[LarryL]

A very interesting read.

I did not know that alcohol effects varied that much between societies & context/circonstances.

I found especially surprising the part about how in some cultures drunkenness is used as an excuse for violent behaviour while it's NOT elsewhere. I don't drink myself, but I've seen a lot of other people's behaviour in France (being loud, more or less belligerent, removing clothes, etc.), but had not realized it could be otherwise in other countries.

I've always thought that being drunk (or drugged) was NOT an excuse for bad behaviour (especially picking fights): that's much too easy/convenient to justify oneself like this! Now, I've learned that I was even more right than I thought!

[naravara]

I'd have liked to have seen more specifics on which cultures were which. I've experienced the drinking cultures from India, Japan, China, France, the US, Argentina, Brazil, and England and in ALL of them drinking alcohol was correlated with what they called "disinhibition" and aggression.

The amounts of each of these things varied, but it's not like it was ever fully absent. So basically, is this is a dependency on cultural norms separate from everything else or does alcohol correlate with any specific about economic development that makes people behave this way?

[skate22]

If i had to take a guess, I would imagine above all else, the reasons people start drinking are going to vary from one culture to another (on the average).

Ive heard the expression: drunk people speak sober thoughts (meaning they hold back less)

People who get drunk to cele brate act different than people who get drunk to cope with something (from what ive seen)

If in one culture it was only socially accepted to get drunk to celebrate, i would expect different behaviour than a culture who only views drinking as a way to cope

Just my uninformed theory