countries with low consumption levels eg iceland ireland report higher rates of alcoholrelated social and psychiatric problems than countries with high consumption levels eg france italy but these variations are related to different cultural beliefs attitudes norms and expectancies about drinking societies with generally positive beliefs and expectancies about alcohol integrated drinkingcultures experience significantly fewer alcohol related problems societies with negative or inconsistent beliefs and expectancies ambivalent drinking cultures are associated with higher levels of alcoholrelated problems figure presents the proportion of frequent drinkers against the proportion of heavy episodic drinkers