Comment by inglor_cz

There may be a massive confounding factor in the type of alcohol consumed.

The more permissive cultures tend to be beer- or wine-centric. I have never been deeply interested in addictology, but the few (older) works on alcoholism I have read mentioned that beer and wine drinkers tend to develop a different sort of relationship with alcohol than hard drink consuments, in the sense that they have a hard time abstaining entirely, but fewer of them develop into the full-blown "gin zombie" type.