thing to do.

Beth [00:05:56] The numbers about the decline in drinking are pretty staggering because they affect even beer, which is the most ubiquitous and most popular form of alcohol that people consume. And they cross demographics. So I was reading about how typically when you think about what people drink, men are more likely to prefer beer. Women are more likely to prefer wine, but liquor is more likely to be kind of gender neutral. Like liquor is pretty popular. So it’s sort of like beer is first, liquor second, wine third in consumption. And you see consumption down across all of those categories, which even where that has a health benefit, that is an economic problem. So many economies, ours included in Kentucky, really depend on people drinking quite a bit every year. And so the fallout of this across the world is just really interesting to track.

Sarah [00:06:51] Yeah, I think there’s a generational component, too. Particularly with Gen Z, you see it. You see it with teenagers, you see it with young adults, like a really pointed shift in the way they socialize. And of course, drinking was always a part of socializing, especially among young people. I think all the time about that Atlantic piece of if alcohol molecularly is so bad for us, why did we evolve to do it? Why did we continue to have drinking as such a fundamental part of human civilization? And the piece breaks it down. Well, it lowers inhibitions and allows socialization. It lowers inhibitions and it allows for creativity in a way that contributed to a lot of social movements, a lot of intellectual movements, definitely a lot of hookups. So I think that post-COVID, one of the things I thought was so interesting generationally is that instead of brute force approach to socializing, you just went out a lot, you drank a lot, you saw what happened. There was more of an intentional aspect of socializing. It was almost like when we were starting over from scratch after the pandemic. And especially when I think the pandemic a lot of people saw their own relationship with alcohol very clearly for the first time.

[00:08:18] A lot of people were drinking at the very beginning, a lot of cocktail hours online, a lot of cocktail zooms. And then all of a sudden you see people like, oh my God, I realized that this my relationship with alcohol was really unhealthy, or I gained a lot of weight from all this drinking that I was doing. And you see this more shift to health and wellness post pandemic. And then that expanded into the way we think about the social aspects of alcohol and even socialization as a part of wellness. I think it’s so important to speak about belonging and its need and the way it’s like almost being prescribed and broken down in this data driven way of like this thing you check off your list so that you’re a good, happy-- living a good life kind of skeezes me out. So I do think that this is a real piece of that puzzle of this new-- because all these habits are shifting. Like the shifting around ultra processed food and the way people are eating and alcohol is just a big part of that.

Beth [00:09:26] Another really interesting theory that I read about connecting this decrease in consumption to COVID is how many young people watched a lot of unhealthy drinking during the pandemic. That so many young people saw their parents using the alcohol to cope and lived the brunt of that up close and in person for a couple of years. And this person said, this is a quote from that article, “Without the socialized element of drinking and with alcohol consumption defined by excess, you see a generational shift in drinking habits.” And that makes a lot of sense to me.

Sarah [00:10:03] There’s just a generational shift in so many ways when it comes to vices. We talk about all the time that these kids are having less sex and they don’t go out as much as we did in high school and they’re not drinking as much as we did. And I wonder like is what happened we just replaced one vice with another? Because for sure a lot of people who stopped drinking-- there’s no way a piece of this is not the massive increase in recreational marijuana usage. No way. [Inaudible] alcohol consumption has got to be because a lot of people just started taking gummy.

Beth [00:10:51] Well, but I read this is from Gallup. “Declines in alcohol consumption do not appear to be caused by people shifting to other mood altering substances, in particular recreational marijuana, which is now legal in half of US states. Although marijuana use is higher today than a decade ago. It has been fairly steady over the past four years, and so it doesn’t seem to be a factor in people choosing not to drink alcohol.”

Sarah [00:11:12] Well, I don’t know. I think that’s so hard though. People don’t compartmentalize. So let’s say you’re staying steady in your marijuana consumption. If that is meeting the need the alcohol was filling, then you would just drop down. Because some of this consumption rate is not super recent. It’s been going on longer than four years. So maybe there is a part of this-- be I cannot fathom that some of this isn’t the wheat. I think the vice that is most likely to blame and accelerated by the pandemic is online usage. I just think that so much of where people used to use alcohol to numb out, they can now use TikTok. They can get on their phones.

Beth [00:12:04] I say all the time; I pick up my phone like it’s a cigarette. And I do think that connects to lots of other vices. I also was really compelled by that same researcher I was citing from Northeastern saying that alcohol is about a lack of control. And young people’s lives on social media are defined by control. This omnipresence of cameras, the idea that someone would catch you in a moment where you didn’t intend to be presented to the world in this way, that makes a lot of sense to me, that there would be tremendous fear around that. We came up at a time when there weren’t cameras everywhere at a college party, and certainly not cameras that could instantly share the image with the whole world. And I can see that really changing your relationship to anything that reduces inhibition, as you say.

