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CG 017 678

Room, Robin, Ed.; Collins, Gary, Ed.

Alcohol and Disinhibition: Nature and Meaning of the

Link. Proceedings of c Conference (Berkeley/Oakland,

California, February 11-13, 1981). Research Monograph

No. 12.

National Inst. on Drug Abuse (DHHS/PHS), Rockville,

Md.

DHHS(ADM)-83-1246

83

NIAAA-AA03524

519p.

Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing

Office, Washington, DC 20402.

Collected Works - Conference Proceedings (021) -- Information Analyses (070) -- Reports -

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MF02/PC21 Plus Postage.

Aggression; *Alcoholism; Antisocial Behavior;

*Behavior Change; Behavior Patterns; *Cultural

Influences; *Social Attitudes; *Social Control

*Disinhibition

ABSTRACT

These conference proceedings consider the major lines

of evidence on the nature and locus of the alcohol-disinhibition

link. The first day's papers, commentaries and discussions are

centered on physiological and behavioral links; social-psychological

research; historical ideas on alcohol, crime, and accidents; and

anthropological perspectives on cultural differences. The proceedings

from the second day of the conference focus on perspectives on

disinhibition in American society. Presentations address general

population views on the effects of alcohol, alcohol as an explanation

for failure, aggression in subcultures, and drinking and

disinhibition in popular culture. The third day's presentations focus

on disinhibition and social control. Attention is given to alcohol's

role in power relationships and criminal behavior. The proceedings

conclude with a discussion of the implications of the presentations

for future research and action. General discussion references are

appended. (BL)

**********************************************************x************

* Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ***********************************************************************
II

LciN

r-4

Research Monograph No. 12

ALCOHOL AND DISINHIBITION:

NATURE AND MEANING

OF THE LINK

Proceedings of a Conference

February 11-13, 1981

Berkeley/Oakland, California

Spvinsored by:

Nat 1)nal Research Centers Branch, NIAAA: and Social Research Group, School of Public Health,

University of California, Berkeley

Edited by:

Robin Room and Gary Collins

of the Social Research Group, Berkeley

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Public Health Service

Alcohol, Drug Abuse. and Mental

Health Administration

Natimal Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

5500 Fishers Lane

Rockville. Maryland 20857

94

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION

CENTER IERICI

This document has been reproduced as

tensed from the person or organization

originating it

Minor changes have been made to improve

,eprorio,.flon qual.tY

Po.nts of wow or up,monS slated in this docu

merit do nut necessarily represent official ME

poSitior, or policy
This publication is the product of a conference on alcohol and disinhibition held in

Berkeley/Oakland, California, February 11-13, 1981, cosponsored by the Social

Research Group, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, and

the National Alcohol Research Centers program of the National Institute on Alcohol

Abuse and Alcoholism. under grant numbe!. AA-03524. The presentations herein

are those of the listed authors and may not necessarily reflect the opinions, official

policy. or position of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism: the

Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration; the Public Health

Service: or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has obtained permission

from the copyright holders to reproduce previously published figures and tables as

noted in the text. Further reproduction of these materials is prohibited without

specific permission of the copyright holder. Adapted tables of copyrighted materials

may be copyrighted: thus, before reprinting, readers are advised to determine the

copyright status or to secure permission of the copyright holder. All other material

contained in the manual, except quoted passages from copyrighted sources, is in the

public domain and may be used and reprinted without permission. Citation of the

source is appreciated.

The U.S. Government does not endorse or favor any specific commercial product or

commodity. Trade or proprietary names appearing in this publication are used only

because they are considered essential in the context of the studies reported herein.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 82-600619

DHHS Publication No. (ADM) 83-1249

Printed 1983

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Washington, D.C. 20402

3
Foreword

This volume is another in the Research Monograph Series

published by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The series sets forth current information on a

number of topics relevant to alcohol abuse and alcoholism as

reported through conferences and workshops on research treatment and prevention, as well as through state-of-the-art reviews on

selected topics.

This monograph reports the proceedings of a research conference

co-sponsored by the Alcohol Research Center of the University of

California at Berkeley and NIAAA. The Alcohol Research Center

is one of nine National Alcohol Research Centers funded by

NIAAA. Although each Center's research program has a specific

focus on a central theme of importance to alcohol abuse and

alcoholism, the Centers program as a whole covers a broad

spectrum of problems associated with alcohol use and misuse.

Areas under investigation range from the neurophysiological

effects of alcohol consumption to the various factors that influence

drinking practices and attitudes toward drinking alcoholic beverages. In addition to their primary mission of developing new knowledge by conducting original research in their chosen area, the

Centers have the additional responsibility of disseminating this

knowledge broadly across the scientific and lay communities. In

this connection, the Centers have joined NIAAA in organizing and

holding workshops and confer ances on topics close to their specialty

areas. The proceedings reported in this volume represent another

in the series of such collaborative activities.

The purpose of the conference was to bring together researchers

active in this area of study to review the current state of knowledge

about the relation between alcohol consumption and the disinhibition of behavior. The first part of the conference focused on

pharmacologic effects of alcohol especially as related to aggression

and violent behavior. Subsequently, the discussions expanded to

the social, psychological, and cultural factors associated with

disinhibitory behaviors. Approximately 50 persons participated in

the conference by presenting their research findings and by

contributing to discussions of the scientific papers. It is hoped that

iii
iv FOREWORD

reporting these proceedings in this monograph will be of value to

others working in this area and to those planning to do so in the

future. In addition, it is hoped that the proceedings will be

generally informative to anyone interested in the effects of alcohol

on human behavior.

Albert A. Pawlowski, Ph.D.

Chief,

'ational Research Centers Branch

Division of Extramural Research

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse

and Alcoholism
Introduction

Robin Room

It is a commonplace in our culture that alcohol is a disinhibitor

that drunkenness not only makes one clumsy, but also removes

social constraints, making us, for instance, aggressive or affectionate, maudlin or mean, in a way that we would not be if we were

sober. Often a pseudo-scientific explanation is given: "Alcohol

depresses the higher centers of the brain." Such "explanations"

reflect the wide popular and professional belief that disinhibition is

a pharmacological property of alcohol. In everyday language and

life, this presumed pharmacological action is often used to excuse or

account for otherwise inexcusable behavior; for instance, "It was

just the alcohol in her talking, she didn't mean anything by it," or, as

an Abscam bribery defendant explained himself, "I was drinking

FBI bourbon, big glasses of it."

Often disinhibited behavior after drinking is overlooked or

treated as a joke. But some aspects of disinhibition are taken very

seriously by our society. At a minimum, disinhibited behavior is

worrisome because it is unpredictable. Beyond this, alcohol's

powers as a disinhibitor are seen as making people aggressive,

violent and vicious. Alcohol is widely believed to be responsible for a

large part of the violence in our society. In line with this belief, in

the courts drunkenness is often a partial excuse for homicidal

crimes. Th. disinhibitory effects of alcohol are thus often taken for

granted in social policy.

In recent years, evidence has been building up from a number of

disciplinary areas to suggest that the link between alcohol and

disinhibition is a matter of cultural belief rather than of pharmacological action. Alcohol is certainly a psychoactive drug: we feel

different when drunk than when sober. But how we interpret those

feelings, and in particular how we act on them, is largely determined by culture and circumstance: thus what is

pharmacologically the same drug can make us aggressive or

passive, ebullient or morose, frenetic or immobile. In this view,

psychoactivity does not determine whether behavior is disinhibited
vi INTRODUCTION

or controlled: it simply provides an empty vessel of altered consciousness for culture, circumstance and personality to load with

meanings and explanations.

The conference is built around this emergent perspective of the

cultural locus of the link between alcohol and disinhibition. It has

three main aims: (1) to collate and assess the available evidence on

the nature and locus of the alcohol-disinhibition link; (2) to explore

the nature and distribution of beliefs about alcohol and

disinhibition, and particularly about alcohol and violence, in

American society; and (3) to consider how beliefs about alcohol and

disinhibition relate to the operation of social controls in the culture.

While discussion of each of these topics will undoubtedly continue

throughout the meeting, each topic is the major focus of a day of the

conference. An additional concern, particularly on the third day, is

a consideration of what are the options for policy and social change

implied by the work of the conference.

The first day of the conference considers the major lines of

evidence on the nature and locus of the alcohol-disinhibition link.

First, attention is given to the state of research on biological links

between alcohol and aggression or other disinhibitory behaviors.

Next, the evidence is laid out from the social-psychological

"balanced placebo design" experiments by Lang, Marlatt, Wilson

and others, pointing to the dominance of belief that one is ingesting

alcohol over the fact of ingestion in determining behavior.

Consideration is then given to historical evidence that, while

Americans in the eighteenth century saw alcohol as causing

clumsiness, the belief that it made one vicious or violent was a

nineteenth-century addition. Lastly, the rich anthropological data

on cultural differences in drunken comportment, dramatized in

work by MacAndrew and Edgerton and others, are assessed for

their evidence on the nature of the alcohol-disinhibition link.

The second day of the conference endeavors to forward our

understanding of the beliefs ktbout alcohol's disinhibitory effects in

American society, drawing on a variety of data sources and

perspectives. The discussion on this day ventures into largely new

territory, since there has been remarkably little systematic

consideration of the power:: ascribed to alcohol and how these

ascriptions affect others' behavior. The first paper of the day draws

on previously unanalyzed data from surveys of the general

population on the structure of popular beliefs about the effects of

alcohol. This is followed by a consideration of how drinking

functions as an excuse or explanation for behavior in everyday

interactions. It is expected that this discussion will bring to bear

two separate, burgeoning social science literatures which have so
INTRODUCTION vii

far not taken alcohol into serious consideration. One tradition,

represented by the presenter, is the sociological "accounts" literature, focusing on how people account to others for their deviant acts.

The other tradition, represented by the commentator, is the

psychological "attribution" literature, which has emphasized

attention to the motives to which people attributed their behavior.

The third topic seeks to draw together scattered evidence from a

wide variety of studies on how the norms of subcultures and social

worlds and the understandings of informal groups operate with

respect to drinking and disinhibition and particularly violence.

Relevant literatures here include studies of subcultures of violence,

of violent and rowdy gangs and groups, and of youth and ethnic

subcultures. Relevant questions include: is the drinking-violence

connection reserved for particular roles and statuses, as Marshall

found on Truk Island; does the American South differ from the rest

of the country in cultural understandings about the connection; are

there special functions of the drinking-disinhibition connection for

particular subcultures? Last, consideration is given to the

presentation of alcohol and disinhibition in what might be called

"prepared communication" in the mass media, in serious

literature, in popular songs, etc. This area is seen as important in

terms both of the teaching function of the assumptions made in such

communications, and of the reflection it offers of societal beliefs

about what drinking does and what it justifies.

The third day of the conference considers broader issues of social

control as affected by the alcohol-disinhibition link. The first

presentation focuses on how the link is used both by the dominant

and the subordinate party in power relationships, particularly

emphasizing culturally sanctioned intimate relationships such as

marriage. The second topic considers the role the link plays in

American jurisprudence where and under what circumstances

drunkenness functions to excuse or convict and where to determine

who is at fault. The legal system is seen as particularly relevant to

the issues of the conference as a locus where the society settles many

hard questions about the individual's responsibility to society and to

others, Last, there is consideration of the implications of the work of

the conference for research and in terms of alternative scenarios for

social and policy change in the light of its findings. * * * The above prospectus for the conference was precirculated to

those invited to write papers and give prepared commentaries at

the conference. The prospectus reflects the work of the conference's

planning committee, which included Walter Clark, Lorraine

Midanik, Patricia Morgan, Ron Roizen and Robin Room of the
viii INTRODUCTION

Social Research Group. As the precirculated statement went on to

add, its "description of the trajectory of the conference" reflected

"the discussions which went into its planning but not, of course, the

rethi eking and reorientation which is likely to occur in the course of

the preparation of the working papers for the conference and the

proceedings of the conference itself."

In the following pages can be found the record of those actual

proceedings. To describe how the record was produced may help

the reader interpret the results. The ten prepared papers for the

conference were precirculated, and authors were asked to

introduce their paper rather than read it. We have reproduced

below the papers essentially as written, and have followed them

with the authors' introductory remarks at the conference commenting or expanding on the written paper. An invited discussant

gave a prepared commentary on each paper, after which there was

general discussion. An extemporaneous summary paper was given

by Herbert Fingarette. The editors of this volume then went

through this transcript, cutting out some of the false starts and

repetitions and smoothing some of the jagged syntax inherent in

oral discourse. In a few places, where several lines of discussion had

been interwoven, we reordered the comments into topical clusters.

But we kept the editorial touch light, aiming to preserve the vigor

and colloquial style of the actual dialogue. Speakers were then sent

this edited transcript of their remarks, to check it for accuracy, and

to provide references for authors and studies they had cited. (These

references will be found collected in one place at the end of this

volume.) In their emendations, conference participants adhered to

our request to preserve the spirit and substance of the conference as

a spontaneous dialogue.

What was at the time of the conference the Social Research Group

continues as a National Alcohol Research Center with the same

staff and street address, but with a new grant number (AA-05595)

and name and aegis: the Alcohol Research Group, Institute of

Epidemiology and Behavioral Medicine, Medical Research

Institute of San Francisco, 1816 Scenic Avenue, Berkeley,

California 94709. The Group's research training functions continue

as part of the School of Public Health, University of California,

Berkeley.
Conference Participants

Susanna Barrows

Department of History

University of California

Berkeley, California 94720

Raul Caetano

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

Don Cahalan

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

Troy Duster

Professor of Sociology

Department of Sociology

University of California

Berkeley, California 94720

Cindy Ehlers

Alcohol Research Center

Salk Institute

P.O. Box 85800

San Diego, California 92138

Herbert Fingarette

Department of Philosophy

University of California

Santa Barbara, California 93106

Carol Ghinger

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

Marcus Grant

Alcohol Education Center

Maudsley Hospital

99 Denmark Hill

London, U.K. SE5 8A2

Denise Herd

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

Dorie Klein

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

Alan Lang

Department of Psychology

Psychology Building 314

Florida State University

Tallahassee, Florida 32306

Joy Leland

Acting Director, Social Science Center

Desert Research Institute

7010 El Rancho Drive

Sparks, Nevada 89431

Edwin Lemert

Professor Emeritus

Department of Sociology

University of California

Davis, California 95616

Harry Levine

Department of Sociology

Queens College

Flushing, New York 11367

ix

10
x PARTICIPANTS

David Levinson

755 Prospect Street

Yale University

New Haven, Connecticut 06520

Monty Lindstrom

Department of Anthropology

University of California

Berkeley, California 94720

N. K. Linton

Fort Lewis College

Durango, Colorado 81301

Dennis Lum

Fort Lewis College

Durango, Colorado 81301

Craig MacAndrew

School of Social Services

University of California

Irvine, California 92717

Margaret MacKenzie

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

James Guy Mansfield

University of Illinois Medical Center

Department of Physiology and

Biophysics

College of Medicine

P.O. Box 6998

Chicago, Illinois 60680

Alan Marlatt

Department of Psychology

University of Washington

Seattle, Washington 98195

Mac Marshall

Department of Anthropology

University of Iowa

Iowa City, Iowa 52242

Mark Moore

Harvard University

JFK School of Government

Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

11

Patricia Morgan

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

Elizabeth Morrissey

Department of Psychiatry and

Behavioral Science

University of Washington

Seattle, Washington 98195

James Mosher

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

Juha Partanen

The State Alcohol Monopoly

Social Research Institute of Alcohol

Studies

Kalevankatu 12

00100 Helsinki 10, Finland

Kai Pernanen

Research Institute on Alcoholism

1021 Main Street

Buffalo, New York 14203

Madelon Powers

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

Ron Roizen

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

Robin Room

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709
PARTICIPANTS xi

Joan Silverman

Department of History

New York University

New York, New York 10003

Richard Speiglman

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

Philip Tetlock

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Department of Psychology

University of California

Berkeley, California 94720

Lawrence Wallack

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley, California 94709

Connie Weisner

Social Research Group

School of Public Health

University of California

1816 Scenic Avenue

Berkeley. California 94709

Charles Winick

Department of Sociology

City College of New York

New York, New York 10031

Stephen C. Woods

Department of Psychology

121 Guthrie Hall - N1-25

University of Washington

Seattle, Washington 98195

1 9
Table of Contents

Foreword iii

Introduction

Robin Room

Conference Participants ix

DAY 1: THE NATURE AND LOCUS OF DISINHIBITION

Introduction

Robin Room 2

Ethanol and Disinhibition: Physiological and Behavioral

Links

Stephen C. Woods and James Guy Mansfield 4

Presenter's Comments 24

Commentary by Juha Partanen 27

Discussion 42

Drinking and Disinhibition: Contributions From

Psychological Research

Alan R. Lang 48

Presenter's Comments 91

Commentary by Kai Pernanen 100

Discussion 106

The Good Creature of God and the Demon Rum: Colonial

American and 19th Century

Ideas About Alcohol, Crime, and Accidents

Harry Gene Levine 111

Presenter's Comments 162

Commentary by Joan Silverman 172

Discussion 178

"Four Hundred Rabbits": An Anthropological View of

Ethanol as a Disinhibitor

Mac Marshall 186

Presenter's Comments 205

xii

13
TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii

Commentary by Craig Mac Andrew 212

Discussion 215

DAY 2: PERSPECTIVES ON DISINHIBITION IN

AMERICAN SOCIETY

Introduction

Robin Room 234

Loosening Up: General-Population Views of the

Effects of Alcohol

Ron Roizen 236

Presenter's Comments 258

Commentary by Joy Leland 261

Discussion 269

Accounting for Failure

N.K. Linton and Dennis W. Lum 276

Presenters' Comments 289

Commentary by Philip Tetlock 293

Disscussion 298

Alcohol Use and Aggression in American Subcultures

David Levinson 306

Presenter's Comments 322

Commentary by Troy Duster 326

Commentary by Denise Herd 331

Discussion 338

Drinking and Disinhibition in Popular Culture

Charles Win ick 347

Presenter's Comments 374

Commentary by Edwin Lemert 383

Discussion 387

DAY 3: DISINHIBITION AND SOCIAL CONTROL

Introduction

Robin Room 404

Alcohol, Disinhibition, and Domination: A Conceptual

Analysis

Patricia Morgan 405
xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS

Presenter's Comments 421

Commentary by Elizabeth Morrissey 423

Discussion 431

Alcohol: Both Blame and Excuse for Criminal Behavior

James F. Mosher 437

Presenter's Comments 461

Commentary by Mark Moore 471

Discussion 479

Implications for Research and Action

Herbert Fingarette 486

Discussion 493

General Discussion References 501

15
DAY 1: THE NATURE AND

LOCUS OF DISINHIBITION

1C
Introduction

Robin Room

When Al Pawlowski of NIAAA first asked us to organize a

workshop relevant to the work of our National Alcohol Research

Center, we spent a good deal of internal discussion time on what was

the most appropriate topic. There are a number of reasons why the

present topic was chosen; one was that it seemed to be an area in

which there are a number of different disciplines that had been

doing work which was often independent and yet was convergent. A

second reason was that we would perhaps be able with this

conference to make a larger point, which is that social science

studies, just as much as biomedical studies, can be a basic science.

Too often, I think, social science work is viewed, both from the point

of view of the policy makers and from the point of view of the

general public, in terms only of its "news" value. When you're

working with rats in the laboratory, it's obvious that the interest is

not in the news value of how the rats behave; the interest is in the

model that they offer for understanding some conceptualizations

and for developing theories. But when it comes to studying people,

the inherent news value often obscures this second level of interest.

We have to recognize that the impetus for a conference like this

comes from a long-standing concern of our society about the link of

alcohol and violence; and Harry Levine's paper underlines that this

belief about the linkage of alcohol and violence has a substantial

history. As Kai Pernanen's article in 1976 beautifully laid out, the

linkage of alcohol and disinhibition has functioned as a very

powerful cultural explanation of violence in our society.

The Social Research Group's involvement in this area stems in

considerable part from the large scale review of the literature or

the role of alcohol in casualties and crime that we undertook foi

NIAAA in 1976 and 1977 (Aarens et al. 1978). One of the matter

that was really re-emphasized for us by that undertaking was th

importance of distinguishing between different aspects of alcoho'

One particular division underlined by that study was the diF.

tinction between the long-term and short-term effects of alcohol. I

2

1
INTRODUCTION 3

the era of the alcoholism movement of the last forty years, the

primary emphasis in the literature on alcohol has been on the longterm effects of alcohol. When we're talking about the role of alcohol

in violence, and, more generally, when we're talking about the role

of alcohol with respect to disinhibition, our primary focus, rather, is

on the short-term effects of alcohol, on the episode of drunkenness.

Given the societal concerns about alcohol's role in violence, one

alternative would have been to hold a conference on alcohol and

violence, but this would have tended to swamp the theoretical

agenda with methodological considerations about measures of

violence and about the difficulties of studies in clinical populations

and criminal populations. We wanted instead to zero in on the

theoretical issues involved, which in our view included but also

reached beyond alcohol and violence.

Without further ado we're going to proceed now into the business

of the conference, and the first order of business will be a

presentation by Steve Woods, from the University of Washington,

Seattle, concerning the evidence on the alcohol-disinhibition link

from a pharmacological and physiological point of view.

_1. Q
Ethanol and Disinhibition:

Physiological and Behavioral

Links*

Stephen C. Woods and James Guy Mansfield

Disinhibition is a term commonly used to refer to activation of

behaviors normally suppressed by various controlling influences.

Of great concern to many in the social, legal, and medical professions is the possibility that certain drugs (such as ethanol) have

disinhibitory properties, and may open the social and cultural

floodgates that usually hold back acts of aggression, deviant sexual

expression, and other aberrant behaviors. Our intent here is to

review selectively the literature dealing with the mechanism of

action of ethanol. We shall not favor any particular approach,

explanation, or theory concerning the putative disinhibitory effects

of ethanol; rather, we hope merely to provide conceptual bridges

between what is known of the physiology and pharmacology of

ethanol on the one hand and the behavioral, social, and anthropological information on the other. Much of the material has been

reviewed competently and in more detail elsewhere (Institute of

Medicine 1980; Kalant 1971, 1975; Myers 1978); we differ here in

our focus on disinhibition.

Ethanol

Ethanol, like other recreational drugs, is taken by humans for its

pharmacological properties, and any attempt to link its intake and

specific behavioral consequences with underlying mechanisms

must take these properties into account. Within the body, ethanol is

initially metabolized or altered biochemically by being converted

'The authors would like to thank their colleagues Dr. G.A. Marlatt and Dr. H.H.

Samson for their discussions and contribution to this review.

Preparation of this review was subsidized partially by National Institutes of

Health Grant AA 04658 a' d by the Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Institute of the

University of Washington.

4

1.9
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 5

to the compound acetaldehyde. Much of this metabolism occurs

within the liver, but many other tissues contribute to a greater or

lesser extent. In many tissues, but especially in the blood, acetaldehyde in turn is eventually converted to inert compounds. Ethanol

and/or acetaldehyde are generally thought to be responsible for the

important consequences of drinking alcoholic beverages, but there

is considerable controversy as to the relative roles of the two. While

many investigators feel that it is the ethanol molecule itself which

exerts important pharmacological actions, others have suggested

that acetaldehyde, acting directly or indirectly, produces many of

the significant behavioral consequences of drinking.

The controversy revolves around whether acetaldehyde ever

exists in biologically meaningful amounts in thE. brain. For

although acetaldehyde in the blood has been implicated in certain

indices of physical arousal such as face-flushing and increased

pulse rate (Mizoi et al. 1979, 1980), it is not thought to be able to

penetrate easily into the brain (Eriksson and Sippel 1977; Hillbom

et al. 1980). However, some researchers believe that sufficient

acetaldehyde is formed within the brain itself to account for many

consequences of ethanol consumption. One speculative theory is

that acetaldehyde interacts chemically with neurotransmitters in

the brain to form products called tetrahydroisoquinolines (TIQs).

These in turn are thought to interfere with normal neuronal

functioning (Cohen 1977; Institute of Medicine 1980). While there is

some evidence that acetaldehyde, perhaps via TIQs, may play a role

in the development of tolerance and dependence (Brown et a1.1979,

in press; Davis and Walsh 1970), there is less compelling research

on possible direct disinhibitory effects of acetaldehyde itself. One

recent report, however, suggests that when the metabolism of

acetaldehyde is prevented by use of certain drugs, such that

acetaldehyde is allowed to accumulate in the body, there is elevated

mood or euphoria in humans (Amit et al. 1980). The interested

reader is urged to read any of the more comprehensive reviews of

the possible role of acetaldehyde (Amit et al. 1980; Hillbom et al.

1980; Lindros 1978). The important point for the present discussion

is that when considering how a drug might act, one must take into

account not only its metabolites, but also the possibility of complex

interactions with various metabolic pathways.

Drugs can interact with the nervous system in both specific and

nonspecific ways. A nonspecific effect occurs when a drug interacts

with many tissues because of some general biochemical property.

