AUDIO – THE NEW YORKER –
June 20, 2026 – A few years ago, I noticed that drinking alcohol had fallen out of favor with young people. I was annoyed. Yes, some people drank so much that they got fired and hit on random people and drove drunk—those people should obviously quit. But being able to drink reasonably and quitting anyway was, I believed … a rude refusal to have fun with others. We lived in a world where everything had become a kiosk or an effluent pond, or was owned by individuals so rich that the category “human being” ceased to apply. How could anyone not drink in a world where the most flourishing partnerships seemed to be the ones between climate collapse and state-sponsored violence? People who didn’t drink talked about having clarity. They talked about health. I did not believe in clarity. I did not believe in health. I believed in things like the fact that the oceans were getting hot, and that a lot of Palestinians were dead, and that I, an American, had been obligated to help finance both. So I drank, daily…
