Attitudes towards drinking in Norway

In 2008 the total amount of alcohol sold in Norway was more than 20 million liters. These 20 liters is pure alchol, and comes from both wine, spirits, alcopop, and any other types of alcoholic beverages. Our personal experience is that people starts drinking at the age of 15. Of course this depends of the suroundings. The things that affect most of the drinking habbits in Norway is maybe where your from, your friends and family. Drinking in Norway is quite usual amongst youth. People from the countryside sometimes have a different view of drinking than in big cities. They often buy their kids alcohol from the age of 15, but in the cities there's quite few people who's allowed to drink. Even though the people on the countryside are allowed to drink, they don't party more than those living in the city. One of the reasons to that might be that there's not so many parties on the countryside, but in the cities there's always a party somewhere. The drinking culture in Norway is that you buy alcohol to get drunk, and if you get wasted you have succeeded. Of course it is not like this everywhere though.