A lot of research has been done to find and explore the reason why people drink alcohol. From research conducted in the Netherlands among 15 to 25 year-olds, the following answers came up:

• Sociability (71%)
• Like the taste (51%)
• Feel at ease (12%)
• Get intoxicated (6%)
• Get drunk (2%)
• Because everybody does it (6%)
• To forget problems (0%)

Alcohol gets risky when you need more to feel good. If you can't do that anymore on your own, and you use the alcohol for it, at a certain point you run the risk of starting to drink more and more each time to still feel the effects. This can be the beginning of an addiction. If you drink to feel good, you should ask yourself if you can also feel at ease without alcohol.