Sarah [00:12:57] Yeah, and I mean I cannot believe I’m saying this. Look, I joke all the time like I would go full Carrie Nation. I have seen the effects of addiction in my life and the lives of people I love. I have I do not have a warm relationship with alcohol. I do not drink myself. Now, I don’t drink myself because I can drink or I can sleep and I choose sleep. But I do wonder is something being lost? I don’t think the answer is add an alcohol, but I do think there’s something really important there with the sense of like you don’t build a social identity or a social toolkit by thinking you’re going to step into a dating scene or a party scene or a new social circle with total control, ready and able to be presented perfectly on Instagram. Like that’s not reasonable. Alcohol use has greased the skids, right? The idea was you would drink so that you could not feel so in your head about the fact that you were going to a bar or you were single and you might meet someone and you might not know what to say or you were going to your first fraternity sorority party. And now the social anxiety is so high they’re not going. They’re not going. And again, I don’t think alcohol is the answer. It’s a neurotoxin. I would prefer people not to drink. So I’m just like something is being lost here that I think we need to pay attention to. For better or for worse, alcohol has highly evolved role in our society of meeting that need. So if we’ve all decided that it’s unhealthy and that we need to do it less, what’s going to fill that role?

Beth [00:15:05] I don’t know. And that role to me goes pretty deep. Not just socialization, but deep trust for others. When I drank more than I do now, which I was never a huge drinker, I thought a lot about who do I trust to be with as my guard drops a little bit. Because I also very much like control. And I don’t like the feeling of losing control at all. That’s why I’ve never been a big drinker because I hate that feeling. But when I did drink, I would think like what people do I trust to let my guard down with? And I worry that it is hard to let your guard down with anybody because of the omnipresence of cameras and the posting and the sense that we are all personal brands walking around at all times. I had a long conversation with one of my daughters brought on by Sabrina Carpenter’s song Tears about the birds and the bees this week. And we were talking about what is this what does this mean? What is the joke in this song? She didn’t get it. We’re talking through it. And I said, “I’m really trying for this to not be awkward.” And she’s like, “Well, it is.” And I said, “I get it. But it is really important to me that we talk about this because I never want you to be afraid of sex. Not talking about sex made me afraid of it. And I don’t want that for you. It is a wonderful part of life.”

[00:16:31] Now, I think I have a really different perspective on how it fits in life than Sabrina Carpenter does, but that’s good for us to talk about too. It’s good for you to consider different ways that people view this. And she said, “I don’t know, it just seems really scary.” And I said, “Well, it is because it’s very vulnerable. And you build up to that kind of trust with another person.” And so when you look at all these trends across the board, to me, maybe it’s even less about vice and more about that sense of who can I trust to be fully vulnerable with, to let all my defenses down with, to see me in a position that is maybe not how I choose to present myself most of the time and to keep that secret with me. I think there’s a lot here that is really encouraging, but there are some aspects of this that worry me too.

Sarah [00:17:24] Well, I think there’s a lot to be learned about how this is playing out globally. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel here in the United States. So let’s talk about that next. Because it’s not just in the United States, consumption is down globally. There’s a London based market research firm for the global beverage industry. And there’s been a dramatic fall in per capita drinking in recent years, from about five liters of pure alcohol per adult per year in 2013 to three point nine liters in 2023. This article I found all these statistics in in Bloomberg was like have we already passed peak alcohol? Because they think basically production of grape wine hit its maximum level as far back as 1979. You saw peak beer in about 2016. And some of this I think makes sense globally because you have population centers in Africa and Southeast Asia and particularly larger Muslim populations that it’s not a part of their culture to drink. And so I think there could be interesting learnings. Okay, well, this culture didn’t evolve to socialize and date and do all these things within the presence of alcohol. So what does that look like? What does that mean? I think that would be a really interesting question to consider.

[00:18:48] But you still see the presence of social media and smartphones playing out across these populations. I had a lot of fun playing with the chart where you could toggle on Wikipedia to the different rankings. And we’ve always been pretty low. Man, Eastern Europe. It’s like Slovenia, Romania, Czech Republic. They are always at the top of the list drinking a ton. But even those countries like go up and off. And you have some outliers. Uganda’s alcohol consumption has skyrocketed. But you have a lot of European countries, including European countries whose entire or huge pieces of their economy like France, like Ireland, Spain, Portugal, UK, that are seeing declines much like ours. And I got to think some of that is the same cultural issues. But it’s going to play out differently. Because our economy is so much bigger, the alcohol component plays out differently. But in France, you eat you reached peak wine back in 1979. That’s going to have an impact.

Beth [00:19:51] For sure. And an impact among countries. One of the things that I took note of while we were in Switzerland on our Common Grounds trip, we saw a lot of vineyards. We were on the French side of Switzerland. And our local guide, Samantha, who was wonderful, was telling us that you can only get Swiss wine in Switzerland. They don’t export their wine. Because of where they’re located, you can get Italian wine, you can get French wine, there are other countries that really dominate that market. And so Swiss wine has become Switzerland’s thing that they do just within the borders of that country. And so the impact on a country like Switzerland of a decline in drinking will still be significant, especially when you just cast your eyes on the land taken up by vineyards. But quite different than a country for whom it’s one of their major exports. Again, I think about Kentucky and bourbon in this discussion all the time. That is really important in Kentucky. It is especially become important since we lost tobacco as one of our main... We are a vice-centered state in terms of our economic contributions. And this is a problem. And the substitute of social media doesn’t help anybody here because certainly people in Kentucky do not think, oh, well, don’t worry, all our farmland will just be covered in data centers and that’ll be fine. That’s not what anybody wants.

