Drinking Games

Malcolm Gladwell connects the dots between culture and drinking in an insightful article - Drinking Games - in The New Yorker magazine.

"There is something about the cultural dimension of social problems that eludes us.  When confronted with the rowdy youth in the bar, we are happy to raise his drinking age, to tax his beer, to punish him if he drives under the influence, and to push him into treatment if his habit becomes an addiction.  But we are reluctant to provide him with a  positive and constructive example of how to drink.  The consequences of that failure are considerable, because, in the end, culture is a more powerful tool in dealing with drinking than medicine, economics, or the law.

Nowhere in the multitude of messages and signals sent by popular culture and social institutions about drinking is there any consensus about what drinking is supposed to mean."

I don't agree with his "nowhere" claim.  For most people, drinking at celebrations like a wedding, at a business dinner, or pairing wine with food at the family dining table are all good examples of social institutions.   And when done right they enhance the event and experience.  It's the doing right part that's a challenge for many.