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As someone that grew up in Southern Europe I am at times surprised and shocked by the relation Americans and Canadians have with alcohol. In Portugal, Spain an
by diego_moita 13y ago
As someone that grew up in Southern Europe I am at times surprised and shocked by the relation Americans and Canadians have with alcohol.
In Portugal, Spain and Italy alcohol is food. We drink at home, with the family, a great amount of wine and a little beer. Wine and beer are openly sold in supermarkets, close to other food. However, the biggest alcoholism problem we have are American, British and Australian tourists binge drinking in our beaches.
OTOH, in North America it seems there are only 2 extreme ways of handling alcohol: the Russian-like approach and the Muslim-like panic. Teenagers and poor people abuse it and drink heavily, all the others are obsessively scared of it.
- coldpie 13y ago> OTOH, in North America it seems there are only 2 extreme ways of handling alcohol: the Russian-like approach and the Muslim-like panic. Teenagers and poor people abuse it and drink heavily, all the others are obsessively scared of it. This isn't true at all. You're seeing the extreme cases and generalizing it to everybody. We may have a higher incidence of alcoholism and alcohol abuse (I don't know the numbers), but the vast majority of Americans use alcohol occasionally and responsibly.