Drinking culture includes the activities, terminology and truisms shared by those who drink alcohol.
Although the type of alcohol, social attitude toward (and acceptance of) drinking varies around the world, nearly every civilization has independently discovered the process of brewing beer, fermenting wine or distilling liquor.
Alcohol and its effects have been present wherever people have lived throughout history. Drinking is documented in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, Greek literature as old as Homer, and Confucius' Analects. Given its continuing popularity and the failure of most Prohibitions, drinking may remain a part of human life interminably.
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2 List of Drinking Terms 3 Types of drinking glasses 4 See Also |
Generally, people drink for one of five reasons; to quench thirst, to get drunk (binge drinking), to enjoy a social setting (social drinking), to feed an addiction (alcoholism), or as part of a religious or traditional ceremony or custom.
Binge drinking is drinking alcohol solely for the purpose of intoxication, although it is quite common for binge drinking to apply to a social situation, creating some overlap in social and binge drinking.
College students have a reputation for engaging in binge drinking, especially (in the USA, athletes and fraternity (or sorority) brothers (sisters), particularly after final examinations, varsity wins and during spring break.
Some common reasons for this propensity for binge drinking is that many college students are living on their own for the first time, free of parental supervition, among peers, especially those of the opposite sex.
In the parts Europe, where children and adolescents routinely experience alcohol much earlier and with parental approval, such as watered- down wine with a meal, binge drinking tends to be less of a problem.
Social drinking refers to casual collateral drinking, usually without the intent to get drunk, but rather sustain a buzz.
Social drinking plays an important (but not traditional) role in such social functions as dating, and marriage. For example, a person buying another a drink at a singles bar is a gesture that the one is interested in the other and often initiates conversation, or at least flirtation.
Bad news is often delivered over a drink, good news is often celebrated by having a few drinks - we drink to "wet the baby's head" to celebrate a birth. Buying someone a drink is a gesture of goodwill, and can be used as an expression of gratitude or mark the resolution of a dispute--to bury the hatchet, so to say. The physical act of going to a comfortable setting with friends is a large part of sharing a drink in the above situations, but the fact remains that people have found as many reasons to meet for a drink as they have to meet for tea, coffee, or to eat.
Some terms describing drinks, used when ordering:
Purpose of Drinking
Binge Drinking
Social Drinking
List of Drinking Terms
Types of drinking glasses
See Also
