Seventy percent of drinkers regretted getting drunk at least once in the prior year, according to the Global Drug Survey’s 2020 wave (82,821 respondents, 31 countries). The peer-reviewed analysis by Davies et al. in Substance Use & Misuse found that the median drinker got drunk six times a year and regretted two of those occasions. Among occasions when they got drunk, women regretted a higher median share (30%) than men (16.67%), against an overall median of 20%. Separately, a 2025 NCSolutions survey found that nearly half of Americans (49%) plan to drink less in 2025, up sharply from 34% in 2023 — a trend suggesting broad and growing dissatisfaction with current consumption levels. On the other side of the ledger, population-level data from Finland’s Drinking Habits Survey found that non-drinkers reported mostly positive social feedback, with only a small minority experiencing negative social consequences from abstaining.
The asymmetry here is striking but not symmetric in its evidence base. The action-regret figure is robust: an 82,821-person sample, replicated across dozens of countries, measuring a concrete experience (“did you regret getting drunk?”). The inaction figure is far weaker — and measures a different construct entirely. The Finnish study tracked negative social consequences (pressure, exclusion) among non-drinkers, not regret about the decision to abstain. No large study has directly asked non-drinkers whether they regret abstaining, because the question barely arises in public-health research. Alcohol Change UK’s Dry January data shows that 70% of participants still drink less six months later and only 28% revert to prior habits — suggesting that abstinence generates little lasting dissatisfaction, though this too measures behavior rather than regret.
The GDS found an inverse relationship between frequency and per-occasion regret — heavier drinkers regretted a smaller share of episodes — which hints at habituation rather than genuine satisfaction. The main caveat is sample bias: GDS respondents are self-selected, younger, and heavier- drinking than the general population. The true action-regret rate among all adults who drink, including the moderate majority, is certainly lower than 70%. The directional finding — that drinking generates far more regret than not drinking — is robust; the magnitude is an upper bound.