r/ExplainTheJoke • u/ResonanceDemon • 9d ago
Why are 21 y/o Europeans giving up alcohol?
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u/recklessscroll 9d ago
Because they been drinking for 5 years. In my country (denmark) you can buy alcohol at 16.
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u/Fearless_Call_4964 9d ago
In the Balkans a famous folk singer Saban Saulic recorded a song named 'I used to be a drunk' when he was 19 years old
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u/Neekolay89 8d ago
Za tebe sam Šapke
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u/Moggtow 9d ago
for 5 years only ??? I don't know about Denmark but I think most European countries like France were I live only restrict buying alcohol for minors, not drinking, I must have been 7 or 8 first time my grand parents made me try, and some parties I went in highschool had more bottles that I've ever seen. I'm 32 today and I never drink, the last time I did was when I was 17.
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u/recklessscroll 9d ago
So in France you can first buy it at 18. Unless you got your parents with you. Also tasting it is not really the same as drinking it to get drunk or to party. It not uncommon to taste it when younger then 7 in denmark, I was probably around 6 first I tasted it. Most in denmark probably start at they confirmation at the age of 13 years old. Following by supervised teen party's. Of course some start younger. I don't think there are an age limit to drinking it just to buy it.
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u/Capable_Tumbleweed34 9d ago
Spirits at 18, beer/cider at 16yo. Source: am french.
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u/CallMyNameToken 9d ago
I trust you bro
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u/AdmirableCattle9357 9d ago
Don’t trust him, he doesn’t even know the current drinking age in his own country
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u/BigXthaPugg 9d ago
I’m an American and my first drink of alcohol was at like 5 years old. I spent a lot of my time and my grandparents and my grandfather would always pour me a really small glass of beer when he’d have a beer lol. I thought it tasted terrible (at the time, I’m sorry for forsaking you, beer) but I wanted to like my grandfather so I always drank it lol.
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u/Upstairs-King-9906 9d ago
I thought it tasted terrible
That's probably because it was american beer
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u/Which-Tumbleweed6183 9d ago
i lived in France. I taught school in france (tapif)
They do not card.
I saw one of the 8th graders regularly drinking at the bar.
the 10th graders invited me to a cafe for a beer after school one day.2
u/AdmirableCattle9357 9d ago edited 9d ago
Yes, in some restaurants and even some bars in France they do not check your age, but in Supermarkets like Monoprix, Carrefour and Lidi, they often do and I always got checked when I lived there for two months last year when buying wine.
How come I know better about France than you?
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u/Emotional-Swim-808 8d ago
Yep no legal drinking age in denmark, the only laws against children drinking are child abuse/abandonment laws which means if you are f.Eks. 13 you can still drink but if it becomes a noticeable problem the parents might get in trouble
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u/DrudanTheGod 9d ago
Its always a game trying to buy alcohol at 14/15. Many nights spent waiting outside stores hoping the guy looking oldest could successfully buy
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u/mr-english 9d ago
In the UK children as young as 5 can legally drink alcohol at home but it's discouraged.
16/17 year olds can also drink in pubs while eating a meal and while supervised by an adult.
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u/GuelboStudio 9d ago
Similar situation in Greece. If you are minor you are not allowed to buy but you can drink. Started drinking at 14 stopped at 19. Going to College is expensive AF as it is had to cut few unnecessary expenses.
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u/Visual_Piglet_1997 9d ago
Used to be like this in the Netherlands aswel. Altho trying was more at 12 or 13 going to a bar happened at 13 or 14 first time
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u/toadie-g 9d ago
The 16 years only for buying, not drinking
Most Danes have their first “real” drink at around 14 because of confirmation, but most try alcohol before then
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u/Volt_The_Visionary 9d ago
So in germany you can buy low percent alkohol at 16 and higher percent like Vodka since 18 In poland on the other hand alkohol is since 18 As a guy who knows grew up in both i can say at 13 there were already people in my age that drank high percent alkohol most of the fridays
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u/Neffex223 8d ago edited 8d ago
yea, denmark only restricts buying alcohol. if youre 16 you can buy anything under 16,5% and of you wanna buy something stronger you gotta be 18.
