From: carnes@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Richard Carnes)
Subject: Alcoholism (was: Hate Speech Okay ...)
Followup-To: alt.recovery,alt.drugs
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 23:22:41 GMT

>>I don't claim to have *the* answer, but it is worth mentioning that
>>in many places in Europe, there is no drinking age, and they have
>>less problems with alcoholism than we do.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>I don't think this is correct. Most European countries, including
>those which are liberal about alcohol & children, have alcoholism
>problems.

Alcoholism is virtually unknown in many of the world's cultures,
especially in preindustrial societies (source: _Encyclopedic Handbook
of Alcoholism_, Gardner Press, 1982, p. 436).  One of the
best-established facts about alcoholism is that its incidence varies
greatly according to demographic categories: ethnic group, age,
gender, socioeconomic status, etc.  For example, among U.S. groups,
alcoholism is much more prevalent among Irish, Native, Baptist,
Slavic, and Scandinavian Americans than among Italian, Chinese, Greek
and Jewish Americans.

(In 17th- and 18th-century Britain and America per capita consumption
of alcohol was far higher than it is today, maybe two or three times
higher.  The *average* per capita consumption of beer alone in Britain
in 1689 has been calculated at 2.3 pints per person per day; this
calculation includes children and non-drinkers, and the beer was
strong by today's standards.  Yet there was no awareness of an
"alcoholism problem" such as is widely believed to exist in the U.S.
today.  On the contrary, liquor was called "the good creature of God"
by Puritans like Cotton Mather, was regarded as a healthful drink, and
was routinely given to children in colonial America.  Drunkenness, of
course, was regarded with disapproval, but the individual drunkard was
blamed for his behavior, not alcohol.  It was probably
industrialization and its need for more regimented work habits that
led to the 19th-century temperance movement and the image of "demon
rum".)

>And BTW, what does the teaching of responsibility, etc. have to do
>with alcoholism? I thought that this was a largely
>genetically-determined problem.

The popular press, always happy to discover simple answers to
difficult and perplexing questions, perpetuates this idea that
alcoholism is genetically determined (that you are born an alcoholic),
but this view is held by only a minority of researchers on alcoholism.
Even those who assert this generally restrict the claim to a small
group of male extreme alcoholics.  More typical is the view of David
Lester of the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, who concluded that
"genetic involvement in the etiology of alcoholism, however
structured, is weak at best" (in "Genetic Theory: An Assessment of the
Heritability of Alcoholism", in _Theories on Alcoholism_, ed. C.D.
Chaudron and D.A. Wilkinson, 1988).

The teaching of responsibility and other values has *everything* to do
with alcoholism.  As Thant Tessman wrote in reply:

>I'm originally from Utah.  They have very strict alcohol and
>pornography laws (half the population is Mormon).  Most children are
>taught that alcohol (and drugs, and pornography, and unmaried sex,
>etc.) can control them and that they must stay away from them at all
>costs.  Consequently, when these kids get any exposure at all to any
>of these things, they do 'lose control.'  Utah has alcoholism rates
>(and teenage suicide rates, and unwed teenage pregnancy rates, etc.)
>far above the national average.  (I can get the real numbers if people
>are interested.)

Exactly.  The cultures in which problem drinking is more common are
those in which alcohol thought of as demon rum, as a substance that
has the diabolical power to cause people to "lose control" of their
behavior.  The cultures in which problem drinking is less common are
those that regard drinking casually, as a normal part of dining,
family celebrations, religious ritual, and so forth.  (Typical
attitudes of Italian culture toward drinking can be seen in the movie
"Moonstruck".)  In these cultures, people are *expected* to drink in a
controlled and responsible manner, and problem drinking is regarded as
the responsibility of the drinker, not as a "disease" that randomly
strikes helpless victims.  Never underestimate the power of the
self-fulfilling prophecy.

Richard Carnes