For example, the drug formaldehyde nonspecifically destroys all

cells it contacts by denaturing cellular protein. One theory of how

20
6 WOODS AND MANSFIELD

ethanol works is based upon a nonspecific interaction of ethanol

molecules with the structure of cell membranes. Since every cell

has a membrane, any actions of ethanol would be manifest in every

cell or tissue exposed to the drug. By contrast, a specific action

would occur when certain cells or parts of cells contain areas which

recognize ethanol as a discrete molecule and which interact with it such that a specific, predetermined biological response is

triggered. In this instance, only those cells containing these unique

responsive areas or "receptors" are affected by the drug.

As with many interpretations concerning drugs and behavior,

the issue of specificity is not easily settled. Much of the available

evidence points to a nonspecific mode of action for ethanol (as well

as other general depressants of the nervous system such as ether

and nitrous oxide). We shall begin with a consideration of this type

of nonspecific action at the cellular level, followed by a selective

summary of the effects of ethanol on the functioning nervous

system. It is conceivable, though, that both specific and nonspecific

mechanisms occur with ethanol, and this possibility and its

implications for an understanding of disinhibitory actions of

ethanol will also be examined.

Ethanol as a Nonspecific Drug

Ethanol (ethyl alcohol) is a simple molecule containing two

carbon atoms with a hydroxyl group (-OH, biochemically speaking)

attached to one of the carbons. The molecule is very soluble in water

and diffuses easily through biological membranes. These

properties account for ethanol's rapid and wide dispersion within

the body and form the basis of the breath analysis test, since ethanol

rapidly equilibrates across the membranes in the lung that

separate inspired air from the blood. Of particular importance to

any analysis of the effects of ethanol on behavior are its effects upon

the brain. The "blood-brain barrier" is an a.natomical alteration of

blood capillaries within the brain which retards the passage of

many toxic compounds into the brain and thereby helps maintain a

constancy of the brain's internal environment. As indicated above,

this barrier effectively prevents acetaldehyde from gaining access

to the brain I il lbom et al. 1980). However, entry rates of as high as

9(1 percent have been found for ethanol (A nthonisen and Crone

1936: Crone 1965), meaning that when ethanol has been injected

into the blood, 90 percent of it crosses the blood-brain barrier on one

passage through a brain capillary. The implication is that there is

no functional barrier to the penetration of ethanol, and most

21
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 7

estimates have placed the equilibration time for ethanol from blood

to brain within a very few minutes (Chroscielewski and Pfeiffer

1966; Fischer and Waligren 1957; Hulpien and Cole 1946; Payne et

al. 1966).

Ethanol is relatively insoluble in lipids (fats), the major

components of cell membranes. Its concentration and distribution

in any tissue are therefore proportional only to the water content of

that tissue. However, the presence of the attached hydroxyl group

causes the ethanol molecule to become positioned at the surface of

cell membranes such that one end of the molecule is in association

with the fluid which bathes the membrane and the other is in

association with the lipids which comprise most of the membrane

(see Kalant 1971). In addition to two layers of lipid, membranes

contain clusters of protein molecules. These protein molecules are

said to be "fluid" in that both their biochemical properties and their

relative positions within the lipid part of the membrane are not

constant. Changes in these proteins are the major determinants of

cellular functioning, and any change of their fluidity would

therefore be expected to alter how a cell behaves. As reviewed

recently by a panel for the Institute of Medicine (1980), a number of

sophisticated techniques have now been used to demonstrate that

ethanol "fluidizes" membranes, i.e., increases the potential

mobility of some of the proteins (Chin and Goldstein 1977; Jain and

Wu 1977; Johnson et al. 1979). Other experiments have shown that

this fluidization procedure does in fact alter cellular functioning

(Cooper et al. 1978; Hirata et al. 1979; Kalant et al. 1979; Leventhal

and Tabakoff in press). The current concept is that the ethanol

molecules nonspecifically enter the membrane and become

"packed" into its surface, causing the altered functioning (Kwant et

al. 1969; Seeman 1966, 1972).

Although the details are not well understood, changes of membrane proteins are thought to enable certain molecules to pass

through cell membranes more or less easily at different times and

under different circumstances. Such a model assumes that there

are variable "pores" in the membrane through which molecules can

pass when proteins are in the correct configuration, and the packing of ethanol into the membrane is thought to alter the ease with

which these molecules pass through. There are thought to be a finite

number of potential packing sites for ethanol in a membrane, such

that a sufficiently high concentration of ethanol can cause more

permanent disruption of membrane functioning as the saturation

. point for ethanol is passed (Kalant 1971; Kwant et al. 1969).

To summarize what is known of the nonspecific interaction of

ethanol and cell membranes, it is thought that ethanol molecules

22
8 Wo0DS AND MANSFIELD

enter the surface structure of membranes and thereby change

overall membrane fluidity. This in turn is manifest as a change in

the properties of certain proteins responsible for the ease of passage

of various compounds through the membrane. These changes are

thought to cause major alterations of neuronal functioning. Such a

model must either assume that all cells are equally affected by

ethanol or else that differences in the precise chemical makeup of

membranes between cells account for specific effects of the drug

upon some tissues.

Behavior can ultimately be analyzed in terms of nerve impulses or action potentials directing the activity of muscles. Nerve

impulses occur when nerve cell membranes lower their normal

resistance to the passage of certain molecules. Fluidization of the

membranes by ethanol presumably interferes with this process.

Specifically, nerve action potentials have been reported to have

lower amplitude and to be shorter in duration in the presence of

ethanol (Armstrong and Binstock 1956; Kalant 1971, 1975; Moore

1966; Moore et al. 1964; Posternak and Mangold 1949; Wright

1947). Likewise the firing rate of individual nerve cells changes

under the influence of ethanol (Grupp 1980; Grupp and Perlanski

1979; Kalant 1971, 1975; Newlin et al, 1979; Rogers et al. 1979;

Wayner et al. 1975). These alterations of neuronal functioning have

been demonstrated in many different species and with many different preparations, and the reader interested in changes in specific

brain regions should consult reviews of this topic (e.g., Institute of

Medicine 1980; Kalant 1971, 1975).

Neurons communicate with one another at synaptic junctions by

releasing stored chemicals or neurotransmitters when nerve

impulses occur. If the nerve impulse reaching a synapse has been diminished in amplitude (by ethanol or by any other means), less

neurotransmitter is released and the resulting change in the receiving cell is reduced (Eccles 1964). Such a reduced release of specific

transmitters by neurons in the brain is in factone reported action of

ethanol (Charmichael and Israel 1975; Erickson and Graham 1973;

Kalant and Grose 1967).

While it is clear that ethanol interferes with normal neuronal

functioning in a number of ways, the relationship between such

interference and consequent changes of behavior is still not well

understood. Activation or "disinhibition" of neuronal activity does not necessarily have a direct and parallel influence on an

organism's behavior. If the (presumably nonspecific) actions of

ethanol outlined above account for disinhibition, other drugs which

cause comparable cellular changes would be expected to influence

behavior in a similar manner. This is true of the barbiturates and of

23,
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 9

various anesthetic drugs such as ether and nitrous oxide (see Institute of Medicine 1980; Kalant 1971, 1975; Myers 1978; Pernanen

1976; Wilson 1977).

It is generally felt that cognitive influences on behavior originate

in the cerebral cortex. Disinhibition has been postulated to result

from the removal of negative or inhibitory cortical influences, with

a consequent release or facilitation of specific behaviors. In this

regard, it is pertinent to ask how the cortex might be especially

susceptible to the actions of ethanol. Preferential access to the

cortex when ethanol is ingested is an unlikely possibility since

ethanol is rapidly distributed throughout all of the brain. And,

while it is the case that many of the cellular changes associated with

ethanol administration have been reported for cortical neurons,

virtually every area of the brain has been shown to have altered

neuronal functioning of some type or other when ethanol is applied.

It is of course possible that the cell membranes of certain cortical

neurons are importantly different than those in other brain areas

such that these neurons are more or less sensitive to ethanol, but

there is no evidence for this at present.

Another potential explanation of disinhibition is based upon a

network of nerve cells in the core of the lower brainstem. This

network, the reticular activating system or RAS, is thought to be

preferentially sensitive to ethanol and other depressants (Himwich

and Callison 1972; Kalant 1970, 1975), and it has direct anatomical

connections with many areas of the cerebral cortex. One important

feature of the RAS is that it is comprised of numerous very short

neurons with many synaptic interconnections. Such multisynaptic

networks are thought to be particularly susceptible to depressant

drugs, perhaps due to a cumulative effect at many individual synapses. There may well be doses of ethanol which therefore exert an

effect only at networks such as the RAS.

Because of the nature of its anatomical connections and the

results of numerous physiological experiments, the RAS is generally considered to have a major influence over brain and behavioral

arousal. Therefore, any drug which selectively influences the RAS

might be expected to influence cortical functioning in general and

behaviors related to arousal in particular. A number of experiments have shown that ethanol does indeed influence neuronal

functioning in the RAS (e.g., Dolce and Decker 1972, 1973). Perhaps more relevant are studies showing that specific RAS input to

the cortex is changed under the influence of ethanol (Ciganek 1967;

Gross et al. 1966; Lewis et al. 1970; Perrin et al. 1974; Salamy and

Williams 1973). Finally. when one uses the electroencephalogram

(EEG) as an index of arousal. it is well documented that ethanol has
10 WOODS AND MANSFIELD

a biphasic effect, with increased arousal at lower doses and less

arousal as the dose is increased (Kalant 1975; Murphree 1973;

Pohorecky 1977). Therefore, ethanol-induced changes at the RAS

certainly contribute to and may be the major component of cortical

changes which account for disinhibition.

Ethanol as a Specific Drug

When a compound is recognized by a specific site on a membrane

such that a reversible binding occurs, the site is defined as a receptor. Every cell in the body is thought to contain receptors for many

different hormones and neurotransmitters and probably to have

thousands of each receptor-type over its surface. Such compounds

and their receptors comprise the complex system by which information is transferred among the various cells and tissues of the

body. The system is complicated by the fact that receptors are

constantly changing both in number and in the affinity (or avidity)

with which they interact with the specific compound. Compounds

which interact with a receptor and trigger a specific reaction

within the cell are called agonists. A common example is theneurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is an agonist f.Ir receptors on

muscle cells. When acetylcholine interacts with "cholinergic"

receptors on the surface of the muscle cell, a series of biochemical

events begins and the cell ultimately contracts. Compounds which

are recognized by and occupy the receptor, but which do not trigger

this reaction, are called antagonists because their presence prevents the agonist from being effective. To continue with the same

example, the drug curare is an antagonist of the receptor for acetylcholine on muscles. The presence of large amounts of curare therefore prevents acetylcholine from eliciting muscle contraction, and

the muscle is paralyzed in its presence.

The concept and theory of receptors were developed to explain

the interactions of endogenous compounds (those normally found

within the body) with specific cells. Exogenous drugs (those administered to an animal or person) have traditionally been thought to

exert their effects via nonspecific mechanisms since it was deemed

unlikely that specific receptors would evolve for compounds not

occurring naturally in the body. However, a revolution of sorts was

initiated in 1975 when it was determined that exogenous opiates

(morphine, heroin) interact with a receptor for which there are

endogenous opiates or endorphins (Guillemin 1980). One might

speculate that any drug which has become widely used socially for

its behavioral effects actually interacts with some specific receptor25
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 11

type. Such drugs, acting as either agonists or antagonists, could

mimic the effects of endogenous compounds, and would be expected

to have major effects on the body and behavior. As an example,

there is now considerable evidence that mild tranquilizers in the.

benzodiazepine group interact with specific receptors (Mahler and

Okada 1977; Marangor et al. 1978).

If ethanol could be shown to interact specifically with one or more

receptor-types, the task of explaining particular behavioral

changes due to its administration would become conceptually easier. For example, behavioral differences among different human

populations or cultures could be not only explained but predicted,

since different genetic pools are known to have differences in the

numbers of some receptors (Catt and Dufan 1977; Kahn 1976),

Individual differences might also be explained since experiential

factors such as prior drug-taking history can have profound effects

upon receptor number and affinity (Catt and Dufan 1977; Kahn

1976).

Research on ethanol and receptors has lagged somewhat, perhaps due to prevailing thought and evidence for nonspecific mechanisms. However, several recent reports suggest that ethanol may in

fact be an antagonist of the receptor for dopamine (Hruska and

Silbergeld 1980; Lai et al. 1979, 1980). Dopamine is one of many

neurotransmitters in the brain, and it is found in pathways which

are involved with both locomotor activity and emotional behavior

(Murphy and Redmond 1975). Further, many pathways coursing

through the RAS contain dopamine as their transmitter (Ungerstedt 1971). If these recent reports are replicated and verified,

perhaps some of ethanol's effects will be explainable in terms of

reduced dopamine effectiveness. In this regard, it is noteworthy

that drugs which mimic dopamine prevent the stimulating effects

of low doses of ethanol on locomotion (Carlsson et al. 1974).

If future research supports a role of TIQs in ethanol's mode of

action, this may well be mediated through specific receptors. It is

significant that TIQs are currently thought to interact with the

ability of normal brain neurotransmitters to act at synapses (Cohen

1977; Institute of Medicine 1980).

Specificity Vtrsus Nonspecificity

The issue of specificity of action may be particularly important to

an understanding of disinhihition and other selective actions proposed for ethanol. Any model must explain a variety of important

characteristics of the drug's actions, and nonspecific and specific

26
12 WOODS AND MANSFIELD

models of action require alternate accounts of these effects. Any

complete description of the influence of ethanol on behavior must

specify not only why the drug appears to influence neural systems

selectively, but also why individuals and populations react differently to ethanol when it is ingested in similar amounts and situations. If ethanol's effects are based only on nonspecific interaction

with neuronal membranes, one must appeal to differences in membrane composition or neural sensitivity, and to social and cultural

learning differences, to account for selective effects. By contrast, if

ethanol's actions are to be attributed to a receptor-mediated pro- cess, then one must rely on receptor population differences among

neural systems and individuals to explain the same effects of the

drug.

Although reports of an interaction between ethanol and the

dopamine receptor are tantalizing and deserve careful attention,

several characteristics of the actions of ethanol favor a nonspecific

interpretation. First, the observation that other simple molecules

(ether, nitrous oxide) cause neural and behavioral changessimilar

to those induced by ethanol implies a common mechanism, the most

likely candidate being nonspecific interaction with cell membranes. Second, the potency of ethanol as a pharmacological agent

is much weaker than that of other drugs (e.g., opiates), which are

known to have receptor-mediated actions. Ifsome of the effects of

ethanol were in fact mediated by receptors, one might expect the dose-response curve for such effects to be displaced to the left

(indicating that less drug at the site of action is required to produce

biologically significant effects).

Ethanol and Behavioral Disinhibition

In our overview of the actions of ethanol, we began at the level of

the cell membrane and then progressed to an analysis of neuronal

and finally nervous system functioning. We shall now expand this consideration to include evidence for a disinhibitory action of the

drug at the behavioral level. While it is clear that much has been

learned of the interaction of ethanol with the nervous system, it

must be pointed out that we cannot, as yet, bridge the gaps between

the aforementioned levels of analysis. By and large, it is still not

possible to understand behavior in terms of underlying neuronal

activity. and this handicap fetters our attempts to comprehend

drug effects. The translation between neural functioning and

behavior is much more complex than a simple turning on or off of

discrete behavioral or emotional systems; for example. drug27.
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 13

induced activation or "disinhibition" at the level of the nerve cell

cannot be related directly to changes in an organism's behavior.

Considerable research using laboratory animals has produced

substantial information and insight relevant to the possible disinhibitory effects of ethanol. While it is clear that at high enough

doses ethanol depresses any and all behaviors, it has also become

evident that for some behaviors, ethanol has a biphasic effect,

enhancing behavior at low doses and degrading performance at

higher doses (Pohorecky 1977). In this instance the practical advantage of using large numbers of animal subjects has made scientists

acutely aware of the need to assess the effects of ethanol (and other

drugs) at a range of doses or blood levels. Studies which show an

activating effect of low doses of ethanol (Goldman and Docter 1966;

Holloway and Wansley 1973) or a biphasic action of the drug

(Edwards and Eckerman 1979; Friedman et al. 1980; Holloway and

Wansley 1973; Mason et al. 1979; Weitz 1974) do not directly support the disinhibition hypothesis, but rather serve as warning that a

general activation caused by ethanol could be misinterpreted as

disinhibition. Here again it is important to note a parallel between

ethanol and other CNS depressants, such as the gaseous anesthetics, which also may produce some degree of behavioral excitation at

low blood levels.

With regard to the possible stimulating effects of low levels of

such agents, it should be noted that ethanol administration elicits

an increase in the blood of cortisol (Noble 1973; Ylikahri et al. 1978),

an arousal or stress hormone. Epinephrine (adrenalin) (Perman

1958a) and norepinephrin1 (Davis et al. 1967), other arousal hormones, are probably also elevated in the blood (Perman 1958a),

perhaps due to increases in plasma acetaldehyde (Akabane et al.

1964; Perman 1958b). It is noteworthy that Schachter (Schachter

and Singer 1962) found that when he injected epinephrine into

humans, there was an increased likelihood of inducing heightened

emotional responses; and he was among the first to show that the

probability of obtaining these emotional responses depended heavily upon the cognitive and environmental setting of the individual

(Schachter 1964; Schachter and Singer 1962). To summarize several Points, low doses of ethanol induce changes in the brain associated with a more aroused state, cause nonspecific enhancement of

a number of behaviors, and are associated with elevations of arousal

hormones.

It is possible that ethanol might have both general arousing

actions and a specific disinhibitory effect on behavior, and there is

some evidence that this is indeed the case. To support the hypothesis

that ethanol selectively disinhibits certain forms of behavior, the

28
14 WOODS AND MANSFIELD

burden on investigators is to show that the drug can increase the

frequency or intensity of such behaviors, and that this increase is

specific, i.e., not merely resulting from a general activation of all

behavior. Animals studies whic17 support the disinhibition hypothesis may be loosely classified into two types, conflict studies and

studies of aggressive behavior. Under the rubric of conflict studies,

one may include any paradigm in which competing response tendencies are aroused and presumed to control behavior. Such paradigms include avoidance-avoidance, and approach-avoidance

conflicts, passive avoidance tasks, shuttle-avoidance tasks, and certain discrimination procedures. In all of these situations, behavior

is governed by the interaction of opposing tendencies to respond

and to withhold responding. In such studies (Chesher 1974; Holloway 1972; Holloway and Vardiman 1971; Holloway and Wansley

1973; Mansfield 1979; Mansfield et al. 1977) ethanol has been

reported to produce changes in behavior consistent with a weakening of inhibitory tendencies. Importantly, these effects have been

demonstrated in situations where the same dose of ethanol has little

or no effect on behaviors that do not involve conflicting tendencies.

Studies of aggressive behavior in animals have provided important contributions to our understanding of the actions of ethanol.

One particularly pertinent set of data comes from experiments

reporting that increased aggression (attacking and biting other

animals) occurs only in certain situations, such as in novel environments, where such behavior is normally suppressed (Lagerspetz

and Ekqvist 1978; Miczek and O'Donnell 1980). Here enhanced

aggression appears to be a selective effect of the drug rather than

due to general arousal. An additional benefit of these studies is that

they have allowed careful analysis of the effect of ethanol when

separately administered to the aggressor or the victim. At least one

study has indicated that, when given low doses of ethanol, subordinate rodents are more likely to be attacked or injured by dominant

animals (Miczek and Barry 1977); a finding which may have important implications for human aggressive situations.

Ethanol and Disinhibition of

Human Behaviors

Of ultimate concern to many is the possibility that ethanol specifically disinhibits otherwise restrained behavior in humans. Elevations of the frequency or magnitude of certain forms of aggressive

or sexual activities would be a major result of such disinhibition,

29
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 15

and we shall briefly consider each of these, beginning with sexual

behavior. The interested reader is referred to an excellent critical

review of this area by Wilson (1977).

There is no doubt that the incidence of rape, sexual assault, and

certain kinds of deviant sexual behaviors is correlated with ethanol

consumption. While it has been pointed out previously, it bears

repeating that the problem of assessing causality in such situations

is difficult indeed. For obvious reasons, one cannot observe the

influence of ethanol on such human behaviors in a controlled experimental situation; further, appropriate animal models are not

available. The closest experimental approach to this problem is one

in which ethanol is administered to humans, accompanied by measurement of variables thought to correlate with sexual arousal and

behavior. Various forms of verbal report of sexual arousal have

been used in the past; however, there is much current interest in the

physiological measures of change of penile diameter for men (Abel

and Blanchard 1976), and changes of vaginal blood volume or

pressure pulse for women (Hoon et al. 1976). While it is apparent

that ethanol influences these physiological measures, an important and unresolved issue is whether these measures of arousal are

linked with tendencies to behave in an assaultive or deviant

manner.

In typical studies involving these measures, ethanol has been

administered prior to the presentation of erotic stimuli (generally

short films involving heterotypic or homotypic partners). With few

exceptions, the results of such studies are in agreement in showing

that sexual arousal (measured physiologically) is inversely related

to blood-ethanol levels (Briddell and Wilson 1976; Farkas and

Rosen 1976; Wilson and Lawson 1976a,b). Consistent with these

findings is the observation that reproductive hormones are also

decreased by ethanol. This is true both of luteinizing hormone (LH),

a gonadotropin from the pituitary, and of the gonadal steroid,

testosterone (Cicero et al. 1979; Ellingboe and Varanelli 1979; Mendelson et al. 1977, 1978). One might conclude that whatever changes

of behavior occur that are labelled as disinhibited, do so in spite of

these physical indices that sexual arousal is lessened by the drug.

An intriguing possibility is that ethanol may cause a primary

reduction of testosterone from the gonads, a deficit which then

feeds back to the brain to cause a surge of LH (Mendelson and Mello

1979). A sudden buildup of LH is thought to cause an increase of

sexual arousal (LaFerla et al. 1978). On the other hand, when

subjective reports of arousal are simultaneously obtained, they do

not always correlate well with measured physiological changes, so

the significance of these studies is still not clear. A further compli-
16 WOODS AND MANSFIELD

cation, as reviewed briefly in the next section, is that cognitive

expectancies have been found to be at least as important as the

actual consumption of ethanol in some of the studies measuring

sexual arousal (Briddell et al. 1978; Wilson and Lawson 1976a;

Wilson et al. 1978).

Regarding aggressive behaviors, there are also studies indicating a significant correlation between incidence and ethanol con- sumption, and similar problems of measurement and

determination of causality exist. Although indices of human

aggressive behavior in experimental situations have been found to

be elevated after ethanol in some of these studies (e.g., Lang et al.

1975), expectancies appear also to contribute importantly to this

variable. Marlatt (1979; Marlatt and Rohsenow 1980) has outlined

three mechanisms that have been offered to account for the effects

of ethanol on aggressive tendencies: (1) a general physiological

arousal induced by the drug, (2) a specific disinhibitory action on

socially restrained aggressive behaviors, and (3) cognitive processes, involving expectancies or attribution. In light of the available physiological, behavioral, and social data, it may be an error to

attempt to direct our attentions solely to one of the above

mechanisms.

Expectancies and Disinhibition

An interesting dimension has been added to research on ethanol

by the development of the anticipation or expectancy contingency

by Marlatt and his colleagues (Marlatt and Rohsenow 1980). Several studies have now indicated that when humans expect to receive

ethanol, they are likely to have elevated indices of aggression and

sexual arousal, even if they do not actually receive the drug (Briddell et al. 1978; Lang et al. 1975; Wilson and Lawson 1976u; Wilson

et al. 1978). Individuals who ingest ethanol when believing it to be a

placebo solution may fail to show such behavioral changes. The

implication is that under certain conditions, cognitive anticipation

accounts for more of the variance of behavior than does the drug

itself. Clearly more research should be focused on these cognitive

variables and their interaction with the pharmacological properties of ethanol.

One potential drawback to experiments which involve active

manipulation of expectancies concerning the ingestion of ethanol is

that relatively small amounts of the drug are employed (in order to

maintain the deception). While it has been argued that the bloodethanol levels attained are typical of social drinking situations, it is

31
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 17

not clear whether these levels are typical of situations which result

in violence or sexual assault, nor do we yet know how such cognitive

factors influence behavior at higher blood-drug levels.

Expectancy effects have been interpreted in terms of a conditioning or learning model. The implication is that when ethanol is

initially consumed, there are (unconditioned) pharmacological

effects which might actually disinhibit behavior. Additional expe- rience with ethanol nurtures a conditioned response, or an anticipation of these behavioral effects, and during subsequent episodes of drinking these expectancies may combine or interact with the

actual pharmacological effects of the drug. Attempts to demonstrate these expectancy effects in ethanol-naive subjects would shed

light on this issue. There is evidence that expectancy effects are

greatest for those behaviors which are under the greatest degree of

cognitive influence (Marlatt and Rohsenow 1980). Accordingly,

simple reflexes and locomotor tasks would be relatively uninfluenced by expectation of ethanol, whereas, learned, or aggressive, or sexually related tasks are profoundly influenced. Therefore it

would not appear reasonable at present to abandon the search for

an underlying pharmacological effect of ethanol; rather, we should proceed with the realization that an interaction with cognitive variables may confound the results.

