The proportion of individuals in a given culture who become compulsive drinkers depends on the degree to which the culture produces acute inner tensions in its members; types of attitude toward drinking which the culture produces in its members; the degree to which the culture provides suitable substitute means of gratification. Subsistence anxiety, repressed aggression and sexuality in several cultures are analyzed. Four types of attitudes toward drinking are distinguished: complete abstinence, ritual attitude, convivial attitude, utilitarian attitude. Cultural structuring of utilitarian attitudes tends most strongly to the development of compulsive drinking. Prevalence of this attitude in the Irish culture is shown, along with certain tensions, to be an important factor in high rates of alcoholism among the Irish. Ritual drinking, tending to associate drinking with ideas and sentiments toward the sacred, is prevalent in the orthodox Jewish culture and is important in preventing development of utilitarian uses which, as possible perversions of sacred use, arouse counteranxiety. This counteranxiety is important in keeping rates of alcoholism among orthodox Jews low in spite of acute tensions. Rates of alcoholism in various other cultures are analyzed in the light of these hypotheses.