Sarah [00:21:10] Yeah. I’m less worried about the economic impact because I just think capitalism will find a way. I think that in the same way it happened with cigarettes, in the same way it happened with different consumption models and how they changed, people will find somewhere else to spend their money. Again, like the way the mocktail industry is taking off. Although I would like to say because people have probably faded in their frustration with me and my narrative around soda. It’s just sugar water, guys. I drink a mocktail. But let’s not dress it up. Like it makes me laugh that everybody’s talking about like the health consciousness and that aspect of alcohol consumption decreasing, but mocktails are taking off as if it’s the healthiest of choice.

Beth [00:21:56] Look, I did read an article about a water sommelier. This will take a lot of different interests. Some of them will be pretty weird.

Sarah [00:22:03] Listen, one of our listeners that I met with in DC, she does like a coffee market and she was telling me about some coffee they sold that was like $15,000 A pound for coffee. So it’ll just be like the things we do drink. Listen, I think there’s room for innovation in the sparkling water movement. There’s been some stagnation, and I think that there’s room in there. So we’ll find other places to spend money and be beverage goblins. You know what I’m saying?

Beth [00:22:29] We will, but I also think a political pitfall of the last 20 years is being so confident about that that we miss that it hurts in the process of figuring it out. A lot of people get hurt in the process of figuring out that shift. And so when I think about all the corn that is grown here for bourbon, that’s real and we do need to be paying attention to these trends and thinking about transition plans.

Sarah [00:22:58] Well, I think that the answer particularly for liquor, is to make a (this is not an economic term) fancier product and charge more for it. I think people are still paying for like cocktail experiences. It doesn’t have to be you sell Bourbon to the world. It can mean that you make-- and particularly in Kentucky, one of my dear friends is a bourbon distiller. Like, makes the fanciest damn bourbon you’ve ever had. But that’s the problem with so much of our capitalist model. It scales only through the lens of let’s get more and more people to drink Coca-Cola across the world. Let’s get more and more people to feed their babies formula in Africa. Let’s get more and more people to drink, let’s get more and more people to smoke, let’s get more and more people to... It’s just open up more and more markets instead of improve a market or change a market or evolve a market with the consumption evolution itself. Do you see what I’m saying? I think there’s space there for that too.

Beth [00:24:08] I see what you’re saying and I don’t disagree. And I would add to it that another problem in our current economy is focusing on wealthier and wealthier people in a lot of different segments. We had a long conversation on a bonus episode about Disney in this exact issue. There are a lot more people who can afford a luxury Disney experience, and that has shut a whole lot of people out from any kind of Disney experience. And you see this in a number of places in the economy where people have decided, okay, this doesn’t scale to everyone. I can make the most money just on luxury goods. So that might be a really good answer for bourbon. It’s not an answer for beer, I don’t think. And I don’t think we want to be in a place where-- I’m worried about too many places where the masses of people are priced out of things. And I don’t want it to be that consumption goes down solely because people are priced out of that experience. I don’t want it to be exploitative, which I feel a lot of alcohol has been, where people in difficult conditions have been exploited and drinking has been the answer to that. And that has only perpetuated the problems that they are suffering with. But I don’t want to go completely the other way either and say, well, you just can’t afford to drink, so there you go.

Sarah [00:25:25] But I don’t think that’s why people are not drinking, right? I didn’t see anything in the-- you don’t get to this level of consumption drop and especially the pulling about why people are drinking is because they feel like it’s gotten too expensive. Do you?

Beth [00:25:41] No, I’m just saying I don’t want the answer to we still have to produce some of these products for people to have jobs to be luxury markets only.

Sarah [00:25:48] Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be a luxury market for it to be a luxury product. So if you used to spend, let’s say-- God, I don’t know how much fucking beer costs. You used to spend $25 on two six packs a week. Then you say you’re spending on instead of drinking every night, you’re drinking $25 on two beers on a Friday night. Do you see what I’m saying? Like it doesn’t necessarily have to be pricing people out. It’s a cultural shift in the consumption model, right? So it’s not drinking is a part of every day. It’s that drinking is a special thing and we pay a little bit more for it when we do it. Because we’re not doing it as much, so we can afford to pay a little bit more for it.

Beth [00:26:40] Yeah. I think that’s fine.

