In the 80’s I worked at a Federal government office. When we had parties, we would serve alcohol, even though the rules forbade it. What made us stop was that there was always at least one person who would drink too much. It seemed to me that those people were usually high functioning alcoholics who were fine when they were regulating their intake by themselves, but were unable to regulate it when it was freely available. I have also known people who are (at the very least) heavy drinkers who will not drink at afternoon occasions for this very reason.
All four Metra (commuter rail) terminals in Chicago have bars that do a brisk business during the height of the evening rush. The only concessionaire in LaSalle Street Station is a bar. 
And at Union Station, for those in such a hurry to reach their train that they’ve no time to stop at a bar, the bar also sells huge cans (more like silos) of beer from tubs of ice conveniently located along the routes from the riverside entrances (most commuters cross the river to reach Union Station) to the platforms. Drinking alcohol is allowed on Metra trains except for selected days when festivals or holidays are expected to overcrowd the trains.
It was only a few years ago that some of the Metra routes had bar cars. “Bar car” is a bit of an exaggeration: one regular coach on selected trains would have a little stand or counter set up on the vestibule steps (the doors wouldn’t open in that car) and a person who was commuting anyway would staff the bar as a side-job. No tables, etc., as the seating areas of the car were unmodified. A Tribune story about the end of the Metra bar cars. A Tribune story about how drinking on Metra didn’t end with the end of the bar cars.
Drinking during the evening commute is not as prevalent as in “Mad Men”/“Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” days but oh yes, it’s still around.
At the Hollywood talent agencies, there still is something of a drinking culture (and a hook up culture that flows from the booze) amongst the twenty something assistants and thirty something junior agents.
http://aspiringtvwriter.blogspot.com/2007/11/agency-alcohol-oh-boy.html
The blog post doesn’t mention anybody hooking up. You’ll just have to take my word for it. 
And the martinis were also a lot smaller then, weren’t they? Watch old movies from the mid 1930s through the 1960s; when people did drink martinis the glasses are much smaller than the ones served by trendy bars, of which I suspect some of not even bothering to stock vermouth. For that matter, it’s been stipulated that movies are not a reliable source of historical data, but you can see the same thing for yourself many historic bars and restaurants. At Musso & Frank in Hollywood they serve it to you in an old fashioned smaller glass–but also give you a little jug with more martini in it–presumably because today’s customers expect to get a larger and stronger drink.
I’m 53. When I was a Radio Shack trainee in the early 80’s I had a manager who, on Friday after closing, would get 2-3 six packs of some cheap beer from the nearby liquor store in our strip mall and about 4 of us (part timers trainees etc) would go after it. It was ridiculous. I think he was an incipient alcoholic.
These days, as a commercial real estate agent, if if I saw someone drinking before 5 in his office I would think he was kind of sloppy. We have a bunch of craft beer in our work fridge but it’s hardly touched because it looks bad to be drinking during working hours. We do party after 5, but not before.
Besides it’s so hard to stay in shape who really wants to drink during working hours? Drinking makes me slightly loose but it also can make you stupid. Who wants to roll the dice that you’re going to offend a client by being slightly toasted during working hours. Plus we now know how abusive alcohol is to your body. It’s an expensive habit on multiple levels.
On a larger demographic note I think the sizable number of women moving into the professional work force also put a big damper of recreational drinking during working hours. As a man you’ve got to watch your behavior and be more circumspect when women are around as they are easily offended by inebriated horseplay .
Because company-time booze is more fattening than personal-time booze? Explain.
Per capita alcohol consumption, US: http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/resources/databaseresources/quickfacts/alcoholsales/consum01.htm
Here’s a graph of the data that I assembled:
http://wm40.inbox.com/thumbs/58_130b66_1649793e_oP.png.thumb
Per person spirit consumption peaked in 1969, but beer drinking kept growing. Total alcohol consumption peaked in 1980/1981. Some of these trends are driven by demographics of course and I haven’t addressed time of day issues.
I see that alcohol consumption bottomed in 1997/1998 and has been rising since.
More than you want to know, the correlation matrix:
Total Beer Wine Spirits
Total 1
Beer 0.890 1
Wine 0.841 0.901 1
Spirits 0.784 0.425 0.387 1
Wine and beer move together. Spirits declined during the 1970s, while beer, wine and total per person alcohol consumption increased in that decade.
They are additive. Do you imagine that there won’t be personal time booze as well? It’s just piling on.
Very interesting data and thank you for the graph.
“It doesn’t matter what time it is; it just matters what your plans are,” said my favorite cashier. I could not agree more. When working midnight to eight, I enjoyed many an early morning screwdriver while watching “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeannie.” I will drink a Bloody Mary or a Mimosa early in the day on a weekend or vacation day. Cheers!
If I’m going out for lunch, I’ll have a craft beer or two. Most employers forbid it even if I was off the clock. I’m well under .08 BAC, so if I’m perfectly legal to drive, I’m good taking calls, making sales, or training. I can’t remember the last time I had an hour lunch though. So this is mostly a three or four times / year thing.
Of course, ITGOD (In The Good Old Days) an 8 oz Coke and one McDonalds hamburger were both considered sufficient too. No surprise if alchol now suffers from the same inflation of expectations.
So I called up the captain. Please bring me my wine. He said we haven’t had that much spirits here since nineteen sixty-nine.
I went to work in the Postal Service in May of 2008. The job I had for the fifteen months prior to that was with a smallish company that licensed a major American appliance brand name and slapped it on the digital flat screen televisions and electronic picture frames you sometimes see in Wal*Mart and Costco. Every four or so months, the president would announce a Tiki Bar down in the staging area off the warehouse, and we’d have a party from about 3:30 to 6:00 p.m. (they actually had a cheesy bamboo and wicker bar that they kept in storage)
Don’t know if they’re still doing that, but I do know that they eliminated the department that I worked in within about a year after my departure.
Yup, drinking allowed on the Long Island RR except for specific days when its not (including St. Patrick’s day) and there are bar carts on the Penn Station platforms that sell beer, wine & mixed drinks. As a child of the 80s I did find it scandalous at first glance to see people drinking on the train, but I can’t exactly articulate why.
The Metro-North bar car is reported to have outlasted all its brethren but now be in jeopardy. A twitter-like feed keeps commuters informed of which scheduled CT-bound trains will have a bar car.
Oh, my! People started drinking more right after I was born, and overall consumption dropped radically starting right before my 21st birthday. Maybe I was an intolerable kid 
I remember noticing, when watching old (usually black & white) movies, that whenever the “man of the house” came home, he’d hang up his coat and hat on the coatrack to one side of the front door, and then immediately turn to the little table on the other side of the door and pour himself a drink from the decanter waiting there.
major difference between drinking in the usa and everywhere else is the puritanical uptiteness that exists in the usa
at the mcdonalds in france you can get beer or wine with your burger…same in most other nations…just the very thought of this in the usa would be distasteful to most, but why is it any different from getting beer/wine at applebees or fridays with a burger? all have take out and sit down eating
Probably because McDonalds in the US is heavily advertised to children, and Americans would find that inappropriate if McD’s sold alcohol.
Just to provide a non-US perspective, I’ve had a few jobs where after-drink works were a regular thing and it wasn’t considered a huge deal if someone was too hung over to come in after a really big night out (eg someone’s birthday) but only one (in the media, interestingly) where drinking at lunch was considered acceptable within reason- although again, there were the odd Friday lunches at the pub which stretched out long enough to ensure that the afternoon wasn’t exactly productive either.
Never saw anyone drinking in the office though- that wasn’t the done thing.