4 ms·

Alcohol is normalized from a young age in the UK, yet it's abused by adults more heavily than here. I don't think that's a panacea.

• somehowadev 8y ago
  Something I can finally contribute to on HN! There’s probably a few causes for how we abuse alcohol in the UK. 1. Most pubs close relatively early (11pm-1am), so after work you don’t have too much time to spend before you have to decide between a club or home. 2. Anecdotally, although most people know their limits. I see people in my circles tend to drink at the rate of the fastest drinker and “catchup”, especially if doing rounds. 3. We do have a bit of a binge drinking culture. Our culture (in my opinion) tends to encourage getting drunk (as long as you don’t cause harm to others).
  • xapata 8y ago
    The culture of buying rounds causes a problem. You don't want to miss a round, because it's a free beer.
• overcast 8y ago
  Out to lunch during business hours in the UK, my colleagues would routinely put back 2-3 pints. That's absurd to me.
• Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
  It's very expensive, though. My experience living in several European countries basically echoes the parent comment. Countries where alcohol is normalized since childhood, cheap, widely sold and allowed (basically the Mediterranean countries: Spain, Italy, Greece, possibly France although I don't know France that much) -> people drink but tend to have sane drinking habits. Countries where alcohol is frowned upon, heavily taxed, expensive or difficult to buy (Sweden, Norway, the UK, etc.) -> people abuse drink and just don't know when to stop.
  • koyote 8y ago
    Germany has cheap easily available alcohol at a very young age and a massive drinking culture.
  • xapata 8y ago
    Correlation, perhaps, but the causation could be reversed.
  • kakwa_ 8y ago
    France, it varies from region to region. Brittany for example has a reputation of heavy drinkers, and having lived there for a while it's a bit deserved. Also, students parties can be quite alcohol heavy, specially the start of the year parties. For example, in business and engineering schools, you have the WEI (Week End of Integration), basically, most of the students go in a remote location to get drunk for most of a Week-End (including during the 3 or 4 hours bus trip), there, you see some people completely passing out. After that, during the year, you see people getting drunk, but very rarely to the point of passing out. However, the consumption of alcohol as a student can easily be continuous, for example, in my school of ~450 students, we had a bar managed by the students, with a license to serve alcohols like beer or cider, and some students ended-up border line alcoholics.
  • 9935c101ab17a66 8y ago
    Drawing any kind of conclusion about a county's drinking habits based on purely anecdotal experience seems like a futile exercise. Also, I'm no expert, but I skimmed a few studies a couple of months ago, and they all suggested higher alcohol prices reduced consumption. Admittedly, I'm not sure if the studies covered what impact pricing has on individual consumption / binge drinking.