We have found it useful to imagine a continuum along which

behaviors are placed according to the degree to which they are

influenced by cognitive variables. It seems likely that the variability of these behaviors (in terms of the form taken as well as the

amplitude) would increase in proportion to the degree of cognitive

influence; i.e., whereas the knee-jerk reflex N aries little in either

form or amplitude, responses to threatening or erotic stimuli presumably usually vary a great deal. For those behaviors which are

socially undesirable, the cognitive influence is predominantly

inhibitory, and the effect of such inhibition is to reduce normal

variability by eliminating or suppressing certain responses.

One can now speculate freely as to how ethanol in terzcts with this

model. For one thing, it is known that at low doses ethanol may

induce generalized activation and that at higher doses it depresses

most behavior. Average levels of behavior may therefore increase

slightly in the presence of low amounts of ethanol and decrease as

blood-drug levels rise; however, the variability associated with

different behaviors may remain unchanged. The net result of such

an effect would be an increase in the frequency or intensity of

deviant behaviors, resulting from generalized activation associated

with low to moderate doses. Conversely, it may be that responses

that are normally inhibited are the first to be enhanced. If so,

32
18 WOODS AND MANSFIELD

perhaps the effect of ethanol is merely to replace previously suppressed responses into the repertoire, thus producing a specific

disinhibiting effect. Certainly the interactions of behavior, ethanol,

and cognitive influences can be easily conceptualized with such a

model. It may also serve some value in directing and interpreting

research, as the pharmacological and cognitive influences attending consumption of ethanol would be expected to have disparate

contributions, depending upon the behavior observed.

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Presenter's Comments

STEPHEN WOODS: One of the key questions I tried to address

is how can we account for disinhibition or any other behavior that

occurs when we drink. Is it simply the result of the whole brain

becoming marinated in alcohol and none of the nerve cells function

ing correctly? The very term "disinhibition" implies a mechanism

based somehow on the cerebral cortex this fantastic part of our

brain which is supposed td control all of our higher mental functioning; it's thought somehow to be inhibiting certain tendencies that

we might have, and perhaps alcohol somehow releases this inhibition. That's what the term disinhibition implies. The problem is

that alcohol is not known to interfere selectively with the cerebral

cortex. If nerve cells in :.he cerebral cortex were particularly sensitive to alcohol, then you might have a good model for understanding

a behavior such as disinhibition. So even though it might be desirable if you were studying disinhibition to find that the cerebral

cortex was particularly sensitive, it turns out that it isn't. On the

other hand, there is a part of the brain called the Reticular Activating System, which is known to be especially sensitive to alcohol.

When alcohol levels are going up, this part of the brain is one of the

first to be affected. There's something different or unique about the

nerve cells in this Reticular Activating System, which forms a core

deep inside the brain. The Reticular Activating System communicates directly with all areas of the cerebral cortex, and in fact is

known to be the major influence on the state of arousal of the cortex.

In this system, then, we have an area of the brain which is

uniquely sensitive to alcohol; which does directly communicate

with the cerebral cortex; and which, in fact, controls it, at least as

regards arousal.

Finally, I want to say a few words about animal research and

some of the lessons which we've learned from that with regard to

disinhibition. Most of the research has been done on rats and mice.

Some research has been done on monkeys. As in humans, when you

do studies carefully, you can find a biphasic effect of alcohol on level

of arousal. LOW doses of alcohol increase arousal; high doses of

alcohol decrease arousal. You can show this in a number of ways.

For example, you can show it behaviorally, or you can show it by

24

39
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 25

measuring levels of arousal hormones in the blood. All of these

things are changed in the presence of alcohol.

Animal research has yielded a surprising result which may be

very important for this conference on disinhibition: Suppose you

take animals and train them not to make certain responses; i.e., you

put them in an avoidance situation where they're punished if they

make these responses; you then put them in a discrimination situation where they have a choice of making the formerly punished

(now inhibited) response or some other response. Now you live

them alcohol. Studies have shown that those responses which are

already inhibited in some way are the first to be affected or influenced by alcohol. All behaviors are influenced, but there's a lot of

evidence for selective influence on responses which animals have

learned not to make. This may be the closest to an animal model of

human disinhibition we have. I don't know, but it's certainly worth

contemplating.

Finally, in mice, if you give them alcohol, there's an increased

tendency for one mouse to attack and bite another mouse. It's been

shown in several experiments. This certainly would seem to be an

animal analog of something akin to disinhibition. The one thing

which I find most interesting about this research has to do with the

subordinate mouse, the mouse which is attacked. The research in

which this has been done has fOund that if you give alcohol to the

subordinate mouse, this has at least as much effect in causing

aggression as when you give it to the dominant mouse. An inebriated subordinate mouse is far more likely to be attacked than a

sober subordinate mouse. And it doesn't matter whether the attacking mouse is drunk or not. So, I expect that has implications for

human behavior. I haven't worked it all out in my mind, but I'm

sure it will provide some kind of food for discussion later in the

conference.

Finally, let's summarize what's known of the effects of ethanol on

reproductive physiology, since aberrant sexual behavior is often

considered to be a part of disinhibition. In animals and in people, if

you measure the levels of reproductive-related hormones, they go

down in the presence of alcohol in a linear kind of fashion. This is

true of hormones from the pituitary, and it's true of testosterone, a

hormone from the testes. If you measure physiological indices of

sexual arousal, these are also reduced in the presence of alcohol. So,

any theory based upon some release of reproductive activity based

on alcohol has got to take this into account, and you have to say that

it's occurring in spite of physiological indices, that the system is

suppressed, not excited.

4
26 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

I don't think that there are any easy answers in relating any of

this to human disinhibition, but I hope that I may have sparked

some interest or at least some areas for discussion thoughout the

conference. Thank you.

ROBIN ROOM: Thanks very much, Dr. Woods.

The commentator, Juha Partanen, is from the Social Research

Institute of Alcohol Studies in Helsinki, which operates in association with the Finnish Foundation of Alcohol Studies.

Juha is, I think, unusual in really stretching between several of

the worlds that are here. He's known in the alcohol literature,

among other things, for a twin study done a number of years ago on

possible genetic fabtors in alcohol problems (Partanen et al. 1966).

He's taken a strong interest in areas beyond social studies while

maintaining his basis in social studies.

41
Commentary

Juha Partanen

Toward a Theory of Intoxication

First, I must say that I am not a physiologist but a social scientist.

In commenting on Professor Wood's paper, I shall have very little to

say about alcohol's pharmacological effects on single cells, neural

activity, or the functioning of the neural system. Some of the problems have been quite unequivocally presented to us by Professor

Woods. It is certainly noteworthy that there is, as yet, no way to

bridge the gaps between different levels of analysis, and that "it is

still not possible to understand behavior in terms of underlying

neuronal activity." Some of us may wonder whether this ever will

be possible. To employ a simple analogy, understanding the way

airplane engines work can tell very little about my trip to this

conference.

Professor Woods has drawn our attention, in particular, to the

cognitive context, to the role of expectancies which may, under

certain conditions, affect human behavior under the influence of

alcohol more than the drug itself. Thus it seems that there is really

no reason to start arguing in the present occasion about the relative

merits of various disciplines. The crucial problem of bridging the

gaps not only between the physiological and psychological theories,

but also between individual-centered and sociological theories,

however, remains. The present occasion appears to be most propitious to turn to the basic conceptual issues about the determination

of alcohol's psychological and behavioral effects.

Existing literature on alcohol effects provides a bewildering

array of viewpoints, findings, and conflicting results. Although

there has been some cumulation of research effort, the prevailing

picture is still one of fragmentation across disciplines, research

traditions, and methodological approaches. The essential problem,

in my opinion, is not as much the discrepancy or contradictoriness

of findingsit seems in fact that quite cordial relationships exist

between different disciplines in alcohol researchas the multiplica 40ti
28 PA RTANEN: COMMENTARY

ity of and the lack of conceptual interfaces. This is testimony to the

theoretical poverty of research which is carried out in terms of

applied notions borrowed from most diverse theoretical traditions

(cf. Everett et al. 1976, pp.8-9). What seems to be missing is a

theoretically articulated view on the object of research, alcohol

intoxication.

Most of the research on the effects of alcohol has been traditionally carried out within the "toxicological paradigm," striving for

the maximal control of experimental conditions. A dose of alcohol is

conceived as a stimulus causing specific responses in the nervous

system, which in turn lead to changes in overt behavior. In order to

account for variations in individual responses, the conditioning

effects of set and setting have to be invoked. This paradigm has

been adopted not only in physiological research but in the behavioral sciences as well. And when a few common-sense psychological

postulates about human behavior are appendedindividual striving toward pleasurable states or trying to avoid unpleasant states

psychological theories about the reasons and motivations for

drinking are obtained, eventually purporting to explain observed

variations in alcohol use.

The second main alternative is the standard anthropological view

on drinking as a culturally defined and normatively controlled

social phenomenon, Starting from Bunzel's classical account

(1940), anthropologists working in alcohol research have been able

to show how drinking practices and "drunken comportment," even

down to seemingly insignificant details, follow culturally prescribed patterns; they have made efforts to show how this behavior

corresponds to the nature of basic social relationships in a given

society.

My uneasiness with the anthropological approach stems partly

from its difficulties in dealing with individual variations of behavior, deviance, and transgressions of norms. It would also seem that

the specific features of drinking as a social phenomenon are usually

lost sight of; the arguments are such as to be applicable to any social

practice. Furthermore, I have the impression (but here I may be

wrong) that the anthropological approach is somewhat inadequate

to deal with the very actual situations in our world, where new

patterns are emerging, traditional norms are losing their binding

force upon people, and where society is groping for new ways to

cope with alcohol.

My dissatisfaction with the toxicological model is more profound.

It arises not only from the quite extreme observed individual and

cultural variation in alcohol's effects, from the difficulty of obtaint
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 29

ing stable, generalizable results, nor from the frequent discrepancy

between the physiological measures and subjective reports on

intoxication. Of course, it can never be proved that it is a false model

since it is always possible to appeal to the modifying influences of

set and setting. One may argue, however, that it is a conceptually

inadequate model, concentrating solely on alcohol's effects upon the

individual. The basic, most fundamental effect of alcohol or any

other psychoactive drug, it may be claimed, is to modify the relationship between an individual and his external environment. Alcohol transforms the way a person looks at the world, the way he

relates to it through his activities, the way others perceive him, and

relate to him. Therefore, in order to understand what takes place in

intoxication, we have to deal with some basic notions about the

relationship between an individual and his environment.

Two Levels of Man's Psychic Activity

When considering man's relationship to the external world in its

most general terms, I can see no feasible alternative to the materialistic position that this relationship is ultimately based on work, that

is, material transformation of the environment in cooperation with

other persons. Man's life does not, of course, consist of work only; yet

it may be claimed that all he specifically human forms of life bear

its mark: conscious, goal-oriented action, conceptual thought,

human language as a means of communication within and between

generations, emergence of societies, and the development of individual personality. Continuing differentiation of all these aspects

has taken place under the conditions created by the developing

division of labor.

For the analysis of how this fundamental dependence on work is

reflected in the structure and development of human psychic life,

the conceptual framework of the "psychology of activity," as presented by Leontyev (1973, 1975), seems most appropriate. Human

activities are conceived as hierarchically organized wholes. An

activity consists of inner motives (needs), of acts with their specific

external goals, obtaining their psychological significance from the

motives they realize, and of operations through which the acts are

performed. The relationships between these three levels are not

fixed. An act, for example, may become tied to a new motive, so that

its psychological significance changes. An external goal may

acquire independent motivational force, or an act may become

routinized into an operation, or conversely, under unfamiliar circumstances a conscious act may be needed for the performance of a

4.1
30 PARTANEN: COMMENTARY

previously routine operation. The essential advantage of this

scheme, compared with stimulus-response explanations of human

behavior, is that it permits the analysis of the relationships between

the external and internal aspects of human activity. Inner motives

find their realization in external acts. Conversely, in the course of

socialization social values are interiorized and transformed into the

motives of individual activity. External determinants and functional necessities of social life are thus transformed into psychological forces which constitute the structure of individual personality,

characterized by its specific hierarchy of motives. All these processes take place through human activity. In modifying their environment, humans also modify themselves.

The above notions focus on the specifically human forms of conscious goal-oriented action. This perspective does not make explicit

the role of unconscious mental processes, nor does it deal with the

phylogenetic links between human and animal mental life. Emphasis on consciousness has dominated Western psychology ever since

Descartes; those recesses of the mind not reached by conscious

introspection have most often been relegated to the realm of purely

material, physiological processes. Yet, this theoretically fateful

dualism notwithstanding, lingering suspicions that consciousness

is not all there is in the human mind have persisted. Philosophical

and psychological notions about unconscious psychological processes possess in fact a respectable pedigree in Western intellectual

history. They range from Leibnitz's "petites perceptions" and

Kant's "dunkle Vorstellungen" to the 19th century German philosophy and emerging psychology (Herbart, Schopenhauer,

Nietzsche, von Hartman, von Helmholz). They figure importantly

in Piaget's work on the inner mechanisms of cognitive development. And, of course, there was Freud.

In order to characterize very briefly the role of unconscious

psychic processes, I shall refer to the notions presented by Uznadze

(1966). According to him, the prerequisite for all psychological

phenomena is the active relationship of a living organism to its

environment. This relationship consists of both the organism's

needs and the external determinants of the situation. In its most

primitive form, psychic activity assumes the shape of a psychological set, in which the need and the situation meet. A primary set

creates in the organism an unconscious psychic preparation for

activity. If similar experiences are repeated, a primary set is converted into a relatively stable fixed set, consisting of a predisposition to a specific behavior. These processes, based on the immediate

experience, take place without the mediation of consciousness, in

animals as well as in the human mind.

45
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 31

In the human mind, there is a constant interplay between conscious and unconscious levels of psychic activity. In the first place,

unconscious set-controlled activities may give rise to conscious

activity through objectivization, through which the relevant aspects

of the situation obtain their representation in consciousness and the

need is transformed into the will to act. This is bound to happen in

those situations where the regular flow of activity on the basis of a

fixed set is interrupted by a change of environment, and the set no

more adequately corresponds to the circumstances. Objectivization

is a genuinely human phenomenon, the genetic origin of human

consciousness.

Second, recurrent activities give rise to specific sets; these accompany all human activity, stablizing it and regulating its course. In

accordance with a three-level hierarchical structure of activities it

makes sense to distinguish between motive sets, goal sets, and

operational sets, each conceived as activity dispositions or schemas

which facilitate the realization of the corresponding components of

activity (Asmolov 1979).

Third, we have to take into account the facts established by Freud

about the capability of the human mind to repress from the sphere

of consciousness painful experiences and its own unresolved contradictions, and to push them into the unconscious niches of the mind,

yet to be unable thereby to get rid of their motivating force. Early

socialization experiences undoubtedly possess a strategic significance in molding the motive structure of an individual; on the other

hand, there seems to be no reason to deny the reality of contradictions which stem from the repressiveness of everyday adult life. The

repressed motives are often seen as stemming directly from the

biological nature of man. Without denying the physiological reality

of our existence, it can be said, though, that our biological constitution normally seems highly capable of accommodating most various social determinations of motives, providing the necessary

material support for their realization in action, but not determining their systemic properties. All in all, unconscious psychic activities would seem to play quite a significant part in human

psychology, either preceding conscious processes, coexisting with

them, or resulting from their repression. And the forms in which

they become revealed in overt activity are truly multifarious.

Intoxication as a Psychological State

Employing the concepts presented above, I shall now propose a

definition of intoxication as a particular psychological state: It is a
32 PARTANEN: COMMENTARY

state in which psychic activities are governed by unconscious sets; a

state resulting from the weakening of objecti vization as a consequence of alcohol's pharmacological actions on the human brain.

This means that those psychological processes and behaviors whose

activation depends on consciously perceived goals assume a subordinated position under intoxication. The behavior of an intoxicated

individual, which is based on unconscious sets, is activated by either

external or internal impulses, producing patterns of impulsive and

habitual behavior.

Let us briefly i eview some of the evidence supporting this definition (for a fuller treatment, cf. MaAttanen and Koski-Jannes 1981).

In the first plac% there is some, albeit still inconclusive, experimental data obtained by the classical technique of Uznadze. In this

experimental setup, an operational set is first fixed when a subject

repeats 10 to 20 times a simple task, say, of weighing two balls of

unequal weight. The existence of the set is then revealed by the

presence of perceptual illusions, when two balls of equal weight are

presented to the subject, until the effect gradually wears off and the

set is extinguished. We have shown that small doses of alcohol

(approximately .05 percent BAC) significantly increase the durability of a fixed set in comparison with the placebo condition for the

same subject, and the results also seem to indicate that the fixation

of a new set becomes more difficult under the influence of alcohol

(Vahvelainen 1979).

Further evidence may be obtained by reconsidering and occasionally rethinking published results on alcohol's psychological

effects. Ever since the early review by Jellinek and McFarland

(1940), there seems to have been a consensus that simple and habit- ual tasks are less affected by alcohol than complex or unfamiliar

ones. Deteriorating effects of alcohol on performance can be partly

compensated for by practice and experience with alcohol use. In the

light of our hypothesis, and habitual tasks are precisely those which

are preformed on the basis of fixed unconscious sets, whereas the

complexity or the unfamiliarity of a task calls for the objectivization of the situation. Especially suggestive are the results about

alcohol's deteriorating effects on performances requiring selective

attention and the strengthening of repetitive and perserverative

tendencies in cognition under its influencl. As to alcohol's effects on

memory, available data seem to indicate that the recognition of

familiar stimuli. associated with the fixed sets of an individual,

does not deteriorate or deteriorates less than recall of memorized

material. Immediate ( iconic) memory appears to be less affected by

alcohol than short-term memory.

4 1/
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 33

The social-psychological experiments, in which the effects of

modeling on drinking behavior have been studied by Marlatt and

other researchers, would seem to present yet another aspect that is

characteristic of behavior controlled by unconscious sets, viz., its

dependence on external impulses. According to a number of studies, an individual using alcohol in social drinking contexts reacts

in a highly sensitive manner to the cues provided by the drinking

company. Modeling influences may both increase and decrease

consumption, although there seems to be an asymmetry in favor of a

consumption increase. Other factors, such as the individual's drinking history and the majority behavior, may modify these

relationships.

All these indications of the weakening of objectivization and the

dominance of unconscious set-controlled processes under the influence of alcohol would obviously call for an examination of the

results of neurophysiological research as well. Unfortunately, we

have not yet been able to carry out this task. In passing, though, it

may be noted that what Professor Woods said about the sensitivity

of the reticular activating system (RAS) to the actions of alcohol fits

nicely with the above psychological considerations, bearing in mind

the role of the RAS in arousal and its connections with the regulative systems in the frontal lobe (cf. Luria 1973, p. 86).

But there are other questions that come to mind: for example,

taking cognizance of the functional lateralization of the human

brain, whether alcohol has differential effects upon the neural

processes carried out by the two hemispheres of the brain.

Finally, it would seem that some of the ambiguities and inconsistencies that are attached to the several well-known theories on

drinking motives might be resolved by assuming that intoxication

makes room for the subjective experience and symbolic projection

of central life motives of people living in a given society. These

motives, ultimately determined by the structural conditions of

social life, find their expression not only in people's material activities but also become constitutive elements of their unconscious

psychic life. Intoxication may be regarded as one possible way to

apprehend these motives in direct subjective experience and project them into symbolic form. There is ample anthropological and

historical data to show that motivational structures vary between

societies and historical epochs. Thus, although Horton's hypothesis

on anxiety reduction by drinking; Barry's, Bacon's, and Child's

views of drinking as a means to alleviate dependency conflicts; the

complacent seeking of sociability by Cambas, which Heath suggested to be the secret of their peculiar drinking customs; or the

personal power motive stressed by McClelland, as well as a host of
34 PARTANEN: COMMENTARY

other postulated motives, point to at least partly divergent motivational bases for drinking, all these explanations can be encompassed by our general hypothesis. The contrasting explanations of

male and female drinking motivations presented, respectively, by

McClelland and Wilsnack, provide a particularly clear-cut case.

For both sexes, intoxication appears to signify a reversion toward

the more traditional, often interiorized in childhood, role stereotypes. This would seem to exclude the possibility of establishing any

substantive general theories about the motives of drinking.

In summary, it is perhaps not too much to state that our hypothesis about the weakening of objectivization and the dominance of

set-controlled psychic activities in the state of alcohol intoxication

possesses some plausibility, and it provides a basis for an integration of findings about alcohol's effects. But on the other hand, the

theoretical implications of the hypothesis certainly require a

further look.

The first implication, to put it somewhat paradoxically, is that

there are no specific motives for seeking intoxication. Although I

shall argue later on that drinking as a human activity is associated

with the most diverse social practices, which thereby leave their

mark on the activity structure of drinking, here it is important to

stress that what people are basically seeking when intoxicating

themselves is what they are seeking in life generally. Intoxication

gives them direct access to the experience, to the illusory realization of their own life motives, without the clumsy interference of

external goal-oriented action. This "transparency of intoxication"

illuminates a certain creative aspect of intoxication, a feeling of

liberation, which is not alien to artistic experience, or which allows

intoxication to serve as the substitute of the latter, as "a poor man's

opera."

Speaking of motives the way I have is of course highly ambiguous, and it is bound to create misunderstandings. The term itself,

unfortunately, is hopelessly laden theoretically, but there seems to

be no feasible alternative to its use. One ambiguity deserving comment is this: Motives possess, as it were, a double character. On the

one hand, they exist socially, being related to the structural determinants of the society's life. In the spirit of Lacan's notions about the

unconscious, we may say that they resemble language, even though

it seems that they can be expressed in words and concepts only with

great trouble, resorting to artistic and philosophical efforts which

try to grasp their semiotic content and value through the symbolic

projections in which the motives reveal themselves. On the other

hand, motives belong to individuals. These, in the course of their

socialization, cannot help appropriating social meanings and

49
1

PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 35

values, furnishing them with a "personal significance," transforming them into the components of their personality and realizing

them in their action.

Now it is a plausible hypothesis that a shift toward the communality of motives occurs under intoxication. The weakening of

ob.:ectivization also means the weakening of an individual's control

over his psychic life. That which is common and stereotypic in a

culture moves to the foreground. One is even tempted tospeculate

about the presence of certain near-universal motives finding their

expression in intoxication. Although societies differ from each

other, certain profound affinities exist among them. Most of mankind has always lived under the vagaries of nature and under

oppressive power relationships. Overcoming scarcity and separation from fellow men, as well asstriving to establish oneself as a free

subject, could be postulated as near-universal motives of human

life, thus giving some credence to universalizing theories about

drinking motives.

From all this two general inferences may be made. Our view on

the nature of intoxication is not alcohol-specific all, and it focuses

solely on human intoxication. Some may object to this. Admittedly,

there are good reasons to bring in aspectsthat specifically relate to

the use of alcohol as a source of intoxication, such as the well-known

biphasic effect of alcohol. On the other hand, I am not worried about

the lack of contact with the so-called animal models. The whole

approach is far too much based on pharmacological determinism,

and the ideology of generalizing from it into human behavior is

dubious. Experimentation with animals, of course, clarifies the role

of various neural mechanisms through which the psychological

state of intoxication becomes realized, but this approach is incapable of grasping the essence of human intoxication.

In order to overcome the tendency to ascribe to a drug effects

which in fact belong to set and setting. or "the fetishism of drugs" as

it has been called, concepts are needed in terms of which drug

affects can be linked to other, related social phenomena. In earlier

following this line of thought I have made efforts to link alcohol

intoxication to the effects of psychoactive drugs in general, to religious experiences, and to the peculiar way in which people enjoy

mass entertainment (Partanen 1973, 1977, 1979). The common core

in all of this is deformation of human activity. The structure of

activity was discussed above in terms of three levels, viz., motives,

acts with their external goals, and operations. The weakening of

objectivization means, generally speaking. that the 'middle' level of

acts, oriented toward external goals, recedes to a secondary position

in the structure of activity. What remains are inner motives, turn50
36 PARTANEN: COMMENTARY

ing into objects of direct experience or contemplation, and operations which, when divorced from connections to acts, turn into

rituals. Those psychological states which are characterized by lessened objectivization and the dommance of unconscious psychic

sets thus consist of contemplation and symbolic projection of inner

motives and of ritual behavior patterns. There are instances in

which the negation of goal-oriented action becomes quite explicit,

such as mystical experiences. Their salient phenomenological features, the achievement of total unity, the disappearance of the

barriers between self and object, intense feeling of comniunitas as

"a seamless, skinless continuity," transcendence of time and space,

coinciclentia oppositorurn and the vanishing of the rules of normal

logic, the ineffability of the mystic vision, the "perceptual innocence" and the "stunning immediacy of sense data," as these features have been summarized by Myerhoff (1975), may all be

conceived of as direct negations of the various aspects of goaloriented action.

Drinking as a Human Activity and a Social

Practice.