Sarah [00:26:41] Yeah. I think that could be a part of the model too. Again, just the capitalist market I was articulating it was the only way to get to growth is to change people’s consumption models into either using it for the first time or just using much, much, much more. I’ve said this before on the show. The model for most vices, alcohol included, marijuana included, the profit model comes from addicts. The profit model doesn’t come from people who consume in moderation. The profit model comes from people who show up every day. That is what’s pushing-- and I think like how much of this was the alcohol industry’s fault? How much of this was pushing and pushing and pushing growth through the lens of people consuming more and more and more? You go back and you see that what they did in particular was change the consumption model of women. They wanted women to drink more. So what I started drinking on which was Mike’s Hard Lemonade and products that were seen as more approachable.

Beth [00:27:57] Strawberry wine.

Sarah [00:27:58] Strawberry wine. Right. And this is what you’ve seen with marijuana. But they do that to scoop up more and more market share so then they can turn some people into addicts because that’s what-- then they start marketing and providing to the addicts. That’s what’s pushing the incredible potency increase in marijuana because people who are using it every single day want a higher potency product. So then you get a teenager trying to vape for the first time and it’s like 30% potent. Whereas, what you and I would have tried in high school would have been five. And again, you see the same thing playing out in gambling. Is there a company out there that has like a smart vice approach? Do you know what I mean? Like a moderate vice approach, a growth approach that says we don’t want to burn through everybody until everybody’s like, forget it, I don’t want a piece of this at all. You know what I mean? Because it does feel like there’s a pattern here.

Beth [00:29:04] There are a small group of legislators in New Mexico who have been talking about how really the distributors of alcohol should pay more for the damage that is inflicted on society by that product. New Mexico has the highest rate of death from alcohol misuse of all the states. And so these legislators proposed increasing what alcohol distributors pay in taxes and then sending more of that revenue to communities for treatment options. And I think that’s a good strategy. Didn’t get out of committee in the last session, but I don’t think they’re done trying because it is still a real significant harm perpetuated daily in communities there and cyclically, generationally. And they would like to break that cycle. And I applaud them because I think it makes a lot more sense to me. And we keep returning to this with the cigarette model. We have the soda conversation which our social media manager Maggie is going to be so angry that I brought up again. But we keep having this discussion about, well, maybe you just make it more expensive so people do it less. But that is the last mile approach. And I like that these legislators in New Mexico are saying, no, let’s get to the people who have pushed this and pushed this and pushed this and who profit from it and say I’m not trying to tax you out of existence, but I am saying help fund the solution to the harm that your product causes in our state.

Sarah [00:30:39] Well, let me just play a little devil’s advocacy here or angel’s advocacy. I don’t know which one it is. Because in this Bloomberg article they were talking about, the fact that we’re giving up drinking without even noticing is perhaps a sign of like maybe other longstanding practices and vices from smoking to sexual promiscuity to eating red meat might dwindle just as painlessly. Maybe it’s a very negative formulation to say the vice got replaced with social media. Maybe a more nuanced argument is that what also happened with the proliferation of social media in the internet is we just got a lot more information, a lot more input about what these choices mean. You know what I mean? I think for better or for worse, I know that an aspect of the last ten years has been the growth of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Of course, it has. But I do think that there is an aspect of increased public education about a lot of things.

[00:31:49] Now Some of that has manifested in a wellness space that is just as exploited, if not more exploitive, than some of these industries. There is an aspect of the wellness industry that follows the same extractive model that I was just describing. I’m not blind to that. But I do wonder is it because we just want to be in control and we’re worried about being captured? I hope not. I hope there is a more positive undercurrent where all of us are gaining a lot more information about how these choices affect us, how they affect other people. You have one of the most successful public campaigns ever with moms against drunk driving and this incredible grassroots movement to say this has a cost for all of us. This is a dangerous behavior that leads to really a lot of harm. And so I just wonder if there’s something else going on here with the steady flow of information-- and not just information like media and vibe.

Beth [00:33:12] No, I think that’s absolutely true. I don’t think anything here is pure in any sense or isolated in any sense. What I would add to the upside of this in terms of causation is body awareness. I didn’t grow up hearing adults say, “I just cannot eat that after seven or I won’t sleep.” That’s relatively new. And some of that has to do with that wellness industry. I have a sleep score now that tells me you ate too late or you ate the wrong thing too late. I can clearly see that data. So part of it is technology and that information environment, but also I think it has a lot to do with therapy, with exercise modalities that teach people to pay more attention to their physical bodies. I think there are a ton of currents influencing the way that we all examine like, oh, it does matter. How I feel is linked to what I am putting in and what I’m doing.

Sarah [00:34:10] Yeah, and I just think that’s really good. I think that’s so good. And I know that it can take a toxic angle, like I said, but I think bodily awareness and the growth of meditation and, like you said, talk therapy and hell of journaling, all of them, I just think that that’s really positive. And I do wonder if we could hit a place where the positive manifestations of all of this could formulate for what I’m going to call in a more positive spin the treat economy, where we could find companies and industries that make treats. Because that’s the mirror image of a vice, right? It’s a treat. That’s what we talked about a lot in the soda episode, right? And so, a version of that is not extractive, that is not exploitive, that is a component of an integrated idea of human existence. Because all that body awareness has come with this very productivity, maximalization. There’s a dark side of that, too. These sleep maxers, I don’t know what’s going on and I love my aura ring, but there’s just-- or maybe there’s not. I mean, maybe just this is the plight of the human psyche.

