mmm not sure if it's fully true tbh. I'm from Italy and currently live in Germany (so maybe together with France would be the stereotypical drinking countries) and was always a bit horrified by the stories of people drinking in the US...
In the US the average adult drinks 9.6 liters of alcohol per year. Germany is at 12.2, the UK at 10.8 and Italy at 8.0. So some European countries drink more than the US and some drink less, but all in all the difference is not that big.
I'd take a guess and say the US has more extremes: puritans who don't drink at all and heavy drinkers.
Isn't it, for example, pretty common to have a glass of wine at lunch in France? If 50% of french do that, that average is already way more spread than in a country where 30% don't drink at all.