Up to now I have been dealing with intoxication as a psychological state. It would seem that this is indeed the focal aspect when we

examine the eifectsof a drug which is ingested primarily because of

its mind-altering properties. But this aspect alone by no means

exhausts our topic. Analyzing intoxication as a psychological state

reveals, it may be hoped, the essence of what lies hidden behind the

diverse phenomena of observable drinking behavior. At the same

time, intoxication is always related to and results from certain

human activities and social practices, which also leave their mark

upon the effects of alcohol. In order to understand these we have to

study drinking as a human activity and social practice.

The first thing to be noted is that drinking and the behavior

associated with it are everywhere under social control, in one form

or another. Exceptions which might come to mind are really only

apparent. Social control is to be understood here in a wide sense,

encompassing far more than official norms and sanctions (cf. Zinberg and Harding 1979). Sheer limitations of availability. technological or economic, may restrict drinking. As Maloff et al. (1979)

have recently shown, various informal controls, such as cultural

recipes, sumptuary rules, sanctions enforcing conventions and

norms of alcohol use. as well as the very shaping of everyday social

relations and the spacing of drinking occasions, exert their influ-
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 37

ence on the individual, often in subtle and unobtrusive ways. Certain controls have been truly interiorized by most people. All these

mechanisms of control are firmly embedded into the substance of

drinking practices. In linguistics a distinction between regulative

and constitutive rules has been made; the latter aro such that

performance outside the rules becomes unintelligible, just as the

game of chess does not exist without its rules. It would seem that

much of the control of drinking is constitutive in this sense.

It can be argued that the ubiquity of drinking controls has deep

functional significance for the life of society. Overindulgence in

drink might endanger the production of the material conditions of

life. As a psychological state intoxication turns away from a practical relationship with the world. Drinking thus necessarily remains

a marginal activity in the life of the individual and society, having

social control as its necessary counterpart. Drinking marks "time

out" periods and breaks in activity, as Mac Andrew and Edgerton

have 'stressed in their well-known book (1969); it becomes anchored

to leisure and passage rites. It can assume a major role only in the

lives of marginal individuals, or in marginal societies which have

lost their mainstays for a full existence.

Referring again to the three levels of human activity, it can be

said that the essential tension between intoxication and its social

control is managed at the level of acts and goals, by the shaping of

drinking practices. The motivational base of intoxication is generated, as we have claimed, by the main motives in individual and

soriti..! life, but these materialize into action in the most diverse

ways. Drinking becomes attached to social relationships, it

acquires various social meanings and use values, and it is operationalized by rituals. Briefly, drinking is a part of a way of life. As such,

it is interiorized by individuals through their social learning.

The divergence of different levels accounts for certain persisting

difficulties that have been met when analyzing drinking behavior.

It seems to be accepted wisdom that the effects of alcohol are

unpredictable and highly variable. Expectancies may explain

them equally or even better than the amount of alcohol actually

ingested, since they are equally capable of yielding access to the

direct experience of motives. The so-called pseudointoxication,

observed by many anthropologists, is an eloquent testimony to this,

and conversely, interiorized normative controls may spoil all the

delights of drinking, as it has been noted in a number of experimental situations (cf. Lindman 1980, p. 89). The relationships between

motives and conscious goals remain vague, giving no firm foothold

for a theoretically consistent analysis of survey data. The explanar-J,
38 PARTANEN: COMMENTARY

tions people are able to furnish for the reasons for their drinking are

usually vapid and somehow unconvincing.

Facing these difficulties, social alcohol research, it seems, has

stopped short in its theoretical analysis of drinking, producing

endless descriptive accounts and piles of sociological data,

resorting to the tenets of theoretically vacuous cultural relativism.

This is not an adequate response to pharmacological determinism.

Mere reference to variable cultural patterns does not explain

certain general aspects of drinking practices.

Consider, in particular, the inherent normativity of drinking.

This does not refer only to social control of drinking and its consequence, which we just discussed. Norms and sanctions seem to work

in favor of intoxication, too, keeping up the rhythm of drinking by

reciprocity, excluding outsiders, requiring that behavior transgress its normal limits, often lending group drinking a quality of

compulsiveness. The ritualism of intoxication and the sensitivity of

intoxicated behavior to interpersonal cues, as noted above, serve as

partial explanations. But it would seem that, in addition, out of the

tension between intoxication and its social control emerge "mechanisms of defense" which protect the experience of intoxication. This

resembles the way in which, within the sphere of religion, sacred

things are separated from the profane world. Drinking deals, after

all, with humanly important things, its incapability of changing the

world notwithstanding.

Nowhere is the tension between intoxication and control more

evident than in addiction. I shall here only touch upon the concept of

addiction, leaving its applicability to real world open. On this ideal

plane, addiction can be defined as an individual effort to overcome

control of drinking by drinking. This leads to a process in which the

whole motivational structure of the addict gradually changes (cf.

Bratus' 1964). The concept of addiction reelects, as Levine has

shown (1979), the new historical dimensions of interiorized social

control and individual freedom emerging in the era of industrial

capitalism.

The most fundamental aspect of drinking has not yet been mentioned. that is. its inherent sociality. It is certainly striking that, as

Marshall puts it. "solitary. addictive, pathological drinking behavior does not occur to any significant extent in small-scale. traditional. pre-industrial societies" (Marshall 1979. p. 450. Even in our

present-day world. where people are supposedly imprisoned within

their seuarate. atomized private lives, they very seldom drink

alone. most preferring the company of relatives and friends. This is

shown by survey results from several countries. At the institutional

53
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 39

level, the sociality of drinking is revealed by the ubiquity of drinking institutions and their role as centers of community life..

The inherent sociality of drinking can be elucidated in terms of

its various aspects which have been delineated above. We have

referred to the existence of the social control of intoxication, carried

out through rituals and enhanced by the sensitivity of intoxicated

behavior to interpersonal influences. We have also suggested that a

shift toward more communal motives takes place in intoxication.

But perhaps this is not yet all. Group behavior is a very basic aspect

of man's existence, and there is definitely something forced in the

efforts to explain collective action and group behavior solely in

terms of individual motives or utilities. In philosophical anthropology there is a recognition of a diffuse, primordial sociability of man,

variously referred to as a capability of empathy to other person's

feelings and intentions, and of adopting the other person's perspective. This kind of shared unconscious set would appear to be a basic

prerequisite for human cooperation and communication. Consequently, it would also bring its motivational force into the experience of intoxication.

The Link Between Alcohol and Disinhibition

Relying on the foregoing considerations, I will now sketch some

answers to the question about the possible link between alcohol and

disinhibition. Is there something in the effects of alcohol which is

bound to lead to behavior not governed by its normal restraints? In

our world, this is usually taken to mean behavior giving expression

to aggression and sexual impulses. Since the foregoing analysis

primarily dealt with the conceptual elucidation of intoxication and

drinking, the answers here can only point to logical possibilities.

It would seem, in fact, that the effects of alcohol do in fact imply

the possibility of disinhibited behavior, even though this would by

no means be a universal feature of drunken comportment. There

are four remarks to be made:

1. The sociality of drinking, its character as a group activity,

tends to bring people together. This adds to the risk of confrontations between individuals. Accepted wisdom in police work suggests that judicious patrolling of public places may have an effect

on the prevalence of crime (Makela, oral communication).

2. The sensitivity of intoxicated behavior to situational cues and

the yielding of the conscious control of behavior to the regulation by

unconscious psychic sets carries the risk of less predictable relationships with the environment. Cues may be misinterpreted.

intentions misunderstood, and this, through an escalative process,

may lead to violent behavior (cf. Pernanen 1976, p. 416).
40 PARTANEN: COMMENTARY

3. The weakening of the conscious control of behavior suggests

that interiorized normative controls of drinking behaviors may

give way to the pressures of group drinking. Coming from a historically transitional country where there still exist inner-directed

personalities alongside the newer tendencies toward narcissist,

anchorless personality development, I do feel that this is not an

empty possibility. Accepted wisdom in alcohol studies seems to

indicate that internal controls for drinking behavior are never

quite as solid as external controls, deriving their compulsion from

everyday social relationships.

4. The most decisive determinants of intoxicated behavior, however, would appear to be related to the motivational base of intoxication. Access to the direct experience of central life motives is, in

my view, the essence of intoxication as a psychological state. The

personal significance of intoxication depends on what these motives

are. In our world, unfortunately, these motives are shaped by insecurity and competition between individuals. There are ample

grounds for pent-up frustrations, for needs of personal power, as

well as for the search of intimacy. These socially determined

motives cannot but leave their mark on drinking behavior.

References

Asmolov, A.G., Deyatel'nost' i ustanorka (Activity and Set). Moskva, 1979.

Bratus', B.S. Psikhologitsheskyi analiz izmenenii litshnost' pri alkogolizme

(Psychological Analysis of Personality Changes in Alcoholism). Moskva, 1964.

Bunzel, R. The role of alcoholism in two Central American cultures. Psychiatry, 3:

361-387. 1940.

Everett, M.W.: Waddell, J.0.; and Heath, D.B., eds. Cross-Cultural Approaches to

the Study of Alcohol. The HagueParis: Mouton Publishers. 1976.

Jellinek, E.M., and McFarland, R.A.. Analysis of psychological experiments on the

effects of alcohol. Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1: 272-371, 1940.

Lavine. H.G. The discovery of addiction: Changing conceptions of habitual

drunkenness in America. Journal of Studies m: Alcohol 39: 143-174, 1978.

Leontyev, A. N. Probleme der Ent wicklung des Nychischen. Berl:n; Volk und Wissen,

1973.

Leontyev, A.N. Deynternosr. Soznanie. Litshnost' (Activity. Consciousness. Personality). Moskva. 1975.

Lindman. R, Anxiety and Alcohol. Limitations of Tension Reduction Theory in

N'onalcoholics. Reports from the Department of Psychology at Abu Akademi.

Monograph Supplement 1. Abo, 1980.

Luria, A.R. The Working Brain. Harmondswort: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973.

MUiittanen. K.. and Kcski-Jannes, A. The Theory of Set and the Psychological

Effects of Alcohol. Reports from the Social Research Institute of Alcohol Studies.

No. 144. Helsinki. 1981.

MacAndrew. C.. and Edgerton, R.B. Drunken Cons port will; .4 Social Explanation.

Chicago: Aldine. 1969.

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Maloff, D.; Becker, H.S.; Fonaroff, A.; and Rodin, J. Informal social controls and

their influence on substance use. Journal of Drug Issues, 2: 161-184, 1979.

Marshall, M. Beliefs, Behaviors, and Alcoholic Beverages, A Cross-Cultural Survey.

Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, 1979.

Myerhoff, B. Peyote and Huichol worldview: The structure of a mystic vision, In:

Rubin, V., ed. Cannabis and Culture. The Hague--Paris: Mouton Publishers,

1975.

Partanen, J. "Intoxication: A Dialectical Approach." Paper presented at the

Symposium on Directions for Drug Control, Helsinki, 1973.

Partanen, J. "Notes on the Theory of Psychoactive Drugs." Paper presented at the

7th International Institute on the Prevention and Treatment of Drug

Dependence, Lisbon, 1977.

Partanen, J. "On Recreation." Paper presented at the Finnish-Soviet Symposium on

"The Revolution in Science and Technology and Some Problems of Development

of Society and Collectives," Moscow, 1979.

Pernanen, K. Alcohol and crimes of violence. In; Kissin, B., and Begleiter, H., eds.

Social Aspects of Alcoholism. New York: Plenum, 1976.

Uznadze, D.N. The Psychology of Set. New York: Consultants Bureau, 1966.

Vahvelainen, M. "Pienen alkohol imaaran vaikutus kiinnittyneen virityksen

muodostumiseen ja sammumiseen" ("Effect of a Small Amount of Alcohol on the

Formation and Extinction of the Fixed Set"), Unpublished thesis, Department of

Psychology, University of Helsinki, 1979.

Zinberg, N.E., and Harding, W.M. Control and intoxicant use: A theoretical and

practical overview. Journal of Drug Issues, 2: 121-144, 1979.

5
Discussion

ROOM: The floor's open for discussion.

CINDY EHLERS: I wanted to congratulate the speakers on

their clear talks, particularly Steve Woods on making a large topic

very concise, and I wanted to muddy the waters just a little bit for

discussion purposes.

One of the things you mentioned was that everywhere we look in

the different levels of organization of the nervous system, you can

see alcohol causing disruption in nervous processes. And coming

from a neurobiology center, I want to say, for the people who aren't

working in neural sciences, that it's really not as easy to look at the

effects of alcohol or the different levels of the nervous system as it is

to look at drugs that have very specific effects, such as phenobarbital or barbiturates or anesthetics. For instance, you give people

phenobarbital and people go to sleep. With alcohol, you see a much

wider spectrum of physiological and behavioral activities in

response to the drug, which obviously this conference is interested

in looking at, particularly as it relates to disinhibition.

In fact, one of the actions of alcohol on the central nervous system

may be to increase the variance instead of the mean. Also, the

differences in doses administered to animals may predict very

different effects. So, I just wanted to say that on the neurophysiological level, you have the same kind of difficulty in measuring consistent effects as you do on the behavioral level. And in that sense, I

think there is a commonality between what we see on the level of

brain function and what we see in terms of behavior.

WOODS: I agree wholeheartedly with what you say. I think it

would be a mistake to think that somehow studying things neurophysiologically would lead to cleaner results or a better understanding. The same problems exist there, but at different levels.

CHARLES WINICK: I don't know that it is really true that

alcohol has a much less predictable range of effects than other

substances. If you take an analogous situation the opiates, which

have probably been studied more extensively than other moodmodifying substances . in fact, there's an enormous range of

effects; there's a great difficulty in predictability; there's an enormous impact of social setting; degree of use; length of use; age and so

42

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PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 43

forth. You might have two surgeons, both of whom took opiates

regularly, one of whom is able to do three or four operations a day

with no effect on his ability to perform, another of whom would

collapse after taking the same amount of opiates. So it may be

misleading to assume that alcohol necessarily has a much lesser

degree of predictability than other related substances.

ALAN MARLATT: Just a question about the biphasic

response itself. Do you have any ideas about the physiological

underpinnings of the possible compensatory responses like Siegel

(1981) has outlined for opiates for some other mechanisms?

WOODS: I don't. It seems there are a lot of theories in the

literature as to what might account for the biphasic activities of

alcohol. It may be that certain species of neurons become affected

first, and that these neurons are those which tend to be suppressing

behavior or certain forms of behavior.

I think it's universally accepted that even small amounts of alcohol cause the release of arousal hormones. And studies that have

nothing to do with alcohol show that if you cause an elevation of

arousal hormones experimentally, you're going to get arousal in the

animal, and it may be some kind of an artifact where you've got a

period where arousal hormones are high but the brain has not yet

become depressed.

RON ROIZEN: I wanted to.ask Steve Woods if it's the case that

the pharmacologists think alcohol causes disinhibition, or do we

just think the pharmacologists think alcohol causes disinhibition?

WOODS: Not being a pharmacologist, I can't answer specifically. I read a lot of papers in reviewing for this talk, and I don't

think I've read any author or interpreted any author to believe that

alcohol causes disinhibition. I think that the closest some of them

would come would be to say that it's a vehicle which lends itself to

the expression of certain kinds of behavior. I really don't think

anybody believes that alcohol causes the behavior in that sense or

elicits the behavior.

ALAN LANG: I think many people believe that, but most

aren't pharmacologists. They are people who use that explanation

because it makes sense to them, not because it's based on any

knowledge of the underlying processes.

HERBERT FINGARETTE: I've been thinking about your

very tentative suggestions to the effect that there is some evidence

that alcohol tends to reduce the strength of the avoidance pattern, at

least in animals, and there are some remarks in your paper, too,

that finally suggest, very tentatively and speculatively, that maybe

this somehow bears on the disinhibition idea that maybe our avoidance of bad things, or somehow our capacity to do so or our will to do

so. is weakened as a result.
44 DISCUSSION

But, I wonder, would you agree that this is one of those cases

where as soon as you take into account the different levels that we're

talking about, these suggestions lose most of their former plausibility. What I'm thinking of specifically is that an animal's learned

avoidance of a particular action pattern is so enormously different

from my avoidance of doing something. My avoidance has grown

out of who knows how many innumerable learnings of avoidance, of

attraction, of cognitively mediated situations of learning; so that

when we use the word "avoidance" on the human level we're talking

in moral terms about the moral scheme: the will or the conscience.

It is so distant and so complicatedly connected to avoidance in the

neurophysiological sense or even the learned conditioned sense,

that perhaps even as speculation it loses its plausibility.

WOODS: I think that you've brought up a point which is central to much of experimental psychology. I think that anybody who

studies learning, for example, at any level, and wants to model it

with animals, immediately comes into this problem of simplicity in

the animal situation versus complexity in the human situation. And

there's no easy answer to it.

You're absolutely right. The problem of translation from one

level to the other is obvious. I think that all that one can do is either

to assume that one is simply a subset of the other; that the simple

animal learning situation somehow is analogous but at a much

smaller level or a much different level from complex human learning; or perhaps, we could experiment with humans, teaching them

simple responses in the laboratory, looking atthe effect of alcohol on

these, seeing if you get comparable results perhaps trying to

build a continuum in that way. But, you're right that this is a major

problem in trying to step from animal research to human behavior.

FINGARETTE: In a way, what I'm suggesting is that it's not

only a matter of complication; the word may be the same word, but

it may have quite a different meaning.

WOODS: I agree.

HARRY LEVINE: I think one of the great unsung heroes of

alcohol research was a graduate student named Eugene Stainbrook, who came to the Social Research Group a few years ago,

Years before, he had begun what he thought would be an easy

doctoral dissertation, replicating an experiment about the effects of

alcohol on rats, to have them be disinhibited. Gene worked for two

years trying to get his rats to be d isinhibited, but no matter what he

did, he could never get the rats to be disinhibited. He kept going

back and trying until he finally decided that he was just a failure

and gave up on it and went on to do someother things. I always tried
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 45

to get him to write it up, but I don't think he ever did. There are

probably dozens of experiments like that. I wanted to ask about the

current state of the rat and animal-model literature on disinhibition. Is there substantial literature, in fact, on it?

WOODS: I think it isn't substantial. The co-author of my paper,

Dr. Guy Mansfield, is one of the contributors to that literature, who

has done work on disinhibition and alcohol research. Maybe he'd

like to comment.

GUY MANSFIELD: The literature that I'm most familiar

with is concerned with the effect of alcohol on conflict behavior. A

number of years ago there was a great deal of interest in the what's

been called the "tension reduction model" of the effects of alcohol:

How alcohol reduces one's fears or tensions or anxieties which in

many ways comes very close to the idea of disinhibition we've been

talking about.

In a review of many studies of that area, Cappell and Herman

(1972) concluded that there was in fact relatively little support for a

tension reduction model of the effects of alcohol except in a limited

area, and that was in conflict studies and in those types of paradigms which, I think, Steve Woods already described: You have an

animal such as a rat who has been trained, for example, both to

avoid and to approach a goal area. We get a general impression

from looking at conflict studies that, in fact, alcohol does result in a

tendency for animals to perform responses which, under what's

called "controlled conditions," they would not do. The animals

would approach more closely to a feared area. These conflict studies

are not without their problems, but the general impression I get is

that they do in fact support what might loosely be described as a

"disinhibitory effect" of the drug. That's the area that I'm familiar

with.

I wanted to make a further comment on the difficulty in translating between animal work in the laboratory and human studies. I

think an exact parallel can be made between our interest in human

behavior in the external environment and our studies of human

behavior in the lab. To call one behavior aggression in the laboratory environment and one behavior aggression in talking about

human behavior in the outside environment, we have just as many

conceptual problems as in bridging the gap between animal and

human behavior.

CRAIG MACANDREW: I believe that to say that the problem

of generalizing from a rat to the human is roughly equivalent to

that of generalizing from the human in the laboratory to the human

in the world misses Fingarette's point, which is that what is at issue

in the animal-to-human generalization is a qualitative difference

rather than a quantitative one.
46 DISCUSSION

MAC MARSHALL: I'd like to come back to the subordinate

mouse that you talked about. I wanted to find out whether I was

correct in my understanding that the subordinate mouse, on becoming drunk, was more likely to be bitten by the dominant mouse,

regardless of the inebriated state or lack thereof in the dominant

mouse? If so, doesn't that just tell us something about dominance

hierarchies rather than disinhibition or anything like that? Unless,

of course, the drunk subordinate was baiting the dominant mouse

or something.

WOODS: You did understand it correctly, and it may be that

this is more a statement of dominant/subordinate hierarchies. But I

believe that in Kai Pernanen's review (1976) a few years ago, he

pointed out that in instances of violence and disinhibition among

humans outside the lab there's a high probability that both individuals had been consuming alcohol. There may be a link.

MARSHALL: But, the point that's basic here is that the

aggression is coming from the potentially non-drunk mouse in this

instance.

WOODS: Not the aggression, necessarily. There's some difference between a mouse which has had alcohol and a mouse which

hasn't which makes it more likely that another mouse will attack it.

LANG: Well, it doesn't seem too remarkable. I mean, drunks

get rolled more frequently than

MARSHALL: Good point.

EHLERS: There's also evidence from use of other drugs. Particularly, Sassenrath (Chapman et al. 1979) has a study on the

effects of THC or marijuana in monkey social groups, where animals that were given the THC rose in the social dominance hierarchy and appeared to show more aggression. In fact when it was

analyzed. they were putting out inappropriate social cues which

were looked at by the other monkeys as representing aggression. So

maybe the drunk mouse shows an inappropriate social cue and thus

allows the other to attack it.

WOODS: I think that's a better explanation.

DENNIS LUM: There is another theoretical or conceptual

problem raised both by the commentary and by the paper, and that

is the extent to which both of you feel that the studies on disinhibition really enhance our perception of the validity of the Freudian

theoretical model. Have we now turned full circle and come back to

the id? That is to say, we're not going to study adaptation any more;

we're going to study the id? Just take a drink and lo and behold the

gorilla appears?

ROOM: Juha. do you want to tackle that?

61
PHYSIOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL LINKS 47

PARTANEN: Well, one thing to be said is that, at least in my

view, the unconscious is a wider concept than what Freud had in

mind. This is really essential. And, of course, this whole disinhibition/alcohol link approach would require ideological analysis.

There are very strong ideological underpinnings.

KAI PERNANEN: I was also intrigued by the possibility that

intoxication somehow induces the projection, I think Freud would

call it, of the unconscious or subconscious motives life motives, I

think he calls them. I think this ties in with the disinhibition concept as it is used in psychoanalysis. I wonder, are there any studies,

empirical studies, which would be relevant to this concept? It seems

like a researchable question.

PARTANEN: It is possible to study experimentally very simple forms of unconscious psychic activity, but there seems to be no

way to get into the real motivations of the people. That's always a

problem in laboratory, too. There's no guarantee that people are

really possessed by those motives that the experimenter assumes

his subjects have.

6
Drinking and Disinhibition: Contributions From Psychological

Research*

Alan R. Lang

Introduction

There can be little doubt that acute alcohol consumption by

humans often is accompanied by behavioral changes in the consumers. This is a matter of simple observation. Research directed at a

descriptive and explanatory analysis of the association, however, is quite another matter. Here one must struggle with issues of reliability, prediction, causation, generality, etc. Suddenly, the problem

becomes enormously complex, and nowhere is this complexitymore

apparent than in the specific connection between drinking and

disinhibition. "Drinking," as used here, refersto the act of consuming beverages believed by the consumer and those around him to

contain alcohol. This distinction between drinking and the actual

imbibing of alcohol is made to highlight the importance of beliefs,

as opposed to pharmacologic action, in determining the effects of

drinking on behavior in general, and on disinhibition in particular.

The reader also should be apprised that in the context of this paper

the word "disinhibition" is used only in the descriptive sense, i.e., in

reference to individuals' exhibition of behaviors which are at variance with the norms and values ordinarily governing their actions.

This restriction is employed to avoid ambiguities inevitably asso- ciated with the term's multiple meanings.

Considering that alcohol is unquestionably a powerful drug, one

approach to uncovering its relation to behavior is through exploration of its physiological effects. This, of course, is the tradition of

biomedical s "ience, whose contributions seem essential to a complete understanding of the problem. However, excessive reliance on

'The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Paul Barnes in assembling

and critically evaluating Materials for this presentation.

48

63 i
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 49

this model can impede our understanding of drinking-related

phenomena by fostering a neglect of other important variables. It

can be argued, e.g., that behavior is the primary concern in the

drinking-behavior nexus, not only because we are most interested

in behavioral consequences of drinking, but also because drinking

itself is a behavior. This suggests that constructive alternatives to

the biological model should be sought in the psychological and

social sciences. A perusal of the alcohol literature of the past several

decades makes it evident that such approaches have indeed come of

age. Historically, psychologists have stressed characteristics of the

person as determinants of behavior, whereas the social science

emphasis has been on group influence. Social psychology has

accommodated both by studying interactions. Certainly, these features of the drinking-behavior relation are on a par with those of

physiology. The time appears right for a profitable wedding of the

bio-psycho-social models into a multidisciplinary approach to

human problems. This has increasingly become the case in modern

medicine (cf. Engel 1977), and the present conference is an indication that the trend is spreading.

