Modern epidemiological and sociological research consistently documents these cultural differences.

1. Using DSM-III, an international team led by John Helzer discovered the following remarkable differences in alcohol abuse rates among different cultures, including two native Asian groups:
   "The highest lifetime prevalence rates [of alcohol abuse and/or dependence] were found in U.S. native Mexican Americans at 23 percent and in the Korean survey, where the total sample rate was about 22 percent. There is about a fiftyfold difference in lifetime prevalence between these two samples and Shanghai, where the lowest lifetime prevalence of 0.45 percent was found." Helzer, J.E., and Canino, G.J., Alcoholism in North America, Europe, and Asia, Oxford University Press, New York, 1992, p. 293.
2. For as long as American epidemiologists have measured drinking problems, they have found clearcut, significant, and persistent group differences. It is notable that the groups with the lowest incidence of alcohol abuse, the Jews and Italians, have (a) the lowest abstinence rates among these groups, and (b) (especially the Italians) the highest consumption rates. Cahalan D., and Room, R., Problem Drinking among American Men, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1974; Greeley, A.M., et al., Ethnic Drinking Subcultures, Praeger, New York, 1980.
3. Two sociologists searched for Jewish alcohol abusers in an upstate NY city in the belief that alcoholism rates among American Jews had risen. Instead, they found an astoundingly low rate of 0.1% alcohol abusers in this population. Glassner, B., and Berg, B., "How Jews Avoid Alcohol Problems," American Sociological Review, 1980, Vol. 45, 647-664.
4. George Vaillant, studying inner-city ethnic men in Boston over a 40-year period, found that Irish-Americans were 7 times as likely to develop alcohol dependence as Italian-Americans--this despite the Irish-Americans having a substantially higher abstinence rate. Vaillant, G.E., The Natural History of Alcoholism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983.
5. A sociologist who reviewed 17,500 arrest records in New York's Chinatown from 1933 to 1949 found that not one arrest noted public drunkenness. Barnett, M.L., "Alcoholism in the Cantonese of New York City: An anthropological study," pp. 179-227 in Diethelm, O., ed., Etiology of Chronic Alcoholism, Charles C Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1955.
6. There are also clear and distinct differences in alcohol abuse rates by socioeconomic status. Higher-SES Americans are more likely to drink, but also more likely to drink without problems, than lower-SES Americans. Again, this suggests that lower abstinence rates and higher consumption levels are not themselves the source of drinking problems. Hilton, M.E., "Demographic Characteristics and the Frequency of Heavy Drinking as Predictors of Self-reported Drinking Problems," British Journal of Addiction, 1987, Vol. 82, 913-925.
7. Drinking patterns in the U.S. also differ markedly by region (reflecting religious and cultural differences). The Southern and Mountain regions of the country, with their "dry" traditions, have high levels of both abstinence and individual excess.
   "The higher per-drinker apparent consumption levels in the historically drier regions are accompanied by higher levels of problems in the categories of belligerence, accidents, and trouble-with-the-police. These differences in problem rates, however, are apparent only among men.... It has recently been argued that drinking practices and problems in the United States are heading toward a regional convergence.... The evidence given here, however, contradicts the convergence thesis. According to the latest national survey data, the wetter and drier sections of the country continue to have markedly different rates of abstention and per-drinker consumption." Hilton, M.E., "Regional Diversity in United States Drinking Practices," British Journal of Addiction, 1988, Vol. 83, 519-532 (quotes pp. 519, 528-529).
8. Alcoholics Anonymous World Headquarters has compiled AA group membership data in countries around the world. In 1991 (the last year for which data were kept), the western country with the fewest AA groups per capita was Portugal, with 0.6 groups per million population. The highest was Iceland, with almost 800 groups per million. This is a strong indicator of greater perceived alcohol problems in Iceland--even though Portugal consumes 2 1/2 times as much alcohol per capita as Iceland! (Peele, S. "Utilizing Culture and Behaviour in Epidemiological Models of Alcohol Consumption and Consequences for Western Nations ," Alcohol & Alcoholism, 1997, Vol. 32, 51-64 (Table 1).)

III Alcohol use does not lead directly to aggressive behavior.

Drunken aggression is commonly observed in some cultures and settings in the United States. Worldwide, however, such behavior is typically quite rare, even among people who drink a great deal. Numerous anthropological studies demonstrate that alcohol-related violence is a learned behavior, not an inevitable result of alcohol consumption.

"The way people comport themselves when they are drunk is determined not by alcohol's toxic assault upon the seat of moral judgment, conscience, or the like, but by what their society makes of and imparts to them concerning the state of drunkenness."

MacAndrew, C., and Edgerton, R.B., Drunken Comportment, Aldine, Chicago, 1969, p. 165.

"Beverage alcohol cannot be viewed as the cause of specific drunken behaviors.... Alcohol as a drug can be viewed as an enabler or a facilitator of certain culturally given inebriate states, but it cannot be seen as producing a specific response pattern among all human beings who ingest it."