For the first time since the pandemic reshaped American life, the nation's collective relationship with alcohol is shifting — though not uniformly, and not completely. Younger adults are pulling back from the elevated consumption that crisis and isolation once encouraged, while older Americans continue drinking at levels above what any pre-pandemic baseline would have predicted. The country is moving, but it is moving in pieces, and the distance still to travel reminds us that the habits a society forms under duress do not dissolve simply because the emergency has passed.