Beth [00:35:44] No, I think this is exactly right. We already have a treat economy in some way. The thing is you don’t get fabulously wealthy making treats. You accept that there is a standard of living where I can be content, but also be kind of parked when I make something that people don’t use to excess or that people don’t need every single day. We, I think, participate in a treat economy. We create something here and sell it in a way that is extremely precarious and that affords us a comfortable lifestyle, but not a guaranteed comfortable lifestyle forever, and not fabulous wealth. And there isn’t a path to fabulous wealth from making a podcast unless you supercharge it and are constantly evolving it to appeal to lots and lots-- it has to become a mass thing. Your local bakery is participating in the treat economy, and the people who run it are in a precarious situation with hopefully a comfortable living that is not going to become fabulous wealth. And I think that that’s just the place that everybody’s yearning to see the economy go, where more people accept, like, hey, I can I can be content with a really nice living, even a standard of living that would blow the minds of almost all of my ancestors. But I don’t have to have my graph always going up and to the right forever into eternity.

Sarah [00:37:19] Well, here is something I’ve been thinking a lot about that I think is at the crossroads of all this. So I’m obsessed with tattoos, even though I do not have one and never ever plan on getting one. And if I’m being honest, would prefer my children not to get. I’m fascinated by tattoos. And I’m particularly fascinated by the tattoo economy. Because what an outlier in everything we’re talking about. I mean, first of all, I think there is a component of tattoos that is so fascinating because for so many years and decades, and particularly when we were growing up, tattoos were considered a vice. Now they have crossed over the rubric. They are no longer considered a vice. They are basically considered a treat. They are a thing that brings meaning and purpose to people’s lives and in a way that I think is really lovely and beautiful and endlessly fascinating. And also not extractive or exploited. Think about the tattoo economy. There has been a lot of money made off tattoos in the last 10, 20 years as it has gone up and to the right culturally. But what have we not seen? We haven’t seen some millennial startup that corporatized tattoos. Why not? I want an economic study on this. It has maintained that level of like what you’re talking about, a small local economy. Also, no local tattoo artists are getting fabulously wealthy, even though there’s been a lot of money made off tattoos.

Beth [00:38:55] It’s just really not scalable, right? It’s a person’s time.

Sarah [00:38:58] But it has scaled. That’s what’s so crazy.

Beth [00:39:02] But the service of it is not scalable. The demand has scaled, but the service can’t be scaled. You can’t have the Uber of tattoos. It takes time. You have to sit in a chair with another person, both of you together, investing a lot in that process.

Sarah [00:39:19] I think it’s so interesting. And I think there’s something to be learned, honestly. I think there’s something really interesting going on here culturally and consumption wise that I think is relevant to this entire conversation and the idea that like-- especially because tattoos are the opposite of numbing out, like you have to be so present in your body. You have to be so ready to be uncomfortable and out of control.

Beth [00:39:45] Yeah, you’re not escaping anything.

Sarah [00:39:47] You’re not escaping anything. You’re not in control. I mean, you are in a way, you’re taking control of your body, but you’re handing control over to somebody else. And so I just think there’s so much-- Also, the overlap between like people just get drunk and get tattoos. Like there’s probably a whole episode there. I just think there’s a lot going on with the growth of tattoos that is relevant to this change in both consumption and culture.

Beth [00:40:12] So I think a lot less about tattoos than you do. I know. I can’t go as deep with you on that, but something that I think is related are all of the really small places opening where you can just take a nap, or you can have somebody brush your hair. Like a person who is not a trained massage therapist or even a certified life coach in whatever system people get certified in, where somebody is just saying I’m just going to give you space and time and what I have to try to help you feel good. I think is really interesting. I keep imagining, okay, if AI drastically reduces the availability of jobs, what does come on the other side of that? And what do we still buy and sell and what does a small business still look like? And I think it’s possible that a lot of that is about spending time with another person to try to feel something in that exchange. And I’m really following the stories of places where they just brush your hair because I think that’s pretty fascinating.

Sarah [00:41:20] I have not heard about this. That is a crazy thing to pay someone to do. Wild.

Beth [00:41:24] Yeah. Like scratch your head. A lot of those places that try to tell you they’re Japanese head spas are not Japanese head spas.

Sarah [00:41:31] No.

Beth [00:41:31] They are places where somebody scratches your head and does a nice shampoo and brushes your hair, and that’s fine. There’s value in that. And I think it’s really interesting to watch anything that there can’t be the Uber of.

