- In Occitania, 12.6% of adults aged 18 to 75 drink alcohol every day.
- According to a study, it is the region of France where the rate is the highest.
- According to an addiction specialist, this is partly because it is a festive region, but also affected by unemployment and precariousness.
The results of the Public Health France study published on Tuesday are a bit of a misconception: the region where people consume the most alcohol on a daily basis in France is Occitania. With 12.6% of 18-75 year olds drinking alcohol every day, the region rises before Nouvelle-Aquitaine (12.3%) and Hauts-de-France (11.5%).
"It surprised me, we always said that the biggest consumers were the Britons and the people of the North", is surprised with 20 Minutes a volunteer of an association which helps people addicted to alcohol. Brittany certainly breaks records (20.5%), but in terms of punctual consumption, six glasses (or more) on a single occasion. So how to explain the alarming performance of Occitania in this area? Is it because the region is such a big producer of wine?
Unemployment and the party
"Certainly, we are a wine region, we have good wines, but that's not why we have to drink and be sick," says Jane, from the Montpellier association Alcohol and relatives (ALP), which has been working since 1997 with families affected by alcoholism. And then, "there are other wine producing regions in France", points out Martine Lacoste, the director of the Clémence-Isaure association, a care and support center on addictology in Toulouse. And some are far from breaking records in terms of alcohol consumption: in Burgundy-France-Comté, for example, famous for its Pinot or Chardonnay, 8.9% of adults drink alcohol every days, one of the lowest scores.
For Martine Lacoste, the causes of heavy alcohol consumption in Occitania are elsewhere. "Alcohol meets needs," explains the regional delegate of the Addictions Federation. Fun, party, in particular. And we are a particularly festive region. Alcohol is also a troublemaker, it was Freud who said so. And we are a region in which people have concerns, particularly unemployment, and in which they face difficulties in living in general. This addiction specialist is not particularly surprised by the results of this study.
Society
Occitania is the region where we consume the most alcohol on a daily basis
Health
VIDEO. "January sober": How to make a success of your month without alcohol
- Addiction
- study
- Alcoholism
- Alcohol
- Languedoc-Roussillon
- Toulouse