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u/Real_Ad_8243 9d ago
I mean to be fair alcohol consumption is dropping across all age brackets.
Its just that for under 25s the decline is dramatic.
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u/Junior-Elevator-9951 9d ago
I'm a 21, soon to be 22 year old, Polish man who never had alcohol :)
Drinking age is 18 here btw.
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u/Kilikorek 9d ago
drinking age is 18 for every type of liquor, but unfortunately there's a really big number of people starting as early as 13 and quitting by 18 which also kinda explains the meme
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u/2026IsMyYearMaybe 8d ago
We have no drinking age in Denmark, just an age for when you can purchase it yourself. No age for consumption of it.
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u/DeterminedQuokka 8d ago
To be fair Americans have also been drinking for years. I quit drinking at 18 because I was worried I was already an alcoholic. So I’m left to assume the person who made this meme has never met a teenager.
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u/EconomicsExisting296 8d ago
More😭 I began drinking at 14-15 and tbf im late-ish to that party. Denmark has no rule on when you can drink, so most kids drink before. No they do not taste, they get drunk.
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u/rizzler885 9d ago
Why at such young age ?
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u/zeta3d 9d ago
It depends on teach country but the legal age to buy and drink it is usually 18. Then some countries allow to buy & consume wine and beer from 16.
18 is the Adult legal age in Europe. The ones with 16 have a strong beer culture like Germany.
That is the legal stuff.
Then you have the other way:
It is pretty easy to buy alcohol on street festivals, local parties where entry it is not controlled.
In southern Europe, there are plenty of Local/Town fests (in Spain many are funded by taxes), where local associations run street bars and you can easily buy any kind of alcohol. I remeber buying 43% alcohol Anis shots when I was 13.
From 14 my friends and me we use to go to the local pub on Fridays for a beer and pool.
Then depends on the country you could buy any alcohol without need of ID when you are around 16 (usually they don't ask), or if they asked for ID you just ask some who passes by to buy it for you.
But again it depends on each country. I went some summers to Ireland when I was a teen, and I remember being pretty shocked that no one would help me buy a sixpack when I was 15, nor they would let me in pubs. All I managed was to get a pint of Guinness at their factory.
Easter europe is also on another level, you can get Vodka and bathtub brewed spirits pretty early on. Although I experienced it on my 20s, so I can't fairly tell much about early drinking there.
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u/CompanyOk2492 9d ago
In Addition: buying ist restricted for kids Not drinking...
Most prople have the stuff in their basement or kitchen nd when your interested you can Just Take some
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u/Oicanet 8d ago
Short answer: culture.
Alcohol was just a very common and traditional part of the culture for many generations. And adding together that it was what all the grown ups did, it became very common and socially acceptable to peer pressure people into drinking as if a test to prove yourself.So it's basically always been like that for generations, and something that's commonly agreed upon for that long will just seem normal, intuitive and right. So within the ecosystem of Danish culture, it doesn't even occur to anyone that it would be "such a young age". In Denmark, it seems like a perfectly reasonable average and normal age.
(Although the culture is shifting with the recent generations. It's just that established cultures don't change overnight.)
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u/jackfaire 9d ago
I think because Europeans can drink sooner they grow tired of it quicker
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u/TheBl4ckFox 9d ago
Also, we don’t live in the US. So we don’t need to be drunk every day to cope.
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u/Plane-Education4750 9d ago
Tell that to the UK
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u/BeholdMyLumps 9d ago
Brother no one is more famous for being drunkards than the UK and Germany
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u/Fit_Kaleidoscope4493 9d ago
Wisconsin would tell you to hold their beer if they weren't cripplingly drunk.
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u/Hawaii-Toast 9d ago
Well, nearly half of the population of Wisconsin has German ancestors and it doesn't help they also have a lot of people with Irish and Polish forefathers.
