Chahir and Ghvino

The FINANCIAL — The percentage of people who claim to drink once a week or more is relatively similar in most eastern European and Caucasian countries, between 45% in eastern Europe and 26% in the Caucuses.

But this Caucasian number does not include the regional outlier of Azerbaijan.  Only 9% of Azeris claimed to drink at least once a week, and the habits that Azeri drinkers exhibit are different than the rest of the countries included in this poll.

The Health in Times of Transition poll was conducted for the EU by Georgian Opinion Research Business International in order to gauge the health attitudes and practices of people living in transitional countries.  The resulting data show Azeris and Georgians to have very different drinking cultures.  On the one hand, Azeris drink markedly less frequently.  This may be a result of Islam discouraging alcohol consumption.  However, those that do drink in Azerbaijan tend to do so more frequently, later in life, and develop hangovers more easily.  Most troubling, Azeri drinkers were the most likely to report drinking alone often or sometimes, while Georgians were the least likely.

Hangovers and drinking alone — On average, hangover prevalence mirrors consumption patterns. The age group that drinks the most, 26-35 year olds, also reports the most hangovers.  This number then drops with each successive age group until the elderly, aged 66+, who have presumably learned that moderate drinking prevents pain the next day.  Azerbaijani seniors, however, are by far the most likely to develop hangovers.  A full 50% of senior drinkers in Azerbaijan reported getting hangovers from drinking, compared to 11% of the Georgian elderly. 

The largest difference between Azeri drinkers and the rest of the countries polled, though, is in the likelihood of drinking alone.  Again, this may have to do with Islam’s limiting effect on alcohol consumption.  Azeris were far more likely to drink alone, 48% reported doing so sometimes or often.  Georgians had the lowest instance of drinking alone with 15%.  While drinking alone in and of itself does not cause any more damage than drinking in the more Georgian style, with friends and family, this markedly high number might signify that alcoholism has become a problem.

For the charts included in this article, “active drinker” includes anyone who said they drank at least once a week. “Drinks alone” includes drinking respondents who drank alone “sometimes” or “often.” A person is included in the “hungover” row if they are a drinker and ever “feel badly the next day after having drunk alcohol.”

There were 16,200 respondents polled for this study.  Polls of this sample size have a margin of error of around 3.5% with 95% confidence.