Sarah [00:41:49] Maybe what we’re scratching at is something where there’s the exchange of value that goes beyond a merely transactional occurrence. Just because money is being exchanged doesn’t mean that it has to have purely transactional component. And I’m tearing up because that’s how I feel about our work. I don’t think the people who subscribe to us on Substack, I never think about it as a purely transactional exchange. And I think something beautiful happens in the alchemy of what is exchanged and I never think about our listeners or the people who come to our shows or the people who pay us to come speak for their organizations or the people who come on pilgrimages as just customers. There is something so much more that happens in that “transaction”. And I think that there’s been a huge part of our economy and our culture that has just doubled down and driven in large part by the greed is good philosophy of Donald Trump and his cohorts that has doubled down on the extractive nature of Capitalism and of these transactions.

[00:43:26] But there can also be something really productive and really beautiful that comes from a capitalist system. I’ve seen a lot of great art that I paid for and I’ve bought a lot of beautiful books and filled my home with things that bring me comfort and joy and pay people to do all manner of things, massages and facials and I know that there’s something probably really lovely that happens between people that get tattoos and they’re trusted tattoo artists. And I think there’s a part of me that’s like I don’t want human interaction to come where there’s money being exchanged. And I’m like, but why not? Why not? Why couldn’t there be less of an exchange and more of a market? More of like the beautiful kind of marketplace. I’m thinking of the beginning of Beauty and the Beast, right? Just an actual lovely thing. And look, let me say this. I think there is a way for alcohol to be a part of that. I don’t like to drink. But I do think that there could be, there is a place for alcohol inside the treat economy that’s not extractive, that’s not abusive, that’s not harmful. There’s probably a place even for my least favorite vices like gambling inside the treat economy. And I’m just trying to like really push myself to think what does that look like? Where are there spaces for people to do that?

Beth [00:45:05] I think it’s all around us all the time. Not to take away from the loveliness of everything you just said, which I mostly agree with. That has been part of the pitch for alcohol, that it’s more than just a transaction, that it then connects you to other people, that you share a bottle of wine with other people and something special happens around that table, that you have a beer on the beach playing volleyball and everybody’s better friends because of it. Like that has been part of the pitch and is part of the pitch in a lot of parts of capitalism. And I think that that’s in some ways the best of capitalism when you are saying, like, hey, I’m selling you something because it’s good and because I think you’ll enjoy it, because I think it’ll be additive to your life in some way. I do not think money has to be ruinous.

[00:45:51] I think a lot of parts of American society have been exploited and left behind and left out because of some of the ways that greed has supercharged that transactionalism. But I had a great conversation a few years ago with the massage therapist who I’ve been seeing for 15 years and is a critical part of my personal wellbeing, where she said that she stopped selling packages where you buy a bunch of massages one time and then use them over the course of a year because it felt kind of horrible to her to have someone come in and leave without paying for it, even though they’d already paid for it. It just felt different to give her time and her energy and her body and not receive something, for it to not be an exchange in that moment. And I thought that was really wise. And I feel like that gets to what you’re talking about with maybe the Beauty and the Beast opening. Like that marketplace when it works is a fantastic thing that creates a lot of dignity for everybody who’s involved.

Sarah [00:46:54] Yeah, I wonder if the problem has always been in the scalability. People just start to lie. They just start to lie. Like, yeah, it’s a good thing. Also it comes with a cost. And I think that probably when you talk about tattoo culture, the closest I’ve ever gotten to getting a tattoo with my husband, the guy was basically so negative about the experience we walked away. But I think there’s an honesty probably that tattoo professionals have to have about like this is the cost. I had a great conversation with a woman on a pilgrimage about how she’s learned with her tattoos that there’s a integration period where she’s going to be like, oh shit, why did I do this? And it’ll pass. And she’s like I just learned it passes. And I think there’s never been because of that just overarching desire to go up into the right. And I think you’re really seeing this play out with gambling right now. There’s no ability to go, “This will come at a cost. Should we think about that? Should we prepare for that? Should we tell people? Should we be honest with people about the fact that this isn’t all good? It’s not going to enhance every beach vacation?” You know what I mean? Like that’s always the problem to me. Is that in the sales, in the desire to open up more and more and more markets, there’s just never any honesty. There’s never any real disclosure about this comes with a cost. This is the cost. Are we okay with it? We’re not really good at having that conversation as Americans.

Beth [00:48:27] No, I live with a person who is great at moderation. So I watch Chad gamble and he goes into a casino and decides on the way in, this is the amount of money that I’m willing to lose to have a good time tonight. And that’s all. And it doesn’t matter how I’m doing, that is the amount of money. And I’m going to walk in thinking of that as the cover charge for being here. And hopefully I walk out up, but if not, that’s fine. A lot of things in his life are going great to enable him to be in that kind of headspace. He is the same way about almost everything. He just has an unbelievable amount of self-discipline and self-control. And so I don’t want to take anything away from the people who like him can operate in a treat economy without the whole economy being wired that way. I also want to listen to these legislators in New Mexico who say that is not everyone’s experience with alcohol. It’s extremely damaging in a number of families here. And that has a huge social cost for our state. So what are we going to do about it? I think all of this kind of belongs together.