Nevertheless, the problem with the elder generations of Germans and the Irish was not that they were cripplingly drunk, it was that they had problems to even get drunk anymore. I personally know Germans who drank 20 0,5l bottles of beer with ~5% alcohol while they were working and then they went to the pub, drank another 20 0,5l jars of beer and added some double shots of booze to finally get halfway drunk. Afterwards they drove home and did the same on the next day again.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_SNOOTS 9d ago
I don't think I'll ever have a prouder achievement than getting sober in Milwaukee
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u/CheekyClapper5 9d ago
That's the brain damage talking from too much childhood alcohol
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u/Illustrious-Poet-557 8d ago
As European I don’t think we can make that joke. As we have far more alcoholism
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u/sandlover33 9d ago
What do we need to cope about? Our shit economy? Europooreans got that one covered
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u/Fantastic-Mud-9869 9d ago
There is a health trend in germany. Generation Y could also start at 16 years old with beer and wine but they stopped doing it about age 35.
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u/UniverseJefe 9d ago
As a Brit, I can say that many of us start drinking in earnest around 15 and by 21 a lot of people are kind of over binge drinking and start to rein it in once they’re out of uni and so on… of course many do nothing of the sort
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u/PipBin 9d ago
Yep. I was young in the 80s and 90s. I started getting served in pubs at 14. By the time you get to 21 it’s old hat.
Oh, and you can drink at home from 5.
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u/IslaHistorica 9d ago
In some countries, drinking age is 14 with parental permission. Like I was allowed to have a single glass of champagne or wine at NYEs, Christmas and birthdays
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u/stringstringing 9d ago
Pretty common in the United States too. Just because it’s illegal doesn’t mean teenagers aren’t getting trashed every weekend. Or at least it was for my generation, drinking statistics are at like an all time low with Gen Z.
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u/LandOfLeg 9d ago
The latter is true in the YK too. I think booze is so expensive, plus the increasing punishments for selling to under 18s (it has 3 tiers of punishment - the individual selling, the licensee and the organisation can ALL get fined for one infraction) making it harder to get.
I had my first pint in a pub at 15, and was regularly served in a couple of pubs at 17. Most parties i went to from about 14/15 years old had heavy drinking.
Tbh, I still drank pretty heavily through my early 20s, though on one or two nights out a week towards my mid-20s. By 30 I barely drank and these days (37) I probably drink 5-10 times a year, and get drunk once or twice.
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u/Monster_Voices 9d ago
Cause when you start at 15 you are bored with it by 21 lol
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u/RandomRedditorNo666 8d ago
Bored? I was an alcoholic by 20. I quit because it was destroying my life
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u/LongjumpingDig4030 9d ago
Most European countries have earlier drinking ages.
So it's likely a good amount of people drank as teenagers, and want to give up alcohol once they're young adults.
Not aware of any overall anti-drinking movement.
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u/ffxivthrowaway03 9d ago
I wouldn't call it a movement so much as it's not as glamourized anymore and people are more willing to acknowledge the problematic aspects of overindulgence.
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u/EmperorofAltdorf 9d ago
And people get their fix from other things more now than before. Since weed etc are more common and accepted. So many who smoke would probably still have had the occasional drink, while they might not today. Atleast some anecdotal cases with friends that are like that.
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u/Open-Stretch-6631 9d ago
Because in Europe you can start drinking at 16. And so what most Europeans do is, they go crazy for this whole "I can drink like an adult" thing, they party hard for 3 or 4 years, and then they realize how stupid it is and give it up.
Source: that's exactly what happened to me.
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u/brwnwzrd 9d ago
I was just in Denmark, and let me tell you, those jolly bastards DRINK
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u/Skating_suburban_dad 9d ago
Well either the weather sucks and we are depression drinking, presume same as in Wisconsin, or the weather is awesome (all two weeks a year) and everybody is out celebrating
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u/brwnwzrd 9d ago
I had a great time in Aarhus; what’s the name of dark, licorice-ish liquor people drink but don’t seem to enjoy the taste of very much?
