Alcohol is normalized from a young age in the UK, yet it's abused by adults more heavily than here. I don't think that's a panacea.
My experience living in several European countries basically echoes the parent comment.
Countries where alcohol is normalized since childhood, cheap, widely sold and allowed (basically the Mediterranean countries: Spain, Italy, Greece, possibly France although I don't know France that much) -> people drink but tend to have sane drinking habits.
Countries where alcohol is frowned upon, heavily taxed, expensive or difficult to buy (Sweden, Norway, the UK, etc.) -> people abuse drink and just don't know when to stop.
Also, students parties can be quite alcohol heavy, specially the start of the year parties. For example, in business and engineering schools, you have the WEI (Week End of Integration), basically, most of the students go in a remote location to get drunk for most of a Week-End (including during the 3 or 4 hours bus trip), there, you see some people completely passing out. After that, during the year, you see people getting drunk, but very rarely to the point of passing out.
However, the consumption of alcohol as a student can easily be continuous, for example, in my school of ~450 students, we had a bar managed by the students, with a license to serve alcohols like beer or cider, and some students ended-up border line alcoholics.
There’s probably a few causes for how we abuse alcohol in the UK.
1. Most pubs close relatively early (11pm-1am), so after work you don’t have too much time to spend before you have to decide between a club or home.
2. Anecdotally, although most people know their limits. I see people in my circles tend to drink at the rate of the fastest drinker and “catchup”, especially if doing rounds.
3. We do have a bit of a binge drinking culture. Our culture (in my opinion) tends to encourage getting drunk (as long as you don’t cause harm to others).