Sarah [00:49:32] And what I really hope through that the growth of more like grounded perspectives and understandings about health and wellness and treats, we get to a better space where we can have more open and honest conversations about the risks because from the beginning of Pantsuit Politics, when you name this, all we do is overcorrect. And I’d like to find a little more balance, even with something that I don’t consume like alcohol. So we’ve had a couple listeners reach out about neighbors, community members who are engaging with marijuana consumption within their own private spaces, but because of the nature of particularly smoking marijuana, that choice is invading their space. It’s a very strong smell. I know we are all encountering it more and more and more as recreational use increases. And so they were asking what do I do? How do I do this? Because this is the classic American example. Your freedom is now bumping up against me.

Beth [00:50:48] Well, I’ve had a very intense argument several years ago with my sister about this because my proposal is that all recreational marijuana should be in gummy form. Because the smoking does really impact other people in a really significant way. And I think there has not been a lot of honesty about that. But given that my proposal is unlikely to pass anywhere, the thing that I think about with this question is something that I heard at a retreat I attended for church this week. So go with me for a second. We’re talking about behaviors in kids at church that are disruptive or sometimes even dangerous. And what can you do? Even behaviors that are just annoying to you. I think the example that the leader was talking about was like somebody chewing gum while they’re acolyting. And one of the older members of the congregation hated the gum chewing during acolyting. And if acolyting is not a word in your life, that just means that the child is in a very reverent way going to light candles at the front of the sanctuary space that you’re in.

Sarah [00:51:54] Can you be reverent while chewing gum? I can’t wait for the answer.

Beth [00:51:58] Well, I don’t know. This is probably not a thing that would make my radar, but I understand how it annoys other people. And the leader said to this person who’s annoyed about the gum chewing, do you know that child? And the person was like, what do you mean? And she said, “Is that like theater kid? Do they play sports? Do they like school? Do they have friends? Who are their friends here at church?” And the person couldn’t answer any of those questions. And so the leader said to him, “Then you can’t do anything about this. Because we don’t get to take responsibility for other people and take that kind of responsibility of saying a hard thing and asking something of them until we’ve invested something in the relationship.” And I really took that to heart. I wrote it down. I thought a lot about it. I think that would be my first step. If I had a neighbor who was drowning me in marijuana smoke from next door, I would have to first examine what do I know about this person? Where have I invested in this person? How can I take some time to be in a space where then I can say, “Hey, can I just mention something to you that’s kind of hard? I don’t mind this at all. You do you in your life. This is your home. I get it. And here’s the way that it’s impacting us. Can we talk about this? Can we try to figure something out?”

Sarah [00:53:21] Yeah, I think this is really, really difficult because I think that is good and true and lovely, and also I don’t really want to smell it lots of places beyond just near my neighbors. I think it’s hard because I just think in public life there’s going to be places where we are bumping up against each other and we do not know each other because we all go out in public. And it seems to be for a while we’ve decided, like, as we’ve talked about on the spicy before, you owe me perfection and I owe you shit. You better never get in my way. But if you tell me I’m in yours, watch out. And that’s not going to work long term. I just don’t think that’s working. And so I don’t know if the answer is more of a roll for authority. I don’t know. I don’t know if we need to decide on some public consumption rules that everyone must follow. I mean, we did it with cigarettes. It’s not like we don’t have a model for this. We said there are smoking zones and non-smoking zones. We could just follow those as far as smoking marijuana as well.

[00:54:29] But, man, I was in Europe, I walked right through someone standing in the biggest no-smoking zone right outside the door to the airport and they were lighting up, like literally on top of the text that said no smoking. So I mean there’s a limit to how much you can control other people. And I do think that there is a part of this conversation that has to involve if we say we want to live more in community with each other and we want more grounded experiences in which we are participating in life with other human beings, it’s going to involve a lot of annoyance because people are annoying. At church, at school, at work, at home. My kids are annoying, and I don’t love anybody more than I love my kids. So I think there’s also just an aspect of we’re not going to move seamlessly and without tension through our lived existence with other human beings. Human beings are beautiful and also annoying as hell. I don’t know the balance between finding this place in which we can ask things of each other and also understand that we will still get on each other’s nerves. It’s a tough nut to crack.

Beth [00:55:38] Well, I think this question is so hard because it’s not about public spaces. I am absolutely for smoking in non-smoking areas in public spaces. I think this is a place where America is actually a really amazing country. Because for the most part people do respect those smoking and non-smoking spaces, and I am thankful for that. The question is so hard to me because it is like here in your home, you’re doing a thing that is legal, perhaps, where we are. And I am also in my home. This is why neighborhood disputes are, I think, the most painful of all disputes, because we’re both in our homes. This is the place where I’m supposed to get to just live my best life. And you too. And this is the place where I’m not supposed to feel tension when I roll into my driveway or ascend the stairs to my apartment or however I enter. I’m supposed to feel like, okay, I’m moving now into this comfortable place. So when somebody also just trying to live their best life at home intrudes on you living your best life at home, that is the toughest situation to navigate. And that’s why I think the only way through that that doesn’t end in a lot of conflict and a resort to authorities who don’t want to be called about this kind of dispute, is to try to develop enough of a relationship to say, “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but I am telling you that it is really affecting me. And I would appreciate it if we can solve this problem together.”

