摘要：Finnish drinking habits have changed drastically during the past few decades. Studies on drinking habits, however, consistently seem to come to the conclusion that in Finland, drinking patterns are still traditional, national, and unitary. Such conclusions rely on the notion of cultural lag and are based on stereotypical dichotomies between traditional and modern, and Finnish and European drinking habits. The article shows that analyses of drinking habits tend not to problematise the concept of habit. It is mostly used to refer to the most stereotypical kind of drinking behaviour, namely intoxication-oriented drinking, while other patterns tend to be overshadowed. The studies, which are most often based on survey data, also give little attention to the meanings the actors attribute to their drinking. For a more sensitive analysis, the article outlines a cultural model of drinking habits, which is then adapted to the analysis of the results of both statistical and qualitative studies on drinking habits carried out during the past three-four decades. The analysis shows that it would be vital, firstly, to carry out time series analyses on the epidemiological data, which would test the assumptions of the unitary nature of drinking habits on the one hand, and chart their variability on the other. Secondly, there is a need for efforts to reconcile the contradictory findings of epidemiological and qualitative studies. And thirdly, research on drinking habits should shift its focus towards the situational variability of drinking.
