Consumption Patterns of Alcoholic Beverages in Two Cohorts of Italian Men

Abstract

From individual interviews with Italian men aged 40–45 and 65–70 three prevailing models of consumption pattern can be categorized: the use of alcohol gradually increases and remains a constant in the subject's life until the adult phase is reached, when it decreases; alcohol consumption rises gradually until reaching a peak that characterizes a phase of elevated consumption, after which it decreases; alcohol consumption varies considerably over the years—a pattern which is characterized by different phases.

The traditional model, adopted by most of the members of the group aged 65–70, was a pattern of consumption in which alcohol use grew gradually (the period of adolescence/youth) and then remained constant for a long period over a person's lifetime. Instead, the consumption pattern of the members of the group now aged 40–45 illustrated an interesting “action-oriented learning mechanism”: the traditional model of consumption, taught by the family, was what the subjects adopted after abandoning the socializing/intoxicating model, once their situations changed due to different life transitions. The historical-social process of “the internationalization of consumption styles” did not seem to have reduced the influence of the traditional model typical of a “wet” culture: if anything, those who were adolescents in the 1970s, as previously documented, were exposed to several consumption models.