Reply #45: I would be very surprised if that's true based on my experience in Italy [View All]

[MajorChode]

But you also have to be careful with the standards applied. Some use a standard for alcoholism that specifies a number of drinks over a lengthy period like a week or a month which produces mixed results. It might be a decent indicator of the number of alcoholics within some specific groups, but for trying to compare two different groups that have a completely different culture towards alcohol, it's complete shit. If you're routinely having a drink at lunch, one when you get home, and a couple with dinner every single day, you can rack up a pretty good total at the end of the month, but that's much different than someone getting completely smashed every other weekend even though the amount of alcohol might be the same. I thought I drank a lot until I moved to Europe and started hanging out with Europeans. Even though I didn't see people getting drunk all that much, many do have a regular routine that they follow every day. They know how to drink. That's why I was also careful to specify "problems" with alcohol. By that I mean drunk driving, missing work, domestic violence, and other problems associated with alcohol abuse specifically. So all of that may be hard to quantify in some type of report that singles out causations of those things directly related to alcohol. I'm just basing it on my own experience living in Europe. I saw a lot of alcohol use. I saw a big difference in attitudes toward alcohol. I didn't see a lot of problems with alcohol.