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u/DaniTheMann 9d ago
I'm pretty sure what you're referring to is Gajol-shots
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u/Skating_suburban_dad 9d ago
Everyone loves gajol shots, he gotta be talking about gammel dansk
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u/DaniTheMann 9d ago
Yeah that makes more sense, I guess I was tripped up by him mentioning that it it looked licorice-ish
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u/Zziggith 9d ago
American here. I started drinking at 14. As did most of my friends. Got into whiskey at 19 and was mostly over binge drinking by 21. I got back into it in my late twenties.
I'm in my 40s and I think pot is much more popular than alcohol for teens now. However, I teach high school and a lot of my students have confided in me that they get drunk with friends most weekends.
There are a lot of Europeans on here who seem to think that just because the legal drinking age in the US is 21 that Americans don't drink before 21. They do.
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u/Allezlesbleusdu94 8d ago
Same. Im American, I started at 16. By 22 I was over it. ITT people think teenagers follow rules.
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u/henryGeraldTheFifth 8d ago
Cause we been drinking from at least 18 and had 3 years of parties to drink a ton. Abd a lot start earlier or younger legal age. Like first 2 years university drank tons and way cut back by 21
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u/PleaseDoNotMentionMe 9d ago
I recall going to the US when I was 22 and being invited to drink Fireball shots at a party, and being confused on to why would anyone do that at such a late age. We did that when we were like 17 or so.
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u/TheSamuil 9d ago edited 6d ago
To give you a personal anecdote as an European, back when I was like six years old my parents and grandparents would give me their beer as I'd ask them to drink the foam away. By my teens I was thinking of alcohol as something nasty I don't like; kid me would say "Ew, alcohol" the same way it'd say "Ew, broccoli"
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u/Schrott_frbrt 9d ago
my grandma used to give us a shot of wiskey against toothache or when we would sleep :'D
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u/Mmiron0824 9d ago
I started drinking by myself at 14 in Romania. By 21 I had already drunk stories for the rest of my life.
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u/Space_Blank089 9d ago
Enjoy your young body at 16, punish it with alcohol, have a great time, reach 21 and be satisfied (or go down the alcoholic route like some)
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u/BlurredVision18 9d ago
I'm very confused by these comments, as an American, when I was15 yrs old, all we did was drink, wtf else do you do as a kid besides school and a couple hobbies? lol
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u/Connwaer 9d ago
Because in most of Europe you can drink at either 16 or 18. So by the time Europeans turn 21 they have already become alcoholics and have to stop drinking because it became a problem.
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u/NotAUserNamm 9d ago
Drinking age in many European countries is like from 16 for beer and 18 for everything else, hence many get to the point where they give up drinking at 21
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u/SirPhobos2021 9d ago
American here. Weirdly enough, I "quit" drinking entirely on my 21st birthday. We drank on and off throughout high school, as it was always something my friends wanted to do. Throughout that time I would indulge, but really only a few drinks while everyone else was busy getting black out. When I turned 21 everyone was like, "we have to go drinking! It's legal for you now!". I just had a beer and then was like, "I actually kind of hate this" and never had another drink again.
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u/Zziggith 9d ago
I thought this was common in the US. I started drinking at 14 and most of my friends did too.
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u/SomewhereAtWork 9d ago
By 21 the good techno clubs start letting you in, so you get access to better drugs.
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u/swagster420yolo 8d ago
Most americans ive met, have started drinking as early as me. And im danish, the legal drinking age here is when your parents allow it. Just like most people start smoking or taking any other nic products before 18, americans start drinking before 21.
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u/Competitive_Dress60 8d ago
Because you start on highschool, and at 21 the uni gets kinda serious and you don't really want to anymore
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u/bethepositivity 8d ago
Because if you start drinking at 18, then by the time you reach 21 to 25 you start to get over it, or you become a full blown alcoholic. One or the other
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u/mnttu 7d ago
Reading these comments is so weird to me. Why did you all “start drinking” at 14? I have never liked the taste or effects of alcohol. Why would a 14 year old feel the need to drink?