While acknowledging that a comprehensive theory of drinking

and disinhibition requires consideration of agent (alcohol), host

(man), and environment (social-situational context), few individuals or disciplines can claim expertise in all these areas. Most must

be content to supply some pieces of the puzzle. The object of this

paper is to outline some contributions from psychology. Partly

because psychology is a discipline heavily invested in controlled

experimentation, one of the things it has to offer is methodology for

the precise specification of drinking as the independent variable in

drinking-disinhibition research. Thus, ways of determining

whether alcohol per se is causally related to the behavior of

drinkers are discussed. The major thrust is a review of studies

employing a "balanced-placebo" design (Marlatt and Rohsenow

1980) to permit both separate and interactive examination of psychological and pharmacological effects of drinking on behavior.

While the emphasis is on disinhibited expression of aggressive,

sexual, and other behavior with direct and important social implications, ar accounting of the effects of drinking on other behaviors

is given when it may be of some explanatory value. Another area in

which psychology can make a major contribution is in determining

how certain nonpathological individual differences might influence both beliefs aboq drinking and its actual effects. In this arena

such variables as gender and drinking experience figure most

prominently. Finally, an effort at integrating the findings of psy6
50 LANG

chological research into the broad theories of drinking and disinhibition is made.

Before proceeding, it is perhaps appropriate to issue some

caveats about possible weaknessess of the psychological approach.

First, and probably foremost, one should be reminded that experiments are inevitably artificial by virtue of their control of many

factors which are free to vary in the natural environment. This may

limit generalizability and lead to faulty conclusions if one excludes

variables which are conditional to or interactive with drinking in

determining behavior. Of particular interest in this regard are

many aspects of the situation which are seldom systematically

varied in experiments, but are often called upon to explain null or

counterintuitive results. Of course, the experiment itself also constitutes a powerful situation whose influences are difficult to deter- mine. Finally, the relevance and generalizability of

operationalizations of dependent variables in experiments are

often suspect. It is unclear, e.g., how willingness to deliver more

intense electric shocks or to view certain photographic slides longer

relate to the aggression or sexual interest they are intended to

measure. At best they represent only indicators of the construct

under investigation, and should be weighted as such. Desp :te these

limitations, however, it appears that experimental social and clinical psychology have a contribution to make. Let us examine it.

Drinking: The Independent Variable

At first glance, manipulation of the drinking variable in

drinking-behavior experiments seems straightforward: One just

administers the alcohol and observes the behavior of interest. However, closer analysis reveals that it is not such a simple matter. At

least two sets of factors must be carefully attended to if relatively

unambiguous conclusions are to be drawn. These are the exact

nature (including quantitative and qualitative aspects) of alcohol

administration, and the subjects' beliefs or expectancies about the

nature of what they are receiving. These issues are discussed

briefly below. For a more comprehensive coverage of methodological considerations, see Rohsenow and Marlatt (in press).

Alcohol Administration

A number of factors related to alcohol administration have been

shown to mediate its effect on human behavior. Probably the most

crucial of these is blood alcohol lerel (BA L), an index of the number

of grams of absolute alcohol in each 100 ml of whole blood,

65
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 51

expressed as a percentage. Different doses of alcohol, of course,

result in different BALs which, in turn, are considered responsible

for the physiological and simple behavioral effects (and perhaps

consequently some of the prvchological and social effects) of the

drug. Besides the dosage factor, BAL also varies as a function of the

body weight and percent body fat in a subject, the presence or

absence of impediments to alcohol absorption (e.g., food in the

stomach), the individual's metabolism rate, etc. These variables

must be considered in studies of alcohol's effect, particularly if they

are likely to vary systematically across subjects. Obviously, a direct

assessment of BAL is essential for adequate control.

Assuming that one can arrive at a specific BAL in the experimental subjects, the question then becomes at what level will the effects

on behavior be tested. It often is assumed that BAL is linearly

related to physiological and behavioral responses to alcohol. However, there is considerable evidence (see Mello [1968] for a review)

that the pharmacological action of alcohol is biphasic. Specifically,

it acts as a stimulant at low BALs (up to about 0.04 percent, or about

two drinks in an hour for an average-sized person), with its depressant effects evident only at higher concentrations. This means that

one must be concerned with the "phase" a given BAL is likely to

place a subject in, since physiologic arousal may have different

implications for the behavior under study than would depression of

nervous system activity. One also must attend to the practical

significance of the alcohol level studied. If, for example, one is

exploring the effects of a 0.02 percent BAL on aggression when

crime statistics show a 0.15 percent BAL or above is common in

most crimes of violence, then extrapolation of the results could be

compromised. Moreover, extremely high BALs would be expected

to produce a decrease in all behavior, disinhibited or otherwise,

because of a simple lack of physical capacity. The point is that BALs

should be carefully selected for their relevance and measured

directly to ensure proper control. Ideally, the effects of several

BALs would be tested in the same experiment.

While specific BAL is always critical to the study of drinkingbehavior effects, it is also important how that level was reached and

how long it has been maintained. Rapid ascent to a particular BAL

has been shown to result in greater behavioral impairment than

slower rises to the same level (Jones and Vega 1973). In a similar

vein, Jones and Vega (1972) have demonstrated that cognitive performance suffers more on the ascending than on the descending

limb of the BAL curve, even at exactly the same concentrations.

Factors of time also are important modifiers of BAL effects on

behavior. Jones (1974) showed that the same BAL resulted in

6u-
52 LA NG

greater impairment in subjects tested early in the day, compared to

those studied at night. Furthermore, prolonged maintenance of

certain BALs could be responsible for many of the behavioral

effects of alcohol in the natural environment, though this factor is

seldom studied in the laboratory. One exception is the "experimental drinking study" (see Mello [1972] for a review) in which alcoholics' behavior while intoxicated is observed over a period of days or

even weeks. Several such studies suggest that adverse effects of

alcohol on affective states, e.g., do not begin immediately upon

drinking, but instead may take a considerable time to develop. The

implication is that the duration of intoxication experienced by

nonalcoholic experimental subjects (or at least how long they are in

the lab) prior to testing the behavior of interest could be extended.

A final methodological point pertinent to actual alcohol administration is the type of preparation used. Obviously, if one is concerned exclusively with the specific effect of alcohol, then pure

ethanol should be given. More often, however, investigators have

attempted to establish a general effect of common alcoholic beverages on behavior. Consequently, there is a problem of selecting the

beverage for use. Beer, wine, and distilled spirits differ not only in

alcoholic content, but also in their congener content (presence of

substances or "impurities" other than alcohol). Even among subtypes of the general categories of beverage (e.g., vodka vs. bourbon),

congener levels differ. This introduces the possibility that studies of

the behavioral effects of one type of beverage might reveal effects

due to congeners rather than, or in addition to, those of alcohol.

Some research which has systematically varied congener content

(e.g., work by Teger and Associates [1969] on risk-taking; or by

Taylor and Gammon [1975] on aggression) suggests just that. In

addition, however, it should be noted that a systematic difference in

user preferences for the beverages or in the sociocultural meanings

users associate with the beverages could also account for the effects

which the investigators chose to assign to congener content. In any

event, the importance of beverage selection and the limits it may

place on generalization should not be ignored.

Expectancy

While the "active" ingredients in alcohol wimin l6t-ations

undoubtedly have effects on human behavior, it is clear that their

role is not so all-important as once was thought. 7,- deed , reviews of

the contemporary literature on alcohol and h !An behavior (e.g.,

Mello and Mendelson 1978) are illustrative f '.re growing awareness that a multiplicity of variables might in _once how drinking
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 53

affects the way people act. Besides situational factors, perhaps the

single most important determinant of the behavioral consequences

of drinking is what subjects believe or expect its effects to be. These

often are referred to as expectancies and are considered to be

responsible for "self-fulfilling prophesies" and other nonpharmacological effects observed in studies of psychoactive substances.

Alcohol and other drug researchers have long been cognizant of

the potential power of people's beliefs to confound pharmacological

evaluations, and consequently they have taken steps to control for

expectancy effects. One such method is the "single-blind" procedure in which some subjects are given a placebo (an inert or inactive

substance) while others receive the active substance whose effects

are actually under investigation. The expectations of subjects in

both conditions are held constant by providing them with the same

information about what they have taken. Most often the information given has been that all received the active substance, although

some researchers (e.g., Carpenter 1968) have suggested that the

alternative instruction that all substances are inert might be better. He argued for this "anti-placebo" set to ensure that drug effects

could be observed independent of the belief that drugs were being

taken. Instructions also could be given that one might receive either

a placebo or an active substance. This last method has ethical

advantages (it reflects reality), but may lead subjects to engage in a

guessing game which in itself could confound results. In any case,

the single-blind method represents an advance over the simple

observation of changes in people given a particular drug.

More sophisticated researchers have refined the single-blind

procedure by incorporating it into a "double-blind." This method

keeps both the subjects and the experimenters unaware of the

actual treatment being applied to each individual until all the data

are in. The object is to prevent experimenters from exerting any

intended or unintended influence which might bias the study's outcome (cf. Rosenthal 1969). The ultimate result of the wellimplemented blind procedure is as follows: It permits the

researcher to attribute any difference in the behavior of active

condition and placebo condition subjects to the effects of the substance, at least as these effects combined with whatever uniform

instructional set was applied. The problems are obvious. Substance

effects have not been isolated from expectancies, but only asso- ciated with a particular one. Moreover, the possibility that expectations alone might exert a powerful influence on behavior has been

left unexplored. What is needed for a complete analysis is a design which orthogonally manipulates both actual substances and expectancies in the same experiment. Fortunately, a "balanced placebo" design has been developed which can do just that.

6
54 LANG

Original credit for the balanced placebo design, although they

did not label it as such, probably belongs to Ross and his colleagues

(Ross et al. 1962), who applied the method in drug research. They

realized that a clear separation of expectancy or psychological

effects from substance or pharmacological effects requires the

independent manipulation of instructions given to subjects (expect

either active substance or placebo) and the actual substance administered (receive either active substance or placebo). The result was a

2 x 2 factorial design in which the four possible combinations of

expectation and substance were represented: expect drug/receive

drug (active condition), expect drug/receive no drug (placebo),

expect no drug/receive no drug (control), and expect no drug/receive drug (anti-placebo). A problem encountered when one tries to

apply this method to alcohol and behavior research is in finding a

way to maintain the face validity of the drinking while adequately

disguising the taste of alcohol so that the critical "expect no alcohol-

/receive alcohol" condition does not fail. Through extensive pilot

testing, Marlatt and Associates (1973) discovered that subjects

Figure 1. The Balanced Placebo Design

0

.r:0

ACTUAL BEVERAGE CONTENT

Alcohol No Alcohol

ACTIVE

(Vodka and Tonic)

PLACEBO

(Tonic only)

ANTIPLACEBO

(Vodka and Tonic)

CONTROL

(Tonic only)

a Mix al part vodka to 5 parts tonic water

69
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 55

tasting a one-to-five mix of vodka and tonic could not distinguish it

from tonic alone at a better than chance rate. The substance seemed

ideal for balanced placebo studies of how drinking influences

behavior. In fact, although "near beer" and beer and some other

combinations of placebo and active substances have been used, the

tonic and vodka-tonic drinks are still employed in most studies.

(See figure 1)

Marlatt et al. (1973) initially applied a variate of the balanced

placebo design to investigate "loss of control" drinking in alcoholics.

They presented subjects with a bogus taste-rating task and then

instructed them that the beverages they sampled were either vodka

and tonic or tonic only. Actual beverage contents were systematically varied to be either congruent or discrepant with the instructional set. The dramatic finding was the alcoholics drank far more

when they thought their beverage contained alcohol, regardless of

its actual contents. This seriously challenged disease model conceptualizations of alcoholism which hold that alcoholics' difficulties in

controlling their drinking stem from a physiologically mediated

loss of control "triggered" by the introduction of alcohol into the

body. Clearly, the study's results were at variance with such an

interpretation because it was subjects' expectancies that seemed to

be the crucial determinant of their drinking. Realizing the implications of this expectancy effect, it was not long before investigators

began to apply the balanced placebo design as an independent

variable to see whether claims of alcohol's physiologic effects on the

disinhibited behaviors of nonalcoholic drinkers might also have

been in error, or at least exaggerated. Before turning to a review of

the critical studies in this area, it might be instructive to describe

exactly how the balanced placebo design is applied to alcoholbehavior research.

Introduction and informed consent. Having been previously

instructed to abstain from food or drugs for at least 4 hours before

reporting to the lab, subjects are given a detailed consent form upon

their arrival. It outlines the experimental procedures and indicates

that, by signing, they are volunteering for a study of the effects of

drinking on behavior. The form 3tates that as part of their participation subjects will be consuming some beverages which may contain alcohol. Exclusionary criteria such as medical problems,

drinking-related problems (e.g., DWI arrests), and minimal drinking experience are part of the consent form. Identifications are

checked to ensure that subjects are of legal drinking age. The

expectancy of eac ubject at this point is that he or she may receive

an alcoholic beverage.

Expectancy and alcohol man i ',illation. An assistant responsible

7 0
56 tcc;

for the drinking phase of the experiment is then introduced. This

individual emphasizes the importance of keeping the experimenter

"blind" as to whether or not the particular subject receives alcoholic

drinks (to prevent experimenter's biasing or influencing the subject based on this knowledge). The assistant further explains that to

maintain strict experimental control, condition assignments (alcoholic or nonalcoholic drinks) are made on a random basis. To create

the illusion of a chance assignment, the assistant introduces a

"rigged" binary outcome choice procedure (e.g., a coin toss).

Although it is alleged that the outcome of this procedure determines the treatment applied, actually these decisions all have been

made in advance according to standard randomization methods. In

any case, the subject now has a specific expectancy about the type of

beverage he or she will receive.

After an initial BAL test (to be sure that all subjects begin with a

zero rek.,.ding), actual beverage preparation and administration

take place. A typical ,:ocedure using tonic and vodka-tonic drinks

might be carried out as follows. The assistant consults a previously

prepared and pretested dosage chart to determine what volume of

1:5 mix of vodka and tonic would be required for a person of the

subject's weight to reach the desired BAL in about 1 hour. Then, the

assistant takes a tray containing commercial vodka bottles, tonic

bottles, graduated beakers, and tumblers from a refrigerator. All

beverage preparation occurs in full view of the subject to enhance

the expectancy already created by the condition assignment procedure. In expect-alcohol conditions, the assistant pours one-sixth of

the total volume required from the vodka bottle into the graduated

beaker, appearing to measure it carefully, and then distributes it in

equal proportions in the tumblers. An analogous procedure is followed in pouring and distributing five-sixths of the total required

volume from the tonic bottles. A squirt of lime juice may be added to

each tumbler to further mask the taste. In the expect-tonic conditions, the same method is employed except that the total volume

used is poured from tonic bottles only. Thus, expectancies about

beverage contents are maintained.

In order to incorporate actual alcohol (vodka into some drinks but

not others) independent of the expectancy manipulation, premixing is used. In other words, for the subjects who actually receive

alcohol, all the bottles they see already contain the appropriate

mixture of vodka and tonic. For receive-tonic subjects, both the

tonic and the vodka bottles they see contain only tonic. In all cases, tonic used in the vodka bottles is decarbonated to make it appear

more like vodka. This premixing, of liquids according to actual

beverage condition, but pouring from "legitimate" bottles accord7i
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 57

ing to expected beverage condition, not only enhances deceptions

where necessary, but helps to ensure precise control of beverage

contents. In any event, the beverage mixing is followed by a consumption period and then a waiting period which permits time for

the desired BAL to be reached. The length of time allowed for each

of these periods will vary depending on the volume being consumed

and the researcher's specific interest in the effects of rapid versus

slow rising BALs, ascending versus descending BALs, etc. Whatever the interest, it is usually best to focus the subject's attention

externally (watch TV, read paper, converse, etc.) to minimize

introspection and possible sensitization to internal cues. BAL measures at several points in the experiment also are recommended to

ensure proper control. Some investigators have used BAL tests as

opportunities to bolster expectancies by offering feedback to subjects consistent with their expectancy condition.

Mail imitation checks and debriefing. Because the procedure outlined above necessarily involves some deception of subjects, it is

essential to examine the efficacy of the drinking manipulations.

This is ordinarily carried out after the behaviors of interest have

been measured to avoid possible reactive effects on the dependent variables. Questionnaires and/or interviews can be used to ask

subjects how intoxicated they felt and how many ounces of beverage

alcohol they thought they had consumed. A general assessment of

awareness of any deceptions in the experiment may also be

included. Thorough debriefing follows and includes explanation of

the experiment's purpose, the need for the particular procedures

used, and the revelation of any deceptions employed in the case of

the particular subject. Those individuals actually receiving some

alcohol are detained until their BALs have declined to the point where safety is in no way compromised.

Drinking and Human Behavior:

Balanced Placebo

Studies of Disinhibition

As suggested in the introduction. acute alcohol consumption is

commonly believed to affect a wide range of human responses and behaviors. At the micro-level. there are physiological reactions to

alcohol which represent unconditioned responses. including efforts

of the body to combat the drug's disruption of homeostatic levels of

functioning. Other changes include largely quantitative fluctuations (usually decrements) in the performance of mundane sensor-
58 LANG

imotor and cognitive tasks such as walking and remembering. Like

physiological symptoms, these alterations in performance generally are reliable across equally experienced (alcohol tolerant) individuals in any context, given a specific BAL. More "socially

significant" correlates of drinking (cf. Orcutt 1975), however, can

be highly variable both across and within individuals and contexts.

These can include internal or experiential changes (e.g., altered

mood) and more external or interpersonal changes (e.g., altered

sociability). Such socially significant changes might be expected to

be less dependent on the direct pharmacologic action of alcohol, and

their lack of consistency supports this prediction. Instead, cognitive

expectancies developed through social learning experiences (associative learning, differential reinforcement, and limitation) should

play a greater role in determining these drinking-related behaviors. In addition to psychological factors, the physical and socialsituational contexts of drinking could have powerful independent,

conditional, or interactive effects on the relation of drinking to

socially significant outcomes.

In recent years, the balanced placebo design has been applied to

research on the drinking-behavior nexus in an effort to separate the

physiologic effects of alcohol from the host of other factors which

might help to determine why drinking is so often associated with

many important human behaviors. The review that follows,

although far from exhaustive, highlights the critical studies published in this area. Special consideration is given to the topics of

aggression, sexuality, and sociability since these are the behaviors

which first come to mind when one thinks of disinhibition. Coverage of other behaviors having less direct social impact is not as

comprehensive. To date, there has been a relative neglect of contextual variables in even the best experiments on drinking and behavior. Instead, the focus has been on simple expectancy effects, with

occasional attempts to elucidate the role of individual differences

and of processes underlying the effects. It is hoped that the future

will bring a broader perspective.

Aggression

Introduction. Geen (1976) has defined aggression as "the delivery

of a noxious stimulus by one organism to another with the intent

thereby to harm and with some expectation that the stimulus will

reach its target and have its intended effect." The convolutions and

qualifications of such a definition should help explain the semantic

nightmares of aggression researchers. Perhaps most problematic

is the concept of "intent" which Buss (1961) and other early authori73
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 59

ties had rejected for its lack of adequate behavioral referents.

Nevertheless, the inference of intent often seems necessary if one

wishes to distinguish crimes from accidents, e.g., since both may

involve the delivery of noxious stimuli by one person to another (cf.

Aarens et a1.1977). Thus, for the present purpose, Geen's definition

will be accepted. It implies that aggression may take many forms:

verbal and physical, direct and indirect, and so on. Excluded,

however, are behaviors and experiences which could facilitate

aggression or have other connections with it, but do not in themselves qualify as aggressive. These might include certain moods,

fantasies, or behaviors with aggressive connotations. Only brief

mention will be made of them.

One form of aggression is criminal violence of the sort one sees in

assaults and homicides, and many (e.g., Shupe 1954; Wolfgang and

Strohm 1956) have noted that these behavioral events are often

associated with alcohol. This observation has raised the question of

a possible causal link between drinking and disinhibited displays of

aggression, and since psychological experimentation is an important means of investigating causation in human behavior, it should

not be surprising that a number of studies have been carried out.

Pernanen (1976) has provided an extensive review of this research

for the period up to 1975. Clearly, the principal theoretical bias

guiding the studies he cited, as well as most conducted since then,

has been a physiological one. The common assumption is that alcohol facilitates aggression through its direct pharmacological

action. One theory is that it "energizes" or "triggers" aggressive

organisms through brain biochemistry (cf. Mark and Ervin 1970).

Other approaches argue that drinking "releases" presumably

innate or provoked aggressive impulses ordinarily under the control of higher brain centers by anesthetizing those centers. The

latter explanation has been more widely espoused (see, e.g., Chafetz

and Demone 1962), but both approaches are dependent on direct,

though largely unverified, physiological effects of alcohol.

Less popular theoretical positions favor a social learning interpretation of the drinking and aggression relation. They argue that

the cultural norms regarding the behaviors to be exhibited by

inebriates are learned and may be specific to one's personal characteristics (e.g., sex, race, SES, etc.) as well as vary with context (e.g.,

physical setting or social situation). A particularly important

aspect of social learning might be that drinking provides a "time

out" from the rules normally governing social behavior (MacAndrew and Edgerton 1969). Moreover, an especially reinforcing

aspect of this freedom from restraint is that alcohol provides an

excuse for extraordinary actions taken while drunka means of

7
60 LANG

"deviance disavowal" (McCaghy 1968). Let us examine some of the pertinent evidence.

Experiments. Boyatzis (1974, 1975) is a proponent of alcohol's energizing effect on aggression, a theory developed partly from the observations of McClelland' et al. (1972) that drinking led men to

experience increased needs (as measured by TAT responses) for expression of power and dominance over others. Boyatzis analyzed

videotapes of nonalcoholic men drinking either alcoholic beverages or soft drinks at separate 4-hour "experimental parties" he set up. Ratings of these tapes suggested that men at the alcohol parties exhibited more aggression (mostly verbal) than those at the nonalcohol parties, and that aggression in the alcohol consumers seemed

to increase as a function of how much theydrank. Moreover, it was found that a prior history of aggressiveness and heavy drinking, coupled with personality test scores showing "inadequate social integration," seemed to predispose certain individuals to aggress when receiving alcohol, although not when getting only soft drinks, in the study. Boyatzis explained these results by suggesting that the behavior of individuals predisposed to aggress was especially sensitive to physiologic arousal provided by alcohol.

In another set of studies, Taylor and his colleagues used a laboratory rather than a party setting and integrated provocation into

their experiments. Like Boyatzis (1975), Taylor and Gammon

(1975) also reported greater aggression in subjects receiving more alcohol, but they used physical aggression measures and tried to

exercise greater control over dosages given. Four groups of 10 male

subjects each received one of four beverage treatments on a random

basis: bourbon or vodka at high (predicted 0.09 percent BAL) or low

(predicted 0.03 percent BAL) doses. They then engaged in a reaction time task, allegedly involving competition with an opponent in

the next room. It was explained that to increase motivation they

would be receiving shocks determined by their opponent each time

they lost, and that they could choose the shock levels to be given to

their opponent whenever he lost. Shock levels received were systematically varied across all subjects andconstituted a nrovocation,

while the shock intensities selected by subjects for delivery to their

opponents were viewed as indicators of aggression. Results showed

that high alcohol doses produced greater aggression in subjects

than the shocks they received would warrant, while low doses

yielded shock level selections below those of the "provocateur." This effect was more pronounced in the bourbon drinkers, although the

absence of actual BAL measurement makes this finding difficult to

interpret. These results partially replicated and extended earlier

work (Schuntich and Taylor 1972), suggesting a positive linear
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 61

relation between alcohol dose and aggression when a placebo condition also was included in a similar experimental paradigm. The

irvestigators interpreted their studies as indicating that alcohol releases aggression, presumably through a physiological

mechanism.

Lang and his colleagues (1975) argued that the findings of the

Boyatzis and the Taylor studies failed to demonstrate a physiologically mediated relation between alcohol and aggression because

they did not adequately control for expectancy factors. These proponents of a social learning approach suggested that cultural tolerance of disinhibited aggression in people presumed to be drinking

produced the alcohol-aggression link by virtue of its psychological

utility rather than any pharmacologic effects of the drug. They

examined this hypothesis by applying the balanced placebo design

to drinking and disinhibition research for the first time.

Ninety-six "heavy" social drinkers (classified according to Cahalan et al, 1969), male subjects, were randomly assigned to one of

eight conditions in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design. To fully control for

expectancy effects, half the subjects were led to believe they were

drinking alcohol (vodka and tonic), while half believed they were

drinking only tonic water. Within each of these groups, half the

subjects actually received alcohol (measured BAL of 0.10 percent),

but the other half did not. Following the beverage administration,

half the subjects were provoked by exposing them to an insulting

confederate, whereas control subjects experienced a neutral interaction. Aggression was assessed by the intensity and duration of

shocks subjects believed they were delivering to the confederate via

a modified Buss "aggression-machine" (Geen and Stonner 1971)

during a bogus teaching task. The results of these measures clearly

showed that aggression was related to drinking only as a function of

expectancy. Those subjects who thought they had received alcohol

were more aggressive than those who thought they had drunk only

tonic water, regardless of the actual contents of their drinks. Provocation to aggress also had a significant main effect on aggression

(increasing it), but did not interact with any beverage conditions.

