Although drinking motives have been largely studied, research taking into account the Mediterranean drinking culture and focusing on motives specifically associated to adolescents' developmental tasks is lacking. For these reasons the study investigates drinking motives in a group of Italian adolescents and their relationships with drunkenness and high levels of alcohol consumption (wine, beer, spirits and alcopops). A self-report questionnaire on drinking motives and amount of alcohol use was administered to 784 adolescents, boys (46%) and girls, ages 15-19. Using confirmatory factor analysis and stepwise logistic regressions, we found that: 1) motives for drinking were coping, conformity, self-affirmation and experimentation-transgression; 2) coping motives were positively related to the high consumption of all alcoholic beverages and to drunkenness; 3) conformity motives were negatively related to high beer consumption and drunkenness, while experimentation-transgression motives were positively related to high alcopops consumption. Implications for prevention are discussed. (Contains 5 tables.)