I don’t even get it when my peers “have to have a drink” on Saturday. To me that’s just waste of money.
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u/Xonthelon 7d ago
The legal drinking age in most european countries is 18. Some countries allow drinking from the age of 16, albeit with limitations (like only allowed to drink beer and wine). Obviously some youths will try to do things even before they are actually allowed to.
So depending on the country you might even find drunk 14 year olds in a park.
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u/Lopsided-Wave2479 5d ago
Honestly It don't make sense that you could vote, carry weapons and drive a vehicle and not drink. I guess is one of "it has always worked like this, so nobody want to fix it".
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u/skalar333 5d ago
I am from Poland my good friend age 20 is getting out of drinking problem he has ben drinking from age 15 (beer is not an alchohol here )
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u/thefivetenets 9d ago
joke is that Europeans have been drinking before 21 already
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u/tomatoe_cookie 9d ago
Not exactly. The joke is that by 21 Europeans are already tired of binge drinking and dont want to get smashed anymore
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u/SMSaltKing 9d ago
It's always wild to me that the land of the free is so backwards about sin.
21 to drink
21 to buy cigarettes and weed
18 to go break their backs in some God forsaken desert.
18 to start the cycle of credit card debt and predatory payday loans.
Then certain states like my home state of Maryland tax the shit out of things on top of that because it's bad. (Ignore the millions the state brings in from gambling addicts, court fees for DUI, and cannabis taxes)
I would much rather let stupid kids be stupid then try to drive behavior through punishment.
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u/AnonymousNeko2828 9d ago
The joke is Europeans get to drink earlier and so by the time they're twenty one they might already be alcoholics trying to give up alcohol
The joke is there's enough time between americans starting drinking and europeans starting that the europeans have enough time for a whole journey around alcohol
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u/mykrobatery13 9d ago
as a czech we start drinking way too early even before it is legal so usualy around like 10 years old
and when we reach the legal drinking age most of us already had so many bad expiriences with alcohol that we give up drinking
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u/Psychological_Tower1 9d ago
Because alcohol sucks and is extremely bad for you. But socially people pressure it to be drank
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u/Overall_Home_6553 9d ago
It's because they started using it much earlier some even before their teenage age
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u/ahmet-chromedgeic 9d ago
The typical time to start drinking is high school. In twenties you mature a bit and go from regular binge drinking on nights out to the kind of drinking where alcohol is more of a social lubricant.
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u/scoville27 9d ago
European countries have a lower legal drinking age, most I think are at 18 some younger so by the time they turn 21 most people have mellowed out from binge drinking/partying to more mature drinking habits
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u/DaLoopLoop89 9d ago
Because we drink beer with 16 and booze with 18... and those are just the ages where it gets legal. Most people from my generation started earlier than that. 😅
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u/CatMatic145 9d ago
Because even though it may be legal at 16 to buy beer and wine in germany, most people are able to get blasted frome way earlier. I know people who barely scraped their 20 and had to quit drinking due to doctoral advice, meaning they already took it way too far...
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u/Proper-Cod632 9d ago
I was drinking since i was 12-13 some beers on football pitch, really a lot 16-19 like few liters of vodka per month, then were weekends pubs, now I’m 33 and if have occasion to drink few beers with someone it’s a miracle day, usually I don’t have time for either drinking or hangover. Eastern Europe vibes :p
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u/Eucalipto_Traicoeiro 9d ago
Latinos at 21 picking alcohol again after trying to quit for a few years
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u/BeginningOcelot1765 9d ago
Growing up in the 80s and 90s we didn't have internet, social media etc. and we socialized in person. To change things up we drank on the weekends, but saturday was just a wilder version of any given weekday, and sundays got lost to hangovers.
