America has a drinking problem

Re:America has a drinking problem by throwaway0a5e on Tuesday June 01, 2021 @06:51PM (#27362476)

This trope needs to die. Europe doesn't have drinking "problems" because it mostly draws the line for "problems" in what would solidly be "functional alcoholic" territory in the US.

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Re:America has a drinking problem by tomnipotent on Tuesday June 01, 2021 @07:31PM (#27362802)

Wait, what?

From the WHO:

https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention...

"The WHO European Region has the highest proportion in the world of total ill health and premature death due to alcohol."

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Re:America has a drinking problem by throwaway0a5e on Tuesday June 01, 2021 @07:49PM (#27362961)

Exactly. The numbers don't back up the narrative unless you do mental gymnastics to redefine Europe. HN often seems to forget that Europe extends south beyond the Alps and east beyond the Oder.

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Re:America has a drinking problem by pedrosorio on Tuesday June 01, 2021 @08:10PM (#27363138)

> HN often seems to forget that Europe extends south beyond the Alps

Unclear what this is supposed to mean. Italy[0], Portugal[1] and Spain[2] all have lower prevalence of heavy episodic drinking than the EU average.

Both Portugal ("south of the Alps") and France[3] ("north of the Alps") have higher alcohol consumption per capita than the EU average, which is largely due to a culture of moderate wine drinking with meals that has nothing to do with "functional alcoholism".

[0] https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/402190/... [1] https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/402198/... [2] https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/402202/... [3] https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/402185/...

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