Recent years have seen numerous studies dedicated to risk factors of alcohol abuse. But insufficient attention has been paid to the ‘beneficial factors’ that in any society play a self-regulating role in the use and the abuse of alcohol. Hence the argument by Prof. Enrico Tempesta – from the Osservatorio Permanente sui Giovani e l’Alcool, Rome – for more research into the protective cultural factors, especially now that they are under threat from behaviour models set up by economic “globalization”.

Alcohol, in and of itself, is not the cause of use and abuse. Behaviour patterns develop through complex interactions between the biological and psychological factors peculiar to the individual in his or her relation to alcohol as a chemical product on the one hand, and, on the other, to the ‘habitat’ in which individuals consume alcohol, not as a chemical product, but as a social brew. The term ‘habitat’ thus spans environmental and cultural factors.
While our knowledge of the biological and psychological vulnerability is fast increasing, according to Professor Tempesta, too little attention is being devoted to the cultural-anthropological aspects that condition both the individual and society vis-à-vis alcohol.
Recent research conducted by experts in the Osservatorio shows that the use of alcohol among young persons is very much conditioned by their cultural environment, by their socio-economic organisation and by the symbolic imports of the different types of alcoholic products, referring to cultural models.
It is important to analyze such mechanisms, concludes Enrico Tempesta. This is necessary not only in order to determine preventive policy around alcohol abuse, but also in order to avoid the protective sources of aid of the community suffering through the process of apparent homogenization of behaviour patterns caused by economic globalization.

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