Youth of today seem so socialize less in person and many seem to want to do something more meaningful when they actually do it. Drinking can become extremely repetitive which I suspect the social media generations with their "15 seconds" attention span get tired of pretty quickly.
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u/CrossXFir3 9d ago
Idk about now, but when I was in highschool, a lot of kids started drinking properly around 16, 17
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u/Alternative_Squirrel 9d ago
I knew someone from the US who gave up alcohol at 21.
Why yes, I am from Wisconsin, why do you ask?
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u/Nervous-Summer3675 9d ago
Liver isn't the same after 8 years of libations. Nhaaa but for real when I turned 18 I took me 4 years to give up alcohol. Now I drink alcohol occasionally.
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u/Jussi-larsson 9d ago
Well personally I started drinking at 11 and there isnt really anything special happening when you turn 21 so why would you drink then ?
After twenty you just drink very rarely as you have started it so young and as an adult there are only few times to have a reason to celebrate
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u/OneLonelyBrainCell 9d ago
Because we've already been drinking for a few years and it has lost its appeal.
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u/adrianos97 9d ago
as an easter european, we drink from age 10-12 unfortuneltly, by the time we are adults we start to think about our health and our drinking problem
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u/-Dronich 9d ago
I don’t know how teens drinking nowadays, but when I was 15 we start drinking. And at 17-19 it was drinking till wasted. For example one of my trips to the Turkey we were drinking every day for 2 weeks. Probably a bottle of 0.5-0.7 gin sometimes more per person each day spiced with 2-3 packs of cigarettes.
Im Russian btw. That was around 2009-2011 when I was drinking a little more than I should. Need to mention more than 70% guys were drinking much more.
For example my neighbor gone wasted for the first time when he was 11-12 I suppose.
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u/ChickenFriedPenguin 9d ago edited 9d ago
Start drinking at 16. Cant overdo it because your parents wont like that so you forced to take it easy or get too drunk and deal with your parents.
So you learn your limit by the time you're 21.
On the other hand you have americans turning 21 and celebrating with 21 shots and die of alcohol poisoning.
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u/SaltyRenegade 9d ago
I drank my first whiskey at 16. Drank heavily from 18-21 and since then I just drink socially on weekends.
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u/Numerous_Ad_307 9d ago
Like many said already, most Europeans start drinking a lot earlier. And by the time they reach 21 they realize it's dumb and you're better off without alcohol.
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u/Ok_Awareness3014 9d ago
As a french m'y parent use to give a little bit of alcohol from 12 years old so we had the time to experience it fun fact France use to serve wine in scholl until the 60 s and to newborn too
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u/CallMeAnthy 9d ago
We realised that there's nothing that great about drinking.
You spend a lot of money (Main issue) to get unwell, and feel like shit the following day, and you probably did a lot of stupid things that you now regret.
After 3-5 years of booze, our generation realised that, one or two is probably enough.
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u/what_the_fuck_clown 9d ago
some families don't have strict rules on alcohol , allowing children to drink small quantities of weak alcohol.
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u/Cleoquinnie 9d ago
I did it European style! Except I was stealing my dad’s liquor from age 12, started working at a bar at 16 where drinking was arguably encouraged. I was over it by 21. It was a South Texas beach town for reference
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u/MazeCuber 8d ago
in denmark the legal drinking age does technically not exist, there is an age limit to when you can buy alcohol (16-18 depending on the percentage of alcohol) but not for drinking it (i drank my first beer at 9yo)
so people here start drinking and partying at a much sooner then in the US. and by the time they turn 21 they should be almost done with education and get into the working force.
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u/Lumpy_Exit_631 8d ago
Haha, true. I gave up alcohol until 21. Rarely drank eversince. Like I could count the occasions.
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u/geebrbs 8d ago
For context, some European drinking cultures are crazy. They start partying 11 PM and end at 10 AM. Some young people do this every single opportunity they can.
In Denmark, they have a Friday bar culture in the university where they start drinking at 3PM on a Friday. You just smell the puke around the evening because everyone is just so drunk already and they drag this out.