Sarah [00:57:07] I’m not arguing against that advice. I do want to say though, have our homes become too comfortable? Is that also not part of the problem? Have we not adopted a narrative where we just craft little paradises because all our third spaces are crumbling and we have unrealistic expectations of being around other people? We talked about that article about how delivery has just destroyed restaurants because we all have just created these perfect havens where we can be without requirement? Although, that’s not how I exist inside my house with my three children. I just want to say that. I know a lot of you don’t either. But I think there is-- and I feel like I’ve read this recently. Like are we too comfortable at home? When we used to live in little villages, hell, you probably could hear the person snoring in the hut next to you. You know what I mean? Like, is there a part of this too that we’re becoming a little too precious? I mean, back in like tenements, what people would cook, how people would smell, like that was all up in your space all the way. If we want more affordable housing and more communal housing, maybe our thresholds for this have to shift.

Beth [00:58:25] Well, I don’t know who the we is again because I think that home is very, very comfortable for some of us and not at all comfortable for others of us. And I do want everybody to have a home where they feel safe and like they can calm down the nervous system a little bit. So I don’t feel that home is too comfortable in that sense. I think that we have become too antisocial for sure. But there are definitely people who live in spaces where they have to think a lot more about their neighbors than I have to about mine. And I think that’s valuable. I am really glad that my freshman year of college had to truck to a shared bathroom with my shower shoes on. I think there was something extremely important about learning to live with other people and tolerate their bullshit that translates to how I try to live in my neighborhood now. You know what I mean? Because if you live in closed quarters and you go all out conflict as your approach to something you’re doing is impacting me wrongly, you’re going to live with the consequences of that every single day in increasingly intense ways until you get out of that situation. And that’s terrible. So it’s all complicated. I don’t think there is probably no one ever has lived in a space where they haven’t been affected by their neighbors in some way. And I guess I just think with marijuana usage, as it’s become legal, it is one of those situations where you just have to figure out how can we at least hear each other on the way that this impacts us and make request of each other that are reasonable.

Sarah [00:59:56] I really think sometimes the older I get the more I realize the hearing is the solution. Now you don’t want someone to say I hear you and I don’t care. That’s obviously not going to make it better. But sometimes it is enough to be like I hear you and I’m sorry. I’ll try. I can’t make any promises. Like just you know what I mean? There doesn’t have to be a change in behavior. A lot of times for humans, it’s just enough to feel like you see me and you understand this impacts me. And maybe it’s not going to get better. Maybe it still is what it is. But at least I got out of my own head and I got to take some control by saying how I felt, knowing it might not change that much. Because with people, it often doesn’t change that much. People are hard to change. And so maybe that’s part of it too. It’s just the hearing is the solution.

Beth [01:00:53] Yeah, and I think that kind of hearing where it’s a positive experience for both people does require some level of relationship. Because if you do a note on the door, “Hey, your marijuana spoke is driving us all crazy kind of thing,” then people automatically go into defensive posture. You must think that I am a drug addict. You know what I mean? You’re looking down at me. Whereas, if you have some kind of relationship with that person, then you can say, “I totally respect your right to do this. And I feel weird about even bringing it up. But I do want you to know that this is getting to be a really noticeable, intrusive part of living here.”

Sarah [01:01:33] I think all the time about that video with that little old lady and her nice neighbor. I forgot what happened. Was it lights? I think he was turning his porch lights on at night and she could see them. And they had clearly talked about it several times. And he was so sweet. He was like, why don’t you just come over when we turn our porch lights on?

Beth [01:01:56] Yes. I love that video.

Sarah [01:01:57] I love that video. And she was like, really? I don’t want to be a pain in the ass. And he was like, no, you’re not a pain in the ass. I don’t want you to be lonely. If the porch lights are bothering you, why don’t you just come out here with us on the porch lights? It was so sweet. And I know that’s not the solution all the time. I know there’s a Netflix documentary about the risks of really, really, really bad neighbors that everybody’s talking about right now. But we can’t continue to just put up barriers and shut off from each other. That’s not working. And when you drop those barriers, you’re going to be exposed to people’s differences and their annoying behaviors and their neuroses and that’s okay. That’s the cost of doing business with other humans. And I hope we’re all building up some tolerance for that.

[01:02:48] I hope that’s one of the side effects of this last 10 years of very intense it feels like experimentation on human culture in so many ways. We took a long and winding road from alcohol consumption, but I guess the human psyche is an appropriate destination always when you’re talking about these kind of cultural issues. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Pantsuit Politics. Again, you can upgrade at pantsuitpoliticshow.com for the full premium experience or share with your loved ones or maybe your annoying neighbor, I don’t know, to climb the referral leaderboard before Thanksgiving. The top five will receive treats from the Pantsuit Politics team. We will be back in your ears on Friday and until then have the best week available to you.

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