Alcohol in Europe: the EU alcohol forum.

摘要

Analysis of Neolithic pottery has shown that alcohol has been brewed for at least 10,000 years. Binge drinking, sexual excess and vomiting feature in the Epic of Gilgamesh - among one of the earliest works of literature (around 4000 BC). In Europe, the Celtic devotion to feasting and drunkenness was noted by Caesar and was contrasted with the Roman habit of regular wine drinking by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century. Alcohol plays an important part in the social and cultural life of many Europeans and cultural differences in the way alcohol is consumed persist to this day. In southern Europe, for example, the majority . of drinking occurs with a meal, whereas in northern Europe the opposite remains the case - although patterns are changing and harmonising as a result of globalisation. The 'civilised' southern European drinking pattern is by no means free, of problems. Between 1950 and 1980 southern Europe had six times the number of deaths related to liver cirrhosis than northern Europe; a number which fell to around double by 2001 as overall alcohol consumption in the south declined.