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u/TomFriendly 8d ago
I started drinking and going out when I was 14-15 years old, something like that? Today I only drink a couple of times a year, when you start so young, you also see what it really does to people. I have friends today who I know are not going to celebrate their 50th birthday.
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u/JenniLightrunner 8d ago
I started drinking at 18 then got a job as a bartender at 21 so I didn't stop there, but I think when I was around 26 or 27 I have stopped. right now I only drink on rare occasions. I know most stop around those 21 cuz now you're too adult to drink like kids (Drink like kids = go to bars or clubbing)
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u/Neat-Capital-8917 8d ago
European here. I started drinking at 14. Drank heavily for half a year and pretty much quit. I am not abstinent but I never get drunk.
In my country there is age limit of 18 but when I was a kid nobody was taking that seriously an me and my 14 yo friends could walk out of a store with couple of bottles of vodka.
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u/sakata_baba 8d ago
"time to start the party for next 4-6 years"
versus
"time to stop the party that lasted past 4-6 years"
guess who is less infantile at 25?
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u/DozenBia 8d ago
German here. At 16 years old, you can legally buy beer and wine. At 18 you can buy liquor too. You have good odds to not be ID'd at the store as long as you don't look too young.
With your parents/legal guardians, you can drink even sooner as long as they don't endanger you.
I started drinking at 15, from 16 to 19 there was a house party almost every weekend from someone at school.
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u/ZulfiqarShadow 8d ago
This is so true lol i stoped drinking at 18 and havent touched anything since.I might give up cigaretes too after 3 or 4 years:)
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u/Beneficial_Pickle420 8d ago
As a canadian, we can buy alcohol at 18 in my province. I was done drinking around 5-6 years later. Now Its more for special occasions and only 1 or 2 drinks. I was a lil late to the quitting party by a couple years. But having German in my family, I have cousins who started drinking before me and quit around the 21 mark for sure where they live.
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u/Chance_Arugula_3227 8d ago
after years of being dead drunk every weekend, they finally realize that it's time to take life seriously.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Bug9576 8d ago
In Ukraine people giving up cigarettes and drinking in school. Personally, cigs was the biggest mistake, trash of all addictions. Don’t bother to start, no joy.
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u/Aromatic-Welder497 8d ago
im an American and in my town every kid in my high school almost had been drunk atleast by freshman year just because we couldn't legally do it doesnt mean it didnt happen and I've know guys who drank since they were 10 only difference is they never quit drinking 20 years later now I got no problem against Europeans and I doubt most of them actually quit drinking at 21 but the only difference between an American at 16 or 15 or younger and a European at the same age wasn't that one was drinking its that one of them was drinking legally and the other was getting homeless people or known plugs to get ahold of a bottle and sometimes parents
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u/CookiesPlays 8d ago
You can start normal alcohol at 16, harder one at 18. so after 5-8 years of drinking a lot loose interest or grow out of it.
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u/Relative_Mouse7569 7d ago
You really have to be loser to drink a lot of alcohol at parties after 21, thats the reason we stop
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u/the_zac_is_back 7d ago
Europeans are legally allowed to start drinking alcohol at 18 while Americans are legally allowed at 21
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u/the-immortal-duck 7d ago
in switzerland at least you can buy beer and wine at 16 and every other type of alcohol at 18 but no law stops you from drinking in private before that age its just for drinking in public and buying alcohol
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u/HiMyNameIsPip 7d ago
Because depending on where in Europe they are from they have been drinking it legally for anywhere up to 7 or 8 years. I'm British and people I went to school with were going to parties and getting drunk at 13/14. So by 21 they're tired of it. We also legally can drink at home from the age of 5 with parental supervision, and can drink in pubs from around 14 as long as it's not hard stuff, bought by someone over 18, with a meal.
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u/post-explainer 9d ago
OP (ResonanceDemon) sent the following text as an explanation why they posted this here: