“Australia is the drunkest country in the world”

Can Aussies drink the most? Maybe not! “It’s possible that they were the drunkest country in 2020 because they largely managed to avoid COVID-19 lockdowns. Bars and clubs remained open.” Heck, in Wisconsin we call Aussies “teetotalers.” Then again, Wisconsin is not a country. Yet.

Kidding aside, the article says that the average Australian gets drunk 27 times a year, and that the women drink more than the men. That’s a lot of alcohol abuse, even by Wisconsin standards.

3 thoughts on ““Australia is the drunkest country in the world”

  1. You might guess from my name that I am of Irish descent and you would be right (3/4). The other 1/4 (German) is not known for being teetotalers. I didn’t drink in high school, but I would get drunk in college and law school. Washington & Lee Law School had something called Friday Kegs. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Every Friday at 5:00, there were kegs of beer set up on the lawn in front of the school. It was actually quite collegial as professors and the Dean would join the students. We had a few Supreme Court justices visit the school but none were there on a Friday afternoon. Clarence Thomas came to speak at the law school during my second year. He was familiar with the town of Lexington because W&L shared the town with the Virginia Military Institute where his son was a cadet. I had a conversation with him and he told me the good thing about Lexington was that the only thing you could do there was study. I didn’t have the heart to tell him most of the Student Bar Association fees were spent on alcohol.

    But after I was out of school my drinking tapered off quite a bit. I describe myself as a social drinker without a social life. The first substantially younger girl I dated (21 when I was 32) told me early in our relationship that I needed to learn to drink. She was also of Irish descent. But she changed her mind when she found out I was diabetic. These days in addition to being a diabetic, I take pain killers for my back so I have even more reason not to drink. (There are some people here that may think my being on drugs might explain my political opinions.) I probably average about ten alcoholic drinks a year. So I don”t fit the Irish stereotype. But growing up in an Irish neighborhood I can tell you that there are plenty of people that do.

    As a recovering lawyer of Irish descent, I still feel safe telling my Irish lawyer joke. Do you know why there are so few Irish lawyers? It’s because they can’t pass the bar.

  2. What’s amazing is that when visit Australia (annually from Japan pre-Covid), it’s completely shocking how expensive booze is: the tax on wine, beer and spirits is phenomenal. I can quite literally buy the same bottle Aussie win in Japan for half of that in Cannes. So, people are dropping bank on inebriation.

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