The results of the shock intensity measure are illustrated in figure

2.

In a companion study (Marlatt et al. 1975), an investigation of the

effects of provocation and retaliation on subsequent drinking was

made. Here it was shown that the "taste test" (see Marlatt et al.

1973) alcohol consumption of both male and female heavy social

drinkers could be increased by provoking anger in them, but only if

they had no intervening opportunity to aggress against the insulting confederate. Subjects who gave shocks to the confederate before

i 6
10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

Figure 2. Mean Shock Intensities Delivered Across Trials

Expect Alcohol / Receive Alcohol

0-0 Expect Alcohol / Receive Tonic

Expect Tonic / Receive Alcohol

0 --O Expect Tonic / Receive Tonic

1 PROVOKED

I I I i

5 10 15 20 5 10 15 20

SHOCK TRIAL

Source. Lang et al. (1975). Copyright 1975 by American Psychological Association, Inc.

NOT PROVOIKED

1'1
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 63

drinking consumed significantly less alcohol. One might hypothesize that people sometimes turn to drinking when no alternative

method of dealing with anger is readily available. This raises the

possibility that if a later opportunity to aggress arises, they may

take it, but will only coincidentally be intoxicated at .the time.

Taken together, these two studies suggest that the drinkingdisinhibition link as it applies to aggression may be more a matter

of psychology and circumstances than of physiology.

Several additional and very recent experiments will be mentioned because they illustrate the direction of theorizing on the

drinking-aggression link, although they fail to consider expectancy

factors in a satisfactory manner. These are studies by Pihl and his

coworkers, who have attempted to demonstrate that alcoholinduced information processing deficits or biases could account for

the increased aggressiveness of intoxicated subjects. In one experiment (Zeichner and Pihl 1979), the investigators applied one of

three beverage conditions (ethanol-orange juice to measured BAL =

0.09 percent, orange juice placebo, and no beverage) to 72 randomly

assigned male social drinkers. Aggression was assessed by the

intensity and duration of shocks subjects intended to administer to

a bogus partner. Half the subjects were intermittently exposed to

aversive contingencies (loud tones) correlated with the strength of

their own aggressive responses; half received the same aversive

contingencies according to a random schedule. Results showed the

inebriated subjects were more aggressive than either of the sober

groups. In addition, those receiving alcohol were equally aggressive under both correlated and random contingencies, while

placebo and control subjects displayed differential responding

(more aggression when the pattern was random). The authors

argued that their results indicated that intoxicated subjects may be

"stimulus-bound," responding only to tone aversiveness, not the

correlation of tone intensity to the shock intensity they delivered.

They speculated that this tendency reflected an alcohol-induced

deficit in the processing of complex information.

In a second study along similar lines (Zeichner and Pihl 1980), all

aspects of the procedure were the same except that instead of

varying the pattern of aversive tones (correlated vs. random), subjects were told that tone intensity was either selected by their bogus

partner (malicious intent) or not under his control (neutral intent).

Again, subjects who drank alcohol displayed more aggression than

the sober subjects. Inebriated individuals also failed to respond

differentially on the basis of intent for the shock duration measure,

though not the shock intensity measure. Both placebo and non- drinking groups were more aggressive (both measures) when they
64 LANG

perceived malicious rather than neutral intent. The researchers

again attributed these group differences to an alcohol-related information processing deficit. They argued that, if given more alcohol, the intensity as well as the duration of drinkers' shocks would

become independent of instigator intent. It is interesting to note

that in this study, placebo subjects in the neutral intent condition

were more aggressive than the nondrinking subjects, suggesting

that the belief that one had received alcohol may have been reason

enough for increased aggression. In any case, the failure of these

studies to include a condition in which alcohol is given under a no-alcohol expectation makes statements about alcohol-induced

information processing deficits purely speculative. One would have

to demonstrate that such deficits occur independently of expectation and that they correspond to disinhibited changes in behavior

before the theory could be promoted for its explanatory power. As will be shown later, research on drinking and sexual disinhibition

has failed to support such a model.

Surveys. Although surveys are not the main emphasis of this

paper, a few should be mentioned because they reflect the perva- siveness of beliefs about the effect of alcohol on aggression in U. S. culture. Such beliefs, of course, probably play a central role in the

expectancy effects observed in drinking-disinhibition experiments. Four types of populations typically have been surveyed:

adults (general), college students, offenders, and alcoholics. Some

surveys inquire about different dose effects, but most do not.

Although physical and social-situational context usually are not

systematically varied, occasionally certain aspects of the situation

are altered in questions to test for opinion consistency. Few studies

ask about the desirability or the strength and certainty of drinkingdisinhibition effects from the subjects' point of view. Differences as

a function of gender and drinking exposure are frequently

reported, although these factors are usually confounded.

In a very recent survey (Brown et al. 1980), a sample of metropolitan Detroit residents of widely divergent drinking backgrounds

were queried about the domain of their alcohol expectancies that

might reinforce drinking. It was found that, among other things,

many people believed that drinking specifically increased their

power and aggression, and that this expectation was stronger

among heavier drinkers and males. Sobell and Sobel! (1975) also

surveyed a sample of adults about the extent to which they felt

drinking diminished responsibility and accountability for violent

crime. A significant minority of the sample (30 percent) felt respon- sibility was reduced by drinking, although only 7 percent believed

accountability should be lessened. Females showed a much more
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 65

lenient pattern of judgment on these issues, suggesting they will tolerate greater drunken aggression than men. This fits with

Gel les' (1974) observation that when both drinking and violence

(usually against women) occur in a family, the drinking is often

regarded as the major problem.

A much earlier study of college students(Straus and Bacon 1953) showed that males believed drinking increased aggression in men, but not in women. In a similar vein, Richardson and Campbell (1980) tried to determine the effects of husband and wife intoxication on attributions of blame in a wife abuse incident presented as a

case history or newspaper account. The researchers varied only the

alleged intoxication of the husband, the wife, or both spouses. In all cases, most of the blame was assigned to the husband (aggressor),

but if he was represented as drunk, situational factors were given

more weight. If, on the other hand, the wifewas described as drunk,

she received more personal blame than if she was sober. A more

general survey of college students' expectations of drinking (South- wick et a1.1980) included dose level variations, asking for separate

reports of effects when drinking "moderate" amounts of alcohol as

compared to "too much." Here heavy drinkers had stronger expectations of "stimulation/personal dominance" feelings at both low

and high dosages, while others said this effect occurred only during moderate drinking. Of course, the possibility of a tolerance effect confound cannot be ruled out. Finally, Isaacs (1979) found that college students expected heavy drinkers ("alcoholics") to get "meaner" when drinking, while similarly intoxicated social

drinkers were seen as "kinder."

Surveys of offender populations have focused mainly on the role

individuals said alcohol played in their crimes: A representative

study (Mayfield 1976) found that 58 percent of assaultive offenders were drinking at the time of their offense (so were 40 percent of victims), but less than half tried to use intoxication as an excuse to

explain or justify their crime. This is surprising, considering the possible psychological advantages (or even legal benefits; see Epstein 1978) of a drinking attribution. However, it is unclear how

many of these men had any remorse about their crime that they

wished to relieve. It is also possible that they had a previous record

of assaults without alcohol involvement, making their excuse less credible. Roebuck and Johnson (1962) have presented some correlational evidence pertinent to these arguments. They noted that rigid

fundamentalist religious backgrounds, possibly giving rise to high

levels of guilt about hostility and violence, were found frequently in black offenders with repeated patterns of simultaneous "drunk and

assault" charges. Other black offenders, having more varied back-
66 LANG

grounds, showed arrest patterns without consistent alcohol involvement. This latter group apparently needed no excuse for its

behavior. In any event, a significant minority of offenders in the

Mayfield study did indicate that drinking was responsible for their

crime and/or claimed amnesia for the event.

Finally, a study of discrepancies among alcoholics' expectancies,

actual behaviors, and subsequent event recollections connecting

alcohol and aggression (Tamerin et al. 1970) revealed that,

although few men expected to become aggressive while drinking,

many did. These subjects usually remembered the majority of

aggressive episodes, except for those in which they actually became

violent. Such discrepancies would seem to be important for their

possible psychosocial utility in maintaining the drinkingaggression relation.

Overall, the survey data demonstrated the generality of expectancies about a causal relation between alcohol and aggression.

People seem especially certain that heavy drinking males will be

aggressive and tend to excuse drunken aggression more in them

than in others. Possible social implications of this pattern of culture

beliefs and behaviors have been outlined by Room (1980).

Conchision8. It should be evident without an examination of

scientific literature that alcohol can never be the sole cause of any

instance of a behavior as complex as human aggression. A good deal

of aggression goes on without the aid of drinking, and much drinking is not accompanied by aggression. Thus, we are left with the

possibility that alcohol modifies aggressive responding through an

interaction with a person and his or her situation. So far, experimental psychology has developed the potential for reasonable precision in dealing with the drinking variable, but control of

predispositional and situational factors has lagged behind. This is

unfortunate since, particularly where an unstable socially significant behavior like aggression is concerned, it is unlikely that specific alcohol (or other drug) effects are of much significance. The

demonstrated power of simple expectancy to influence the aggression of a restricted sample of persons in the unnatural context of a

psychology laboratory should drive this point home. But, while such

a finding supports the contention that alcohol and aggression are

related only by cultural belief, not all the data are in yet. And even if

this hypothesis were true, the task of discovering how, why, where,

when, and with whom this belief operates would still remain. We

know very little, e.g., about drinking and aggression in women or

other "special" populations. Dosage effects are often ignored. Few

studies have varied even the simplest of situational variables which

could dramatically change drinking effects (see Pliner and Cappell

81
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 67

[1974] for an example). Whether one adheres to a biological, psychological, or social model, much remains to be done.

Sexuality

Introduction. The literature on alcohol and human sexuality is, if

nothing else, a bit more colorful than that dealing with aggression

and other behaviors correlated with drinking. Ogden Nash, for

example, commented on the action of spirits to break down sexual

inhibitions by observing that, in the approaching of women, "Candy

is dandy, but liquor is quicker." Shakespeare's porter in Macbeth,

on the other hand, focused on stimulating aspects of alcohol, noting

that "...it provokes the desire [for lechery], but it takes away the

performance." These quips suggest a conventional folk wisdom that

drinking can lead to a greater inclination toward, if not greater

participation in, sexual interaction. Unfortunately, until recently,

beliefs about such a relation have not been the object of much

empirical investigation. One possible explanation for the paucity of

studies was offered by Carpenter and Armenti (1972) who maintained that manyincluding numerous "scientists, professionals,

and authorities"have simply reified the popular beliefs, assuming they know a priori that alcohol consumption "causes" impulsive

human sexual (and aggressive) behavior. This, of course, obviated

the need for further research and seed armchair philosophers to

speculate about what processes migi t underlie the alleged relation.

As in the case of aggression, physic logical explanations have predominated, including a "chemical trigger" hypothesis (Rada 1975)

and the idea that alcohol anesthetizes higher neural control centers

to "release" sexual impulses (e.g., Harger 1959). These largely

direct cause theories have been put forth despite an extensive

anthropological and sociological literature which reveals weaknesses in the folk wisdom position. Such research (e.g., MacAndrew

and Edgerton 1969) argues for learned and situational factors by

documenting the existence of cultures in which drinking bears

either a negative, or no, relation to sexual expression.

Complex ethical and methodological problems also have

retarded research on the alcohol-sexuality link. Moral and legal

issues abound, particularly if one wishes to study sexuality as an

interpersonal process. These restrictions have effectively stymied

most work on human sexual interactions. Even at the individual

level, however, difficulties with the operational ization of the sexual

response variable have been considerable. Fortunately, the development of penile and vaginal plethysmography seems to have

resolved the problem of inadequate dependent measures (Abel and

82
68 LANG

Blanchard 1976; Geer et al, 1974). Balanced placebo designs have helped refined the drinking variable. Mainly studies using these methods will be addressed here. For a comprehensive review of pre-1977 research on alcohol and sexuality, see Wilson (1977).

Experiments. Before consideration Of expectancy effects became much of a Pzoncern in alcohol research, several teams of investigators studied the impact of different dose levels of alcohol on penile

tumescence in men viewing erotic films. Farkas and Rosen (1676) used social drinker subjects, while Wilson and colleagues (1978)

looked at alcoholics. These experiments tended to show a linear

decrease in physiological sexual arousal as a function in increasing BALs, although at very low doses (0.025 percent BAL) the results were mixed. Also revealed was one complication in alcohol and sex

research, namely, that subjective expectations and reports of sex- ual arousal/enjoyment while drinking did not necessarily corres- pond with, nor could they be altered by confrontation with, discrepant objective physiologic measures of arousal. Apparently

the fact that alcohol raised the threshold for penile erection and/or ejaculation in these men was sometimes viewed as an asset in sexual

performance and a benefit for the enjoyment ofboth the individual

and his potential partner. Such a finaing underscored the need for multiple outcome measures in alcohol and sexual response studies. Br iddell and Wilson (1976) first sought to disentangle the effects of alcohol and cognitions on sexual response by a direct attempt to

manipulate male social drinkers' beliefs about alcohol and sexual

arousal. Their factorial design used alcohol doses resulting in four

average BAL levels (.00, .03, .07, and .10 percent) with half the

subjects at each level being told that drinking would increase their

sexual arousal while the other half were led to believe that sexual

responses to the erotic film viewed by all participants should be

diminished by alcohol. The results were generally consistent with

those of strictly physiologic studies. There was a significant negative linear relation between BAL and penile tumescence, although no low dose increase or biphasic effect was observed. This titr0, subjective reports of sexual arousal were more positively correlated with the physiological measure. Most striking, however, was the

failure of the manipulated belief variable to exert any significant

influence on sexual response.

A similar study with female st',jects (Wilson and Lawson 1976a)

yielded an almost identical pattern of physiological results, using vaginal pressure pulse measures obtained by a photoplethysmegraph, and again found no effect due to the manipulated belief

variable. Interestingly, the subjective data of these women showed

no differences for alcohol dosage or belief. A paradoxical trend
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 69

toward reporting enhanced sexual arousal at higher levels of intoxication was found, however, suggesting possible gender differences

in the effects of drinking. In any case, one might be tempted to

conclude on the basis of these two studies that alcohol generally

reduces sexual responsiveness and that beliefs about its effects are

of little or no consequence. Such a conclusion, however, neglects the

distinct possibility that the manipulated beliefs were not powerful

enough to overcome subjects' own preconceived beliefs about how

alcohol affects their own sexual expression and responsiveness.

Moreover, the need to completely separate expectancy factors from

the physiological effects of alcohol per se was not addressed in this

research.

In a subsequent investigation, Wilson and Lawson (1976b) abandoned attempts to influence subjects' beliefs about the effects of

alcohol on sexual response, and instead manipulated their expectations about the contents of the beverages consumed and then

observed the behaviors in question. Their approach made use of the

balanced placebo design. Male social drinkers were randomly

assigned to one of two beverage expectancy conditions (expect

vodka and tonic, or expect tonic only), ant... they then consumed

beverages which were either consistent with or contrary to their

expectations. Those subjects actually receiving alcohol reached a

mean BAL of 0.04 percent. Measures of penile tumescence were

recorded during the viewing of both heterosexual and homosexual

erotic films by each participant. Results showed that actual alcohol

failed to affect penile tumescence significantly. However, there

were significant effects of the beverage expectancy manipulation

on tumescence during both films. Subjects who believed they had

consumed alcohol manifested significantly greater sexual arousal

than those who believed they had received only tonic water. Again,

as in the earlier Briddell and Wilson (1976) study, there was a

significant positive correlation between the physiological measures

of sexual arousal and subjective ratings of arousal.

In 1978, Wilson and Lawson decided to replicate their balanced

placebo study of alcohol and sexual arousal, but this time with

women social drinkers as subjects. The procedure was very similar

to that used previously with men (Wilson and Lawson 1976b), but

the results were markedly different. Here, expectancy did not

affect the physiological sexual arousal of the women. There was

instead a significant decrease in sexual response as a function of

actual alcohol just as there had been in the earlier study with

women. However, a significant positive correlation between subjects' estimates of their intoxication and their subjective sexual

sensations was observed. The authors tried to reconcile these differ-
7t, LANG

ences between male and female sexual responses, under identically

controlled alcohol and expectancy conditions, by noting that the two

sexes may differ systematically in a variety of relevant ways.

Among the possibilities cited were that women could have weaker

expectancy beliefs, lower awareness and control of early signs .)f

physical arousal in sex, less drinking experience, and greater

(potentially disruptive) feelings of sexual vulnerability while

drinking. Such speculations have not been adequately verified, but

one consequence of the lack of consistent expectancy effects in

women has been that it reinforced the tendency of alcohol-sexuality

research to use only male subjects.

Partially reflecting their concern with the connection between

alcohol use and sex offenses, Briddell and Associates (1978) conceptually replicated and extended earlier balanced placebo research

with men. They used beer and "near beer" beverages and assessed

changes in sexual arousal in social drinkers responding to either

audiotaped or self-generated heterosexual stimuli. The tape portrayed separate instances of normal intercourse, forcible rape. and

sadistic aggression. Results showed that an alcohol expectancy, but

not actual alcohol (measured BAL = 0.03 percent), yielded greater

physiologically measured and self-reported sexual arousal in the

subjects. Moreover, the expectancy effect was most pronounced in

connection with the more deviant (rape, aggression) stimuli. Combined with the Wilson and Lawson (1976b) study, this research

severely challenged the role of alcohol's pharmacological action in

producing disinhibited sexual behavior in men. The data instead

suggested that social learning factors play a central part. An exploration of how these factors might operate seemed in order.

Lang and Associates (1980) hypothesized that the probability

that an alcohol expectancy set will disinhibit sexuality or other

socially significant behaviors is not fixed. Instead, it is a function of

the utility or reinforcement value that making an alcohol attribution

about one's behavior has for that particular individual, given the

situation and the specific behavior in question. To test this prediction, male social drinkers were surveyed and were classified as

high, moderate, or low in "sex guilt" (according to the Forced

Choice Guilt Inventory: Mosher 1966). Equal numbers from each

group were then randomly assigned to one of the four possible

conditions in the balanced placebo design. After drinking vodka

and tonic (to measured BAL = 0.04 percent) or tonic only, all subjects viewed and evaluated photographic slides of varying erotic

content and then reported on their sexual arousal. The time individuals spent looking at each slide was unobtrusively measured and

was considered to reflect interest in that slide. Overall, greater

S3
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 71

sexual arousal was indicated by subjects who thought they had

received alcoholic beverages, regardless of actual drink content. As

figure 3 shows, however, sex guilt mediated the effect of an alcohol

expectancy on the measure of viewing time as a function of rated

"pornographic" content of the slides. For the most part, everyone

indulged his prurient interests and viewed the more sexually

Figure 3. Slide Viewing Time as a Function of

Pornography Ratings*

7 35r HIGH SEX-GUILT

z

30

25

20

5

2 15

EXPECT ALCOHOL

4-o-----42-*0EXPECT TONIC

Cr°

I 2 3 4 5 6 7

MEAN PORNOGRAPHY RATING (7-POINT SCALE)

0

35- MODERATE SEX -GUILT

o 30 EXPECT TONIC

EXPECT ALCOHOL

W 25-

22 20 -

L7= 15 - 11111_,LI I I

I 2 3 4 5 6 7

MEAN PORNOGRAPHY RATING (7-POINT SCALE)

35- LOW SEX-GUILT

zu 30

- 25-

; 20

z

I I 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

EXPECT ALCOHOL

-0 EXPECT TONIC

MEAN PORNOGRAPHY RATINI4 (7^POINT SCALE)

Source. Lang et al (1980) Copyright 1980 by

American Psychological Association, Inc.

8 0
72 LANG

explicit slides longer, with or without an alcohol expectancy. However, among the high sex guilt individuals only, viewing erotic

slides was apparently a restrained behavior which one could not

engage in without an excuse. Thus, only those who believed they

had been drinking (and therefore could make an alcohol attribution) looked at the more "pornographic" slides longer. Again, these

findings supported a socially learned rather than a physiologically

dependent relation between drinking and disinhibition, while also

showing that individual psychological factors can predispose one to

act in accordance with the relation.

In a final, very recent experiment on drinking and sexual disinhibition (Lansky and Wilson 1980), an information processing analysis of the phenomenon was carried out. These investigators used

vodka and tonic (average measured BAL = 0.04 percent among

drinkers) in a balanced placebo design involving male social

drinkers. They then presented subjects with erotic (heterosexual

and homosexual) and nonerotic photographic slides and auditory

stimuli, while monitoring viewing times for the slides and penile

tumescence during the tapes. Measures of selective attention and

recognition memory also were taken in both visual and auditory

moaalities. An alcohol expectancy increased sexual arousal, but

only among higher sex guilt subjects. Again, though the viewing

time measures were not significant as in Lang et al. (1980), the

alcohol attribution excuse may have had utility or reinforcing value

only for them, because of their restrained predisposition. Actual

alcohol had no effect on sexual responding, although it impaired

visual memory independent of expectancy. Paradoxically, an alcohol expectancy improved auditory memory while alcohol per se had

no effect. Attentional measures were not affected by the beverage

manipulation, but reaction times when the competing stimulus was

erotic were longer than those when it was not. Extensive correlational analyses attempting to relate the information processing

measures to sexual arousal failed to support the hypothesis that any

changes in them mediate the role of expectancy (or alcohol) in

disinhibition.

Surveys. Again, only a sampling of surveys is offered to illustrate

general beliefs about drinking and sexuality. Most, however, seem

to indicate a public consensus that alcohol leads to sexual disinhibition. Gender differences are apparent as was the case with alcoholaggression surveys. Equally applicable are the earlier comments

about the lack of completeness of existing survey data.

Brown et al. (1980) in their general population survey found a

strong tendency of subjects to endorse items indicative of an expectation that alcohol enhances sexual performance and pleasure,

0 "
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 73

especially in males and heavy drinkers. Johnson (1974) reported

data on male executives showing they believed in a linear positive

relation between alcohol (up to 6 oz.) and sexual desire. In more

clinical populations, Beckman (1979) found that female alcoholics

were more inclined than social drinkers to state that they desired,

engaged in, and enjoyed intercourse more when drunk. Among

male alcoholics (Tamerin et al. 1970), increased sexual feelings

were not self-predicted, but were evident during intoxication.

Finally, McCaghy (1968) reported that 32 percent of incarcerated

male pedophiles maintained that alcohol was responsible for their

behavior. Thus, the pattern of beliefs about drinking and disinhibited sexuality seemed to parallel that of the alcohol-aggression

relation in our culture.

Conclusions. More studies of expectancy effects in the drinking

and sexual disinhibition area have been conducted, and correspondingly more evidence supporting a social learning theory has

accumulated. While high doses of alcohol probably depress sexual

responding regardless of beliefs, the physiological effect of alcohol

at low doses is negligible compared to the overwhelming power of

expectations. This is evidenced even by highly objective physiological measurements. The probable validity of a cultural learning

explanation is bolstered further by gender and nonphysiologic individual difference influences on the expectancy effects. Some suggestion of drinking history as an important variable is also

available. Nevertheless, further specification of predispositional

and situational variables is still needed. Particularly important

would be the study of sexual interactions as opposed to individual

responsiveness. In such interactions, as Carpenter and Armenti

(1972) pointed out, alcohol may be co' :identally present so that

drinking becomes associated with sexual opportunity and provocation rather than being a cause of them. Naturally, this could

increase the sexual cue value of alcohol if drinking also provides a

socially acceptable excuse for risque behavior.

Sociability

harothirtii, Sociability, by virtue of its name, must be considered a socially significant behavior and, as such, is likely to be

influenced by situational and predispositional factors (including

expectancy) more than by any specific pharmacologic action of

alcohol. Yet, alcohol is typically viewed as a social lubricant.

Moreover, by far the most popular hypothesis about how drinking

might increase sociability emphasizes the central role of physiology. This is the tension-reduction hypothesis (TRH), formally out-
74 LANG

lined by Conger (1956). The TRH holds that alcohol acts to reduce

tension or anxiety, probably through its depressant or tranquilizing effect on cortical control of behavior. This, in turn, should relax

the person and consequently might produce greater comfort and

activity in the social arena. It is important to note that the logic

underlying this sequence of events requires that alcohol act to

reduce tension or anxiety. This relation has been the one most

extensively studied, but reviews of the voluminous literature on it

(e.g., Cappell 1975; Higgins 1976) revealed a maze of equivocal,

contradictory, and negative findings.

