Outside AA

ALCOHOLISM UNDERSTOOD DIFFERENTLY IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. In considering alcoholism internationally, great care must be taken to understand what different authorities mean by various terms that are commonly used. Alcoholism means one thing to a Canadian student, another thing to a French student and still another thing to a student of this field in Finland . . . In many countries serious problems of national magnitude arise more from other types of drinkers than from the steady, excessive, symptomatic drinkers. In Finland, for example, the violence displayed by Finnish workers when they come to town from some isolated lumber camps and have a few drinks causes such damage and is so dramatic that to the Finnish nation this type of drinking and this form of damage constitutes alcoholism.