<story><title>America has a drinking problem</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/america-drinking-alone-problem/619017/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Sophistifunk</author><text>People have the cause and effect backwards in my opinion. You know why &amp;quot;binge drinking&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t a problem in Germany, except for when the Australians turn up for Oktoberfest? It&amp;#x27;s because you can just buy a beer on the side of the road with your currywurst, and drink it without being hassled. If you act up, you get arrested for acting up. Try openly having a few beers in the park in Australia or the US, you&amp;#x27;ll be run out by the constabulary, or at the least they&amp;#x27;ll make you empty it in the trash. When you treat people like naughty children and bake into your culture the idea that drinking is itself an anti-social behaviour that always leads to fighting and dickheaddery, then that&amp;#x27;s how they act.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hutzlibu</author><text>Binge drinking is a problem in germany.&lt;p&gt;You can allmost call it youth culture, most kids go through, before becoming adults. In my late teenage years, it was common and expected on parties to drink, until you have fun, who can drink the most (and puke afterwards), etc.&lt;p&gt;Most people, like myself, had enough of this after some time and matured - but I know too many people, where the booze and beer stayed with them.</text></comment>
<story><title>America has a drinking problem</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/america-drinking-alone-problem/619017/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Sophistifunk</author><text>People have the cause and effect backwards in my opinion. You know why &amp;quot;binge drinking&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t a problem in Germany, except for when the Australians turn up for Oktoberfest? It&amp;#x27;s because you can just buy a beer on the side of the road with your currywurst, and drink it without being hassled. If you act up, you get arrested for acting up. Try openly having a few beers in the park in Australia or the US, you&amp;#x27;ll be run out by the constabulary, or at the least they&amp;#x27;ll make you empty it in the trash. When you treat people like naughty children and bake into your culture the idea that drinking is itself an anti-social behaviour that always leads to fighting and dickheaddery, then that&amp;#x27;s how they act.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>plandis</author><text>I regularly go out and have picnics with my wife and have never once been harassed about sharing a bottle of wine with our meal. My family goes camping over Memorial Day weekend to state parks all over Ohio and it’s pretty common to have alcoholic drinks but, as long as you’re not bothering anyone, nobody cares. We’ve been doing this for as long as I’ve been alive and not once has anyone cared in 30+ years.&lt;p&gt;The US has open container laws but they primarily exist for a pretense to arrest people for being disorderly, in my experience.&lt;p&gt;Edit: The person I’m responding to isn’t even in the US how is what they are saying more valid then my actual life experiences in the US?</text></comment>