Consumption Level and Cultural Drinking Patterns as Determinants of Alcohol Problems

Abstract

Sociologists, particularly in the United States, have devoted little attention to the impact of centrally directed alcohol policies on drinking problems. Sociocultural studies of religious and ethnic differences In drinking behavior appear to suggest that the liberalization of alcohol policies would favor the growth of moderate drinking patterns at the expense of excessive drinking. However, this “substitution hypothesis” receives less support in Scandinavian research on alcohol policy than does an alternative “addition hypothesis.” When policy controls on alcohol are relaxed, increases in moderate consumption occur in addition to and not at the expense of relatively stable patterns of heavy drinking.