Among the likely contributors to confusion surrounding empirical investigations of the TRH are conceptual and methodological

problems. "Anxiety" is an extremely complex construct because,

like other affective states. it is often regarded primarily as a subjective (internal) mood and only secondarily as a socially relevant behavior. This has led many researchers to focus on self-reports as

the sole measure of anxiety. However. Lang (1978), among others.

has argued convincingly for the necessity of using multiple measures (self-report. physiological, and overt behavioral) if one ever

intends to operationalize hypothetical emotional constructs in a

satisfactory manner. This is because the various aspects of anxiety

and other emotions may be differentially responsive to change as a

function of time, stimulus conditions. etc. Another major problem

plaguing interpretation of TRH research is the common failure to

employ adequate controls for expectancy effects. Only those experiments incorporating reasonable multidimensional measurement of

anxiety and balanced placebo methodology will be addressed in any detail below.

Before proceeding, it should be acknowledged that most studies

pertinent to drinking and sociability do not, in fact, look at social

interactions as they are normally understood. Instead, the typical

procedure, if dyads are examined at all, isto control the behavior of

one of the participants while examining the effects of drinking on

the behavior of the other. In addition, anxiety responses are the major concern of the dependent measures. This state of affairs

severely limits our understanding of how drinking affects social

interactions. A few studies have dealt with drinking and social

interaction per se, an d. a sampi i ng of them will be discussed regardless of their methodological flaws.

P,'.i.periments. Smith and colleagues (1975a) made the initial

attempt to analyze how alcohol might influence the formal properties of verbal social interaction, They used the Mishler and Waxier

(1968) coding system to analyze differences in verbal communication patterns of well-acquainted male- female dyads who received

89
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 75

placebo, low dose (avg. measured BAL= 0.05 percent), or high dose

(avg. BAL = 0.09 percent) alcoholic beverages in 2-hour sessions.

Their main finding was that interruptions or overlaps in conversation increased as a linear function of BAL. The volume of communications and number of interchanges (initiations) showed a

curvilinear dose effect, increasing at low BALs, but decreasing at

higher ones. People also seemed to exhibit fewer acknowledgments

of their partners in the alcohol conditions. The authors hypothesized that the more "disorganized" speech of drinkers could reflect

alcohol's action to decrease competence in aspects of information

processing relevant to conversation. On the other hand, the more

egocentric speech patterns also could be the result of an alcohol

expectancy which offered an excuse for inattention to the rules

normally governing verbal communications. In either case, the

findings do not necessarily indicate greater sociability among

drinkers, but instead a pattern of communication which might lead

to an escalation of aggression (cf. Pernanen 1976). The potential of

this type of analysis remains largely untapped.

Rohrberg and Sousa-Poza (1976) examined the effects of alcohol

(est. BA L = .07 percent) or placebo on the "self-disclosure" behavior

of equal numbers of dyads matched for either field dependence or

field independence. They found that the total amount of selfdisclosure (time spent in conversation) was not affected by drinking, but "depth" of personal disclosure (rated by blind judges) was

significantly greater among drinkers. This result paralleled

Smith's group's (19751)) independent report of a drinking-related

increase in the total affective content of interactions of their dyads,

although this occurred most at the lower dose. Again, these studies

showed some interesting effects of drinking on sociability, but did

not adequately control for possible expectancy effects.

Wilson and Abrams (1977) introduced the balanced placebo

methodology into research on social interactions. Equal numbers of

male social drinkers received alcoholic (avg. measured BAL 0.04

percent) or nonalcoholic beverages, consistent or inconsistent with

their expectations, and then engaged in a brief social interaction

with a female confederate who was trained to remain neutral. The

subject's task was to try to make a good impression on the woman.

Before, during, and after this interaction, multiple measures of

:social anxiety were obtained using self-report, physiologic (heart

rate), and behavioral observation (videotapes rated blindly) indicators. Results showed that on all measures, those individuals who

thought they had been drinking (alcohol expectancy) were less

socially anxious than those who believed they had received only

nonalcoholic drinks regardless of actual beverage content. This
76 LANG

again was a demonstration of the preeminence of cognitive, psychological factors over more direct physiological factors in determining how drinking influences social behavior,

In an almost identical followup study, using female subjects

interacting with male confederates, an expectancy effect also was

found (Abrams and Wilson 1979). This time, however, the physiologic measures (heart rate and GSR) and the observers' ratings

showed a reverse pattern. In other words, women who thought they

had received alcohol showed greater evidence of autonomic arousal

and were seen as more anxious than those with a no-alcohol expectancy. Actual beverage content had no effect. All subjects reported

greater anxiety after the interaction than before, but this measure

yielded no significant differences as a function of either expectation

or actual alcohol. Thus, as was the case in the drinking and sexuality experiments, a gender difference interacted with the expectancy effect, although here alcohol itself had little impact. Perhaps

a part of this similarity could be accounted for by the fact that the

social situation examined in the anxiety studies had sexual connotations. The researchers speculated that in some cases a sense of

sexual vulnerability may accompany drinking for women, especially if they encounter unfamiliar men in strange settings while

intoxicated. Thus, although feelings of diminished control while

intoxicated might occasionally reduce social anxiety by offering an

attractive excuse for less restrained social-sexual behavior with a

desirable intimate, they increased anxiety in this study because the

women did not necessarily "want" greater vulnerability. Of course,

other explanations are possible, but all necessarily involve culturally mediated differences in the drinking experiences and expectations of men and women, since the studies showed no actual

alcohol effect.

One final experiment which did not actually involve sociability,

but raised some important issues, should be mentioned in this

context. Levenson and associates (1980) sought to investigate the

TRH while controlling for expectancy and varying the nature of

stressors used to induce tension. They also gave a higher alcohol

dose (measured BA L = 0.09 percent) than most studies of drinking

and anxiety. Multiple (seven) physiologic measures were employed

in addition to self-reports by the male social drinkers who were

threatened with either electric shock or, alternatively, an interpersonal evaluation of their speech and physical characteristics. The

prestress effects of actual alcohol produced a mixed pattern of

aroused and depressed physiologic activity which, however, subjects interpreted as experiences of "cheerfulness" and lowered

"anxiety." This illustrated why earlier research using only one or

31
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 77

two measures in trying to draw a simple relation between alcohol

and tension reduction often produced contradictory results. More

important, however, was the effect of alcohol in reducing the mag- nitude of both physiologic and subjective responses to the kinds of stressors used. This "stress response dampening" could account for

the interaction of drinking and a number of socially significant behaviors. It may, for example, explain a greater tendency to

approach aggressive, sexual, or social situations when intoxicated

because the stress associated with them is not as intense.

It is noteworthy that expectancy effects were not found in this

experiment, whereas they had been in the two social anxiety studies

of Wilson and Abrams just cited. One possible explanation for this

finding is that actual alcohol effects become prepotent at higher dosage levels. While certainly this is a plausible argument, it is probably also the case that deceptions in the beverage tkeatment

conditions of the balanced placebo design are more difficult to

maintain when higher doses are used, Levenson et al. (1980)

acknowledged this in contrasting their results with the findings of

others, and an examination of their manipulation check data supported this criticism. However, it should be recalled that Lang et al.

showed a strong expectancy effect in the drinking and aggression

relation using an even higher BAL than Levenson et al. (1980)

employed. In this connection, the possible importance of subject characteristics is evident since Lang et al. did select "heavy"

drinkers in the earlier study. This could account for the greater

success of their drink manipulations as well as the occurrence of

expectancy effects. Of course, the nature of these specific behaviors

under investigation also varied.

Surveys. One hardly needs a review ofsurveys to know that most

people in this culture believe alcohci facilitates sociability. Its ubiquity at social get-togethers should be evidence enough. Nevertheless, it can be mentioned that Brown et al. (1980) showed normal

adults expected drinking to enhance social pleasure, increase social

assertiveness, and reduce tension. In college students, Southwick et

al. (1980) found beliefs in the power of alcohol to make them more

relaxed, happy, and talkative. Finally, alcoholics (Tamerin et al.

1970) expected to become more "sociable" when intoxicated,

although this often was not the case.

rotich/simis. The research on drinking and sociability underscores the complexity of their connection and the inadequacy of the

simplistic drive reduction notion of the TRI!. It appears that when

drinking reduces social anxiety the effect is cognitively rather than

pharmacologically mediated, at least at low to moderate RA Ls. The

gender differences in the expectancy effect again suggest that

9 1
78 LANG

personal predispositions and the related potential psychological

utility/value of lowering one's personal responsibility for behavior

play a role in drinking and sociability. The paucity of experiments

on actual social interaction is, however, a problem mitigating

against definitive conclusions. Once again the call for further

exploration of different dosage effects across a variety of individual

predispositions and physical-social circumstances must be

reiterated.

Other Disinhibited Behaviors

Two other behaviors sometimes viewed as being facilitated or

disinhibited by alcohol are mirth and eating. These have been

subjected to tests using the balanced placebo design, or a modification of it, and so will be discussed briefly. Vuchinich and associates

(1973) orthogonally manipulated alcoholic contents (BAL = .05 percent or .00 percent) and instructions (alcohol, no alcohol) about

drinks male subjects consumed. They also informed half the men of

the specific physiologic sensations they could expect from the alcohol doses given in the study to see if having a ready explanation for

the reactions of one's nervous system would modify the occurrence

of expectancy effects. Subjects then listened to humorous audiotapes while observers, blind to treatment condition, unobtrusively

rated their amusement. Subjects' laughter was also monitored, and

later they reported on their own affect. Only the expectation of

receiving alcohol increased the behavioral measure of laughter.

Mixed results were obtained for self-reported mood, with both

actual alcohol and an alcohol expectancy yielding improvement.

Informing subjects of the exact nature of physical sensations the

alcohol doses caused did not influence expectancy effects on laughter or mood. This latter set of findings failed to support explanations of expectancy effects stressing a mislabeling of ambiguous

internal arousal according to available environmental cues (cf.

Schachter 1964). Instead, it appeared that drinking was simply an

acceptable reason to disregard normal restraint.

Along similar lines, Polivy and Herman (1976) examined the

eating behavior of restrained (diet conscious) eaters and unrestrained (normal) eaters on a bogus ice cream tasting task in which

total consumption was the operative measure. First, however,

equal numbers of the female subjects received either alcoholic (est.

RAI, = .05 percent) or nonalcoholic preparations labeled as either

alcohol or vitamin C. Results showed that among restrained eaters

We cream consumption was greatest in the accurately labeled alcohol condition, while this same condition yielded the least consump9
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 79

tion among unrestrained eaters. The investigators interpreted

their findings as suggesting that individually useful external attributions of responsibility would facilitate disinhibited behavior, but

only when accompanied by congruent physiologic sensations.

Unfortunately, checks of the effectiveness of the expectancy manipulations were not included. The results appear significant, however, in demonstrating how individual predispositions can

contribute to the disinhibiting effects of drinking. Like the work of

Lang et al. (1980) and Lansky and Wilson (1980) on sexuality, they

showed that only those people inclined to want an excuse for their

behavior will become less restrained when they think they are

intoxicated.

Drinking and Cognitive and Motor Performance

Most authorities agree that cognitive and motor performance is

adversely affected by alcohol consumption (cf. Moskowitz et al.

1974; Birnbaum and Parker 1977). However, none of the studies

conducted prior to 1975 included adequate control for expectancy

effects. Still, since cognitive and motor performance are relatively

stable behaviors, and few would have much incentive or motivation

to do poorly on them even while intoxicated, one would anticipate

minimal expectancy effects. In general, that is what the data show.

In the Lang et al. (1975) alcohol and aggression study a simple

reaction time task was included as a secondary measure to rule out

a demand characteristics explanation of the predicted expectancy

effects (cf. Orne 1969). These investigators reasoned that subjects

would be as aware of alcohol's relation to poor reaction time as they

were of the drinking-aggression link, so if their behavior was

guided by a desire to please the experimenter it should be consistent

across both measures. However, as figure 4 shows, this was not the

case. On the reaction time task subjects showed no expectancy

effect, but only an action of alcohol to increase response latency.

This contrasted sharply with the unique main effect of expectancy

on the aggression measure (refer back to figure 2). Evidently, an

alcohol cognition had no function with regard to the nonsocial

reaction time task, whereas it was quite relevant to the socially

significant behavior of aggression.

Cognitive functioning, specifically memory measures of word list

recall, was the object of the next balanced placebo investigation of

alcohol and performance (Miller et al. 1978). Again actual alcohol

(BA L = 0.07 percent) produced information processing deficits,

while expectancies had no effect. A later study by Williams et al.

(1980) showed a somewhat more complicated pattern of results

9.1
Figure 4. Mean Response Latencies on Reaction Time Task

1.60

1.50

1.40

1.30

1.20 -

-- Expect Alcohol / Receive Alcohol

o 0 Expect Alcohol / Receive Tonic W Expect Tonic / Receive Alcohol

O- - -.O Expect Tonic / Receive Tonic

1.10

1.00 ---o------o

.90

.80 PROVOKED

5 10 15 20

NOT PROVOKED

5 10 15

SHOCK TRIAL

Source. Lang et al. (1975) Copyright 1975 by American Psychological Association, Inc.

20
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 81

using zero, 0.03 percent, and 0.06 percent BALs crossed with alcohol and no alcohol instructional sets. No main effects were

observed, but subjects expecting alcohol performed better on the

cognitive tasks (letter cancellation, digit span, Raven's matrices) as

alcohol dose increased, while those expecting no alcohol did more

poorly as a function of dosage increment. The authors speculated

that subjects aware of their alcohol-induced impairment could

compensate for it, while those left uninformed took no remedial

action. Such an argument was supported by the work of Young and

Pihl (1980) who showed that subjects, even at a measured BAL of

0.09 percent, could improve their memory and hand coordination

performance when given the simple instruction "try to stay sober."

Thus, awareness and motivation can play a role in overcoming the

adverse effects of alcohol on cognitive and motor performance.

Finally, Vuchinich and Sobell (1978) tested subjects on a pursuit

rotor and a reaction time task combined to result in a divided

attention task. Under conditions of alcohol (BAL = 0.04 percent) or

no alcohol, manipulated independently of alcohol and no alcohol

instructions, they found a significant performance deficit due to

actual alcohol. No main effect for expectancy was noted, but it

interacted with alcohol to produce greater disruption when an

alcohol expectancy was present. A later similar experiment in the

same laboratory (Connors and *Maisto 1980), however, failed to

replicate the interaction effect, although actual alcohol again

resulted in a performance decrement.

Taken together, the studies of drinking and cognitive/motor

behaviors in humans show a direct pharmacological action of alcohol to impede performance. Expectancy effects are rarely

observed. This may be because subjects are unfamiliar with standard laboratory tests of these behaviors and hence have little basis

for formulating an expectancy. More likely, however, there is no

incentive for disrupted performance given the circumstances, so

none occurs.

Summary, Interpretation and Implications

Summary

This review clearly indicates that a connection between drinking

and disinhibition can be demonstrated empirically. Drinking has

been causally implicated in increased aggression, sexual response,

sociability, and even laughter and eating. The importance of direct

e
82 LANG

pharmacological actions of alcohol on these behaviors, however, has

been severely challenged, at least when considering the low to

moderate acute doses used in the majority of experiments. Instead,

the principal finding has been that especially for males, the disinhibition of significant aggressive, sexual, and social behaviors is a

product of the expectancy that one has consumed alcoholic beverages regardless of the actual contents of the drinks. The limited

research on women's reactions to drinking, on the other hand, has

yielded a mixed pattern of alcohol (decreases sexual response) and

expectancy (increases social anxiety) effects. Perhaps these gender

differences reflect the lesser drinking experience of females and/or

divergent cultural beliefs about the acceptability and implications

of drinking by women. Clarification of the underlying factors will

have to await future research. In the meantime, there is some

evidence that psychological predispositions (e.g., sex guilt) can

interact with expectancies to help predict disinhibition in certain

individuals, The role of such variables will be considered in connection with a discussion confined mainly to the more consistent influences of drinking on the behavior of males.

Standing in stark contrast with the powerful expectancy effects

observed to disinhibit socially significant behaviors, is their almost

total lack of impact on the performance of cognitive and motor

tasks. This is especially puzzling since the public is undoubtedly

just as aware of the behavioral impairment (cf. Southwick et al.

1980) accompanying intoxication as they are of the drinkingdisinhibition link. In any event. where cognitive and motor tasks

are concerned, experiments show that alcohol alone acts to impede

performance. Obviously, a satisfactory theory of drinking and

behavior must accommodate both the expectancy-disinhibition

findings (including individual differences) and the alcohol

impaired performance data.

Interpretation

Specific biologic theories. As has been illustrated throughout this

review, hypotheses dependent on the direct pharmacologic action of

alcohol to disinhibit socially significant behaviors have been

embarrassed by the a% ailable evidence. Except where cognitivemotor performance is concerned, proponents of these approaches

have evidently confused correlation with causation. It is possible

that higher doses of alcohol, or alcohol interacting with a particular

physiologic predisposition (e.g., brain abnormality). could precipitate disinhibited behavior in some individuals, but this does not

account for the data reported here.

9
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 83

Biologic-psychologic combination, theories. Approaches which

combine physical effects of drinking with psychologic processes are

of two types: those stressing cognitive deficits and those emphasizing cognitive factors in emotion. The first approach posits that

alcohol impairs information processing, reducing perception of

important cues and diminishing powers of abstraction and conceptualization. This, in turn, can lead to a narrow focus on salient cues

in the immediate situation and a reduction in (complex) coping

skills. Then, if available stimuli are, e.g., sexual or aggressive in

nature (or could be naively interpreted as such), there should be a

greater likelihood that these behaviors will become disinhibited.

This theory has a number of advantages. It makes use of the demonstrated action of alcohol to impair cognitive ability and it considers

the impact of variations in the social situation. Individual differences are not specifically addressed, but could be incorporated with

little difficulty. The problem with the theory is that it cannot

accommodate expectancy effects because it depends on the assumption that alcohol induces deficits in information processing, yet

expectancy effects occur independently of alcohol's presence.

Nevertheless, it represeni,s a considerable advance over specific

biologic theories and probably explains some instances of drinking

and disinhibition.

Another biologic-psychologic approach is based on attribution

theory in the tradition of Valins' (1966) revision and extension of

Schachter's (1964) classic work on emotions. These investigators

have shown that individuals can become physiologically aroused by

simple induction of a cognitive set (e.g., expect alcohol). They have

also demonstrated that once in an ambiguous state of physiologic

arousal, people will seek to interpret that arousal in terms of available cues that permit cognitive labeling of it as a specific emotion.

Then, of course, they may act on the emotion experienced. Applying

this to drinking and disinhibition, one might argue that pP 'sons

who drink (or think they are drinking) alcoholic beverages become

aroused, scan the situation for explanatory cues, and if cues suggestive of aggression or sex or sociability are present (as they often are

in drinking situations), persons might misattribute the arousal of

drinking to other more salient cues in the environment and act

accordingly. Thus, the probability of disinhibited aggression, sex,

or sociability should be increased. The particular behavior selected

would depend on individual predispositions and on the specific cues

present in the drinking context.

Again, this theory has several strengths. It capitalizes on the fact

that emotional states often precede disinhibited behaviors and it

shows how drinkers' expectancies could lead to such emotions. It
84 LANG

also integrates some situational factors. However, its fit with findings from balanced placebo research is not a perfect one. First, one

has some difficulty explaining the differential operation of expectancy effects as a function of individual differences (e.g., sex guilt).

Second, individuals given an "expect alcohol" cognition should not

experience ambiguous arousal because they already have the drinking explanation for how they feel. Finally, in balanced placebo

studies subjects expecting no alcohol, but actually receiving some,

should experience arousal (without a ready explanation for it) and

therefore should also respond to environmental cues for disinhibited behavior. This, however, typically is not the case (cf. Vuchi- nich and Tucker in press). Perhaps in some instances the

attribution theory of emotions explains drinking and disinhibition,

but is there a better, more parsimonious approach?

Psycho logic social learning theories. The strategy of cognitivebehavioral psychology is to examine the function of behavior on the

assumption that organisms will not persist in behaviors that do not

have a useful function for them. Typically, this means behavior is

analyzed in terms of its antecedents and consequences, with cognitions playing a mediational role. An effort is made to tie all three of

these aspects of behavior to directly observable events. So what is

the function of drinking as it relates to expectancy-disinhibition

and alcohol-impairment effects observed in balanced placebo

studies?

One potentially reinforcing aspect of drinking in this culture is

that it alters the reactions of others to one's behavior. In particular,

others tend to be more tolerant of deviance in the inebriate, reasoning that all behavioral competence and control may be disrupted in

the same way that sensorimotor and cognitive processes inevitably

are. The practical consequence of this state of affairs is that while in

a drunken state an individual is not assigned as much personal

responsibility for his actions. In effect, one becomes "freer" when

drinking because the environment is more willing to forgive any

transgressions he may commit by attributing their cause to the

liquor, not the man. Hence, considering that most of the disinhibited behaviors discussed here have at least some intrinsic pleasure

involved in them (sexuality comes to mind most immediately), an

explanation for the expectancy effects observed in connection with

drinking emerges. The individual expects that his self-indulgent

behavior will be excused because of his drinking, so restraints are

washed away.

Arguing along similar lines, Jones and Berglas (1978) hav' speculated that people may sometimes drink because they are apprehensive about their ability to perform or about the appropriateness of

99
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 85

their engaging in certain socially relevant behaviors. This "selfhandicapping" strategy enables them to attribute any unsatisfactory outcomes to alcohol, but to enjoy even greater than normal

satisfaction in any positive outcomes since they can argue that they

were accomplished while performing at less than 100 percent

capacity! The potential benefits of these reinforcing aspects of

drinking are considerable. So why aren't people drunk all the time, and why are there individual differences in the alcoholdisinhibition link?

People are not drunk all the time for at least two reasons. First,

ours is a highly pluralistic society in which one can never be sure of

the extent to which those people in any given context will subscribe

to the "he was drunk" excuse, so there is a risk involved. Moreover,

alcohol actually does impair competency on many dimensions of

behavioral performance that could be relevant to socially significant outcomes. Thus, an overreliance on drinking could result in a

rather lean reinforcement schedule, especially since the tolerance

of others does have limits. This helps explain why no expectancy

effects occur on cognitive-motor performances. They would have no

utility or value for the person. He is going to try his best regardless

of expectancy. As for interindividual differences in expectancydisinhibition effects, one need only consider the wide variability in

the moral backgrounds and coping skills of people to see how a

drinking-attribution excuse might be differentially useful/desirable across particular individuals. Intraindividual differences, on

the other hand, are probably more a product of contextual factors.

Several things which might be inferred erroneously from the

preceding discussion should be clarified. One is that there was no

intention of suggesting that the drinking and disinhibition link is

primarily a case of what Carpenter and Armenti (1972) called the

"planned consequences of alcohol use." Certainly there is that

potential, and no doubt people sometimes engage in drinking for

such specific purposes. However, what is more likely is that the

conditions (models, reinforcers, associations) simply are right for

learning a certain set of disinhibited drunken behaviors, so they

tend to be acquired and to occur in a conditioned fashion. In this

connection, it should be emphasized that the learned reactions to

drinking can be every bit as "real" and automatic as the alleged

physiologic reactions so often the exclusive target of alcoholbehavior researchers. This is not to ignore or minimize the role of

physiology in the effects of drinking (or other drug use), but it

would seem reasonable in light of the evidence to suggest that

pharmacological actions of substances simply alter states of consciousness. The meaning assigned to these changes is primarily a

Utz
86 LANG

matter of learned expectancies and other individual predispositions coupled with the physical and situational context. Thus, we

return to a biopsychosocial perspective.

Implications

Since the above psychological conceptualization is in essential

agreement with Mac Andrew and Edgerton's (1969) broader notion

of drinking as "time out," there is no need to repeaz their theory of

the societal function of such rule suspensions. Likewise, the more

recent ideas of Room (1980) about the possible role of drinking and

disinhibition in maintaining certain aspects of social structure

should be familiar. The question is, How should we proceed when

the negatives, particularly the violent aspects, of "time outs" appear

to be too great?

The obvious first step is to inform people of the prepotent role of

cultural beliefs in the drinking-disinhibition link. Research subjects and the general public alike always seem astounded to learn of

the expectancy effect or to hear about cultures where consuming

alcohol does not lead to greater expressions of aggression or sexuality. Next, our laws as well as our informal reactions to the deviant

behavior of drinkers need to reflect a new intolerance of undesirable disinhibitions, and hence enforce individual responsibility for

those actions we disdain. Finally, and this appears to be an underutilized option, there could be a general encouragement and acceptance of alternative ways of gaining psychological "time out." These

might include yoga, running, or other "positive addictions." There

also may be a value in permitting wider use of consciousness altering drugs other than alcohol (e.g., marijuana), drugs which do not

have the legacy of connections to violence but instead may disinhibit more benign behaviors.

References

Aarens, M.; Cameron, T.; Roizen, J.; Roizen, R.; Room, R.; Schneberk, D.; and

Wingard, D. Alcohol, Casualties and Crime. Special report prepared for the

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism under Contract No. (ADM)

281-76-0027. Berkeley, Calif.: Social Research Group. University of California.

