> In countries like France or Italy, the drink of choice
> is wine. In Ireland or Russia, it is whiskey or vodka.
Well, if Irish people are going to drink something other than beer, it's probably going to be whiskey or vodka. But most just drink beer.
The situation is really quite bad here. It is the culture that alcohol accompanies just about every social event, and people drink to get drunk. I couldn't recite the statistics off the top of my head, but it seems studies are published practically once a week showing how bad things are; recent ones I can recall hearing include that alcohol is involved in over 90% of single vehicle fatalities (the rate of which is alarmingly high here in any event); that alcohol is a key factor in the vast majority of accidental deaths of any kind; that Irish men are the worst binge drinkers in Europe, and Irish women aren't that far off, etc.
Visitors to Dublin frequently say that the most shocking/unpleasant thing they encounter is the drunkenness. Even if you don't go out at night, you'll still have to step over piles of puke on the sidewalk on weekend mornings.
> I don't know if this is true, but I have deduced
> tentatively that the reason why alcoholism was much
> less of a problem in the Soviet era is simply that
> alcohol was harder to get. You can get wasted today in
> Russia for $1 if you're willing to drink the samogon (rotgut).
Well, it certainly costs a lot more than that to get drunk here. But we manage to do it anyway. The government keeps raising taxes on alcohol ... and the binge drinking rate just keeps going up. Clearly there are other factors at work.
> I've had about 5 beers myself this evening, so I can't be self-righteous about things.
Yes, I have a lingering hangover myself. When in Rome ...