1977.

Abel, G., and Blanchard. E. Thz measurement and generation of sexual arousal in

male sexual deviates. In: Hersen, M.; Eisler. R.; and Miller, P., eds. Progress

in Behavior Modification. Vol. 2. New York: Academic Press, 1976.

Abrams, D., and Wilson, G. Effects of alcohol on social anxiety in women: Cognitive

versus physiological processes. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 88: 161-173,

1979.

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PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 87

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1O3
Presenter's Comments

LANG: I want to start by making a kind of introduction about

how I got into the area of drinking and disinhibition as a research

interest in the first place. And I feel like this is a good opportunity to

give credit where credit is due. Actually, part of my interest comes

from my interest in American blues, and I'd like to play an excerpt from a blues album by B.B. King, which tells us a little about

drinking and disinhibition and how it is popularly thought of in

American culture.

In this recording he's not really singing; it's one of those talking

segments. Prior to this point where we're going to pick up on the

album, he's been telling a little bit about how men and women

mistreat each other and how they really ought not to do that, and

what the causes for it might be, and how one should address it. And

he's talked a little bit to the ladies about how they should be more

tolerant of their men, and now he's about to tell us a little bit about

the fellas and what they should do and the problems that they may

get into if they fail to adhere to moral standards ordinarily governing behavior. So he says to the fellas (recording paraphrased here):

Don't beat when she doesn't do as you think she should. That's not

something that's advisable to do; it can get you into trouble with the

judge as well as with your wife. But in the event that you should do

it, there may be some ways in which you can explain the behavior.

The song continues, saying that when he goofed last week he was

high. That was his explanation for his behavior at that time.

Next, he goes on to elaborate that if she lets him get by with that

excuse, then he looks at her "real pitiful like" and says that she

knows that when she's high it doesn't count.

I think that summarizes the point that I want to make here, that

drinking offers some explanation for certain behaviors that people

might engage in. It offers an excuse for behavior that tends to

exonerate the person of responsibility for whatever action took

place. Moreover, as B.B. King suggested, social acceptance of such

drinking attributions is critical to the maintenance of their use.

Now. I prefer to look at the area of drinking and disinhibition in

terms of three interactive processes. a kind of biopsychosocial perspective. I don't think that it's solely a psychological phenomenon.

91

lot
92 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

certainly. There are biologic and physiologic effects of alcohol per

se that are important in leading to the drinking and disinhibition

link that we've observed in many aspects of human behavior. As

Steve Woods has recounted, it has a direct stimulating effect at low

doses; but it has a depressing effect at high doses. So alcohol

increases arousal or decreases arousal depending on the dosage

level; we might talk of a "biphasic symptomatology" of alcohol. And

it also tends to enhance or impair the functioning of people in

significant areas: in sensorimotor functioning and in cognitive performance, in particular. In those areas usually we would say that

alcohol causes impaired performance, although there's some evidence to suggest that at low levels the stimulating effect might

actually enhance sensorimoter or cognitive performance. I think

what's important about that impairment of functioning or these

physical symptoms, as I refer to them, is that they facilitate our

experience of a change in our state of consciousness; that is, we feel

different than we do otherwise as a function of these physiologic

aspects of the effects of alcohol.

Now, these "feeling different" experiences are susceptible to conditioning, so that it may not actually be so important that we receive

substantial quantities of the drug in order to experience those

feelings, because with repeated exposures we become more sensitized to the physiologic effects of the drug, so it might just take a

little dose or we might even be able to manufacture those altered

states of consciousness of our own volition, particularly if the stimulus situation or circumstances are right. So, while the biological

action facilitates changes in states of consciousness, the extent,

direction. and meaning we ascribe to those changes in states of

consciousness might be quite a different matter.

In the psychological realm, I think what's important is that those

changes in states of consciousness and the behavior that is consequent of them have utility. If the person experiences a change in

state of consciousness, his behavior subsequently will change if it is

useful for him to have that behavior change that is, if there's some

value associated with it for that particular individual: if it makes

him feel better; if it lets him do things he wouldn't othenvise do, but

might like to do, etc. This utility aspect can occur at the interpersonal level. where other people in the environment may, for example. be more tolerant of a person's comportment when he's

intoxicated; and it can also occur at the intrapersonal level, where

the intoxicated person himself becomes more tolerant of differences in his own behavior.

This tolerance for drinking-related behaviors can be learned,

based on cultural beliefs about the effects of alcohol. It may also be

1 0
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 93

reinforced at the individual level as a self-serving aspect of drink

ing attributions; that is, attributing one's behavior to the beverages

that he or she has imbibed can have psychological benefits. By this I

mean that through drinking the person has an explanation for

whatever consequences might befall him. This has been referred to

by Jones and Berg las (1978) and others as a "self-handicapping"

strategy associated with drinking. What happens is the person

takes a drink before he engages in a particular behavior that might

have some uncertain outcome for him; for example, if I were to want

to ask a woman for a date, it might be useful for me to get drunk

before I did that because in the event that she turned me down, I

could say, "Well, I was drunk at the time; I wasn't operating at my

best, and that's the reason she refused me and I don't need to feel so

bad about it." If. on the other hanu, she accepts me in my request for

a date, then I have a bonus there because I can say, "Gee, she

accepted me and I wasn't operating at a hundred percent efficiency.

Imagine how great I would have been had I been completely sober

at the time." The point is that drinking may be psychologically

useful or reinforcing because it permits one to defend/enhance one's

self- concept.

At the social level, beyond particular social interactions, what is

most important about the beliefs that people have about drinking is

the certainty with which those beliefs are held. If there is a widespread consensus about how drinking affects a behavior, then that

behavior is much more likely to occur when drinking has preceded

it. If, however, there are uncertainties about whether drinking

leads to aggression or whether drinking leads to sexual disinhibition or whatever, Cien there may be an unevenness in the relationship between drinking and disinhibition with respect to those

particular kinds of behaviors. This certainty factor will influence

the consistency of the drinking-disinhibition link across contexts.

You have these three areas, then: the physical symptoms that give

rise to altered states of cor,sciousness; the interpretation of these

changes based on the utility they have as explanations of behavior;

and the certainty with which these beliefs apply culturally.

In my paper I've defined drinking in terms of the act of consuming beverages which the person and those around him think contain

alrohol. I've defined that rather than alcohol as the variable of

interest in the disinhibition phenomena because I think that what

I've demonstrated in the paper is that people's beliefs about what

they've been drinking may, in certain instances, be more important

than what they actually have been drinking. As far as disinhibition

is concerned. Dr. Pernanen (197(i) has, in his chapter on drinking

and aggression. really eloquently demonstrated the multiple defit 0
94 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

nitions of disinhibition. So, I've chosen in this talk and in my paper

to focus on disinhibition in the strictly descriptive sense; that is, the

disinhibited person is one who is engaging in behaviors that are

ordinarily under some kind of restraint because of social norms,

because of the values of the individual or perhaps because of some

internal state of the individual. For example, an evaluation apprehension or an anxiety about engaging in social interactions might

be disinhibited if the person were drinking. I think what experimental social psychology has done to enhance this understanding of

drinking and disinhibition is largely a methodologic contribution;

that is, we know a lot about how to control the independent variable,

drinking, and that helps us to understand better what the causal

link is between drinking and these behaviors that are of interest to

us.

I've chosen to focus in the paper on aggressive behavior, sociability, and sexual disinhibition because I think those are things that

come to mind most rapidly when we think of drinking and disinhibition. They are the most important socially significant interactions that are associated with drinking, although one might also

include casualties or accidents as a significant aspect. However,

casualties are not so amenable to the approach I am taking today.

The methodology for control of the independent variable in alcohol and behavior research has come a long way in the last twenty

years. But I think what has been neglected prior to the last five

years or so has been the influence or the importance of cognitive

factors; that is, people's beliefs about what they have been drinking

and how those beliefs might affect behavior. About seven or eight

years ago, alcohol researchers began to utilize a design which has

come to be called the "balanced placebo design" for control of the

cognitive or psychologic aspects of drinking, to separate them from

the physiologic aspects of drinking.

Let me try to describe this balanced placebo design for you. Early

on in alcohol and drug research, frequently a drug or other substance was administered as the active treatment, and a placebo

administration also was made. This was done in consideration of the

fact that people's beliefs or cognitions about what they were receiving may in some way influence their behavior subsequent to taking

the drug. The problem with this kind of design or its alternative

where persons all have the same expectations that they will be

receiving no active substance and then they may or may not in fact

actually receive an active substance is that the effects of expectations are not investigated. They are simply made uniform, since the

way in which they are controlled for is that they are held constant.

What we'd like to do in order to expand this perspective is to
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 95

separate the psychologic from the physiologic influences on subsequent behavior. To do this we need to utilize a completely crossed or

orthogonal design which enables us to manipulate not only the

actual beverage content that is, whether alcohol is present or absent but also people's expectations or beliefs about what they

have been receiving; that is, whether they think they're receiving

alcohol or they think they are not receiving alcohol.

That, basically, is the balanced placebo design that has now been

applied to an increasing number of the social phenomena that are

usually referred to in the disinhibition literature. I've chosen to

include not only the aggression and sexuality aspects but also the

sociability aspects of disinhibition because I think that they offer

some explanation for why, at a broader social level, drinking is

tolerated at all. If drinking were only associated with increased

aggression, or sexual violence, or the like, I think there would

probably be an outcry and Prohibition might have worked. But

most of us have the belief that when we are drinking we'll be more

sociable, more pleasant, that we'll enjoy the celebration more, so on

and so forth; and those aspects of disinhibition, in a sense, also are

important and need to be explored i connection with this disinhibition hypothesis.

Now, in the area of aggression, the theories of the effects of

alcohol or drinking on behavior have generally fallen into two

categories. One is that there is a physiologic explanation; alcohol

itself operates through some pharmacologic mechanism to trigger

aggressive behavior or energize aggressive behavior in a more or

less specific way; or it tends to release aggressive behavior if we

assume that aggression is somehow part of our natural desire

naturally desired behavior. Those physiologic explanations can be

contrasted with more psychologic or social learning explanations

that have been put forth by MacAndrew and Edgerton (1969),

among others. The social learning explanation focuses on the psychological utility, and perhaps social utility, of a belief that alcohol

leads to disinhibition.

A number of studies have been conducted to try to separate these

factors. For the most part, what has been found is that when the

expectancy factor that I've described has not been controlled for,

there has been a general increase in aggressive behavior as a consequence of receiving alcohol. In other words, when people were

administered alcohol they tended to behave more aggressively in

the laboratory experimental situation than when they had not

received alcohol, provided that their expectations were the same;

that is, all of them thought that they had received alcohol.

Subsequent research which has employed the balanced placebo

1 J
96 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

design, however, has presented a somewhat different picture. In a

laboratory study, some of my colleagues and myself decided that

what we would do is to apply the balanced placebo design in a

situation that involved an opportunity for aggressive behavior on

the part of the subject. These were male subjects who were all heavy

drinkers, by their own self-report. We selected that subject population because we felt it appropriate to choose people who had some

experience with drinking rather than people who only drank

occasionally because the cognitive effects of alcohol or drinking

on behavior were seen as being less likely in this latter group.

We had the subjects drink alcoholic beverages or nonalcoholic

beverages when they either expected to be drinking alcoholic beverages or nonalcoholic beverages. That is, we had the four cells of

the balanced placebo design. Then, they had a verbal interaction

with a confederate in our experiment. In one case, the experimental

confederate was very critical of their performance on a difficult

visual motor task; in other words, he was insulting to them, provoked them, criticized them. In the other case, they had a neutral or

actually mildly positive interaction with the confederate, who commiserated with them about how difficult the task had been.

I wanted to look at this provocation difference because there is

some suggestion from the animal literature on conflict, that maybe

one of the reasons that drinking facilitates aggression is that there

is a reduced sensitivity to the restraints on behavior, so when intoxicated organisms are provoked, they tend to focus on that provocation. They respond primarily to that particular stimulus,

neglecting cues that might lead to avoidance of conflict. Thus, they

may be more easily provoked and more aggressive under those

circumstances.

Well, what we found was that subjects who expected to receive

alcohol, regardless of what they had actually received, behaved in a

more aggressive manner. They were more willing to give high

intensity shocks ce their partner in an experimental learning paradigm; they gave longer duration shocks; they were more verbally

abusive in the interactions with that subject than they were if they

expected to receive only tonic that is, if they thought they had

been drinking only tonic water. Provocation had an overall main

effect; that is. people who were provoked behaved somewhat more

aggressively than people who were not. But that did not interact in

any way with either the alcohol manipulation or the expectancy

manipulation. So, provocation, when manipulated systematically

in this study, did not account for much of the presumed effect of

disinhibition in altering aggression levels. Basically, aggression
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 97

was promoted by the belief that one had consumed alcohol, independent of whether or not one actually had.

EHLERS: Is the confederate blind to the paradigm?

LANG: Yes. As a matter of fact, everyone is blind as to the

contents of the beverages and to the condition of the particular

subject, except an assistant who mixed and served the drinks.

Well, that experiment touched off an interest in the exploration of

expectancy effects or psychological effects of drinking on a variety

of other behaviors that have usually been associated with disinhibition including sexuality and sociability.

The principal finding in the sexuality literature parallels the

finding that we had here in the aggression literature; that is, that

persons, particularly male subjects, who believe they have been

drinking will become more sexually aroused in response to erotic

stimuli than males who think they have not been drinking, regardless of the actual contents of their beverages.

Now, given what Steve Woods just pointed out, this is a rather

remarkable finding since the physiologic effect of alcohol on sexual

response is to lower responsivity. You should have just the reverse

occurring, but it appears that cognitive expectancy exerts an overwhelming effect and seems to counteract those physiologic actions

of alcohol, which are to reduce sexual responsivity. So, people who

believe that they have been drinking are more responsive than

people who believe they have not been drinking.

PHILIP TETLOCK: You're measuring arousal through selfreports?

LANG: Actually, several studies have been done using subjective self-reports, and using direct physiologic measures, penile

plethysmography, for example, and the results have been parallel,

at least for males; both physiologic measures and subjective reports

of sexual arousal are enhanced by the belief that one has been

drinking, whereas the actual pharmacologic action was not significantly determinative of the response, at least where low to moderate doses of alcohol were involved.

The findings are somewhat different in the literature on female

sexual responsivity. There is a mixed pattern of results when one is

examining the effects of expectations on sexual response in women,

such that in females the expectancy that one has been drinking

increases subjective reports of arousal but decreases physiologic

effects of drinking on arousal. There are some papers on possible

explanations for that phenomenon, but I won't go into them at this

point,

I think what's important is that there are differences between

males and females which provide us with some information about

1.1.2
98 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

what the cultural expectations are or what the expectations of the

individual subjects are regarding alcohol's effects, and about how

they might influence the behavior that is subsequently observed.

Women, apparently, don't have as strong a belief that alcohol will

enhance their sexual responsivity as males do, and, consequently, it

seems to exert a less significant influence in situations where that

expectation has been manipulated. The effects of alcohol and expectations on social anxiety also reveal a similar gender difference.

Now I'll just make a few summary statements. First, I think what

the balanced placebo or expectancy literature demonstrates is that

in some instances, particularly where low to moderate doses of

alcohol are concerned, the expectation or belief that one has been

drinking leads to changes in behavior that have ordinarily been

labeled as disinhibition, whereas the actual imbibing of the beverage does not seem to exert an important effect. Gender differences

and individual differences data support the notion that the strength

of beliefs or the certainty of beliefs in different groups mediates

that expectancy effect.

Second, I don't think it's too important whether we attribute to

the persons who are drinking the motive that they are trying to gain

access to this kind of freer or less disinhibited behavioral set, or

whether we view it as a kind of conditioning phenomenon that is,

that they have learned that people are more tolerant of them when

they're engaging in this behavior, and consequently resort to it

almost as an automatic response. I think either of those hypotheses

has some viability. I don't think we have the data at the present time

to determine to what extent people engage in drinking intentionally

to gain access to this freer set of social constraints, or to what extent

this is simply a learned response to these cues associated with

drinking.

Third, I think the implication from this research for what we

ought to do, if we think there are untoward consequences of drinking, is to inform people about the extent to which drinking actually

affects these behaviors, at least as we are best able to ascertain. This

may alter the contingencies associated with behavior following

drinking, so that, for example, we may become less tolerant of

aggressive behavior in drinkers, and, consequently, reduce that

connection.

And, finally, I think we ought to generate alternative ways that

people can gain access to pleasant, altered states of consciousness

that don't carry with them all this excess baggage of aggression or

negative behavior toward other people. Thank you.

ROIZEN: You talked about belief being variable both in the

sense of expectations and in the sense of the subject's actual beliefs

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PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 99

about what effects alcohol has. The sex difference you mentioned

between men and women in regard to sexual arousal seems in a

sense to go back to the implicit theory that there might be two

cultures, one for men and one for women, about what expectations

surround their drinking; and perhaps, when they interact with

each other, there are two sets of beliefs. But your designs don't

include measures concerning the level of belief and intensity of

belief, as distinguished from the expectation of getting alcohol or

not getting. alcohol. Is it proper to read that as a kind of tacit

statement that, after all, the belief intensity is not that important?

LANG: Well, no, I think not. I think that the intensity is probably quite important, as I implied, though perhaps did not state

directly. I think it's a weakness in the research to date, for the most

part, that belief intensity has not been taken into consideration. We

have some survey data that suggests that there are differences

between men and women, for example, in the extent to which they

believe alcohol will lead to aggression or the extent to which they

believe it will lead to increased sexual responsivity.

But, for the most part, while subjects might have been asked

about this as part of the study, it has not been systematically varied.

It might have been inquired of them prior to participation in the

experiment: "What do you think the effects of drinking will be on

you?" But, for the most part, that has not been controlled in any kind

of systematic way. But I think there's some potential there to look at

the different kinds of beliefs, as I think I suggested in the paper in

some detail in the discussion about surveys. I think they're

important.

ROIZEN: In the survey analysis, it appears, for example, that

not only is there a variation in the belief that's quite substantial, but

also that people's beliefs about alcohol in general may be quite

different from their beliefs about alcohol's effects on themselves.

The question of exactly which belief we're referring to in these

kinds of experiments seems very important, and yet, virtually not

present in the designs.

LANG: I think the survey research does point to a difference in

beliefs between what it does to me and what it does to other people.

But I think for the most part, those differences don't make too much

of a difference when respondents get into an actual situation. While

the belief is something like: "This affects other people and makes

them less inhibited, but that doesn't happen to me," when you put

them in a study it does happen to them.

ROOM: This is a point I think we'll be picking up again.
Commentary

Kai Pernanen

ROOM: Kai Pernanen is giving the commentary on this area.

Kai's work relevant to this conference includes a landmark review

and conceptual analysis on the relation of alcohol and violence

(Pernanen 1976).

PERNANEN: In trying to explain the link between alcohol use

and so-called "disinhibited" behavior, we're dealing with at least

two very broad and central areas of research on alcohol. First of all,

course, we are dealing with the effects of alcohol use. Here the

concept of alcohol use should be taken very broadly as including the

social definitions or social circumstances surrounding the consumption of alcohol.

On the other hand, we are also in the midst of questions regarding

causes of alcohol use, why do people drink, and the functions of

alcohol use in our society. Both these aspects come out well in Dr.

Lang's paper, and the relatedness of these two questions is underscored by his own and other researchers' studies on the effects of

expectancies and beliefs regarding alcohol and alcohol-related

behavior.

I am a firm believer in the idea that cultural and situational

factors are very central in determining behavior in drinking

events. Still, when I read Alan Lang's paper, I had the feeling that I

had gotten more than I had bargained for. Here we have extremely

well-designed experimental research which points toward a link

between alcohol use and disinhibited behavior, not through the

main effects of alcohol, through physiological and/or psychological

processes and this I think we can easily live with and not

through any interactive effects of alcohol use and situational or

cultural factors, but only through the main effects of cultural and

situational determinants.

In my own armchair theorizing, I have sought to bring together

cultural and situational factors with some fairly well-established

effects of alcohol on cognition in order to arrive at explanations

which would incorporate these effects and at the same time bring in

an indeterminate number of cultural/situational determinants into

100

115
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 101

a model in which some of alcohol's cognitive effects interact with

these cultural/situational determinants and then lead to quite varied types of behavior in connection with drinking. This was done

partly in an effort to get away from too simplistic disinhibition

explanations, which seemed to act as effective dampers on research

in the field.

Yet, here we are. There's no question that the results obtained

through the balanced placebo design by Alan Lang, Marlatt, Wilson, and other researchers in respect to the exclusive effects of

expectancies regarding alcohol are valid, replicable, and very

important for an accounting of disinhibited behavior in alcohol use

events.

I will discuss some of the questions that arise from these findings,

but first I feel called upon to discuss some logical and linguistic

properties of the concept of disinhibition, since it already has been

used in at least three different and important ways in the first two

papers summarized here this morning and since it is highly relevant to the theme of this conference: "Alcohol and Disinhibition:

The Nature and Meaning of the Link."

First of all, the most deceptive property of disinhibition is probably the fact that it is essentially formal in nature as a concept. It can

describe any number of causal processes. This can be seen, for

example, from the fact that a number of different substantive

processes in different fields of inquiry have been used as theoretical

substantiation of a disinhibition process, In the first place, it is

illuminating, regarding the formal nature of the concept, that (if I read the paper by Dr. Woods correctly) disinhibited behavior can

perhaps come about through what could be called alcohol's "inhibiting" effect on the transmission of neural signals, In other words, we

may speak of an "inhibition" process which explains disinhibited

behavior and make perfectly good sense. This circumstance may

help us in avoiding the tendency to assume a single referent of the

term and a single type of use of the concept.

Secondly, the other widely accepted use of the term is as a description of behavior as being disinhibited. Largely, this is a synonym for behavior which is contrary to the norms of the individual

and/or society or deviant in one way or another. This extension from

the first formal explanatory use which refers to a process of disinhibition is easily understood if we compare it to the other concepts which work in the same way. When we talk of "alienation" as a

sociological concept. we may refer to the end product ofa process of

alienation, or a state of being alienated. or we may refer to the

process through which one ends up being alienated. These two, the

end result and the process, may not have very much in common, just
102 PERNANEN: COMMENTARY

as a process of disinhibition may not have much in common with the

end result of being disinhibited.

Thirdly, we have the use of the concept of disinhibition where the

stress, in a sense, is on inhibition; that is, for the concept to be

applied something has to be inhibited and released from this condition so as to become disinhibition: the process we can then call

"disinhibition." This is a concept which is probably, at least historically, connected with psychoanalytic theory of inhibitions, and the

whole structure perhaps of id, superego, and ego. The use of the

concept in explaining behavior under the influence of alcohol may

well have its roots in this type of theorizing. In Dr. Lang's own

research, there is at least one finding which could be incorporated

in such a use of the concept: subjects who exhibit more feelings of

sex guilt show higher disinhibition. Similarly, Hetherington and

Wray (1964), in a study which was carried out in the 1960's, found

that socially inhibited subjects :how more disinhibited behavior

after alcohol use than do other subjects.

I have to commend Dr. Lang for setting out in the beginning of

the paper that he is concerned purely with the descriptive aspect of

the concept as it refers to a type of behavior which is against the

usual norms and values of the individual.

I hope that this is not seen as lengthy nitpicking. It is important

that we keep these references apart in order to avoid some of the

pitfalls of the past. As I said, we have already at least touched on

these three aspects of the concept in the first two papers summarized here this morning and also in the discussion.

Now, let me get into some substantive issues raised by Dr. Lang's

paper. First of all, we must be ever aware of the different dimensions and values of dimensions for what we in a shorthand fashion

refer to as drinking or alcohol use, etc. Several of these may be

relevant in explaining behavior in alcohol use events, including

disinhibited behavior. In specifying the nature of the alcohol variable, social research has riot used nearly all the means available to

aid in disentangling the associations between alcohol use and disinhibited behavior. This is especially true of the most common form of

disinhibition studied by social research methods: violent crimes. No

good data exist on the associational share in these violent events of

different types of beverage consumed with different congener contents, amounts consumed. drinking patterns such as binge drinking and some situational, contextual, and even predisposing

factors of potential or known relevance.

In exi.:icating the influences of expectancies as compared to

pharmacological effects of alcohol, the experimenters using the

balanced placebo design have concentrated on the most central

1.1. 7
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 103

indicator of alcohol use, the one which has been most widely studied

by experimental methods: the blood alcohol level, and this is, of

course, a good choice. We need, perhaps, not complicate things at

this stage by bringing in other dimensions of alcohol use, which at

least on the surface seem less likely to be of causal significance for a

presumed relationship between alcohol use and disinhibited behavior, but we should keep them in mind as well as the limitations on

blood alcohol levels in the expectancy studies carried out to date.

And this is something that Dr. Lang has pointed out himself. Perhaps it would seem of more immediate concern to specify the nature

of the expectancies regarding alcohol and to relate these specifications to social beliefs. Thus, one could ask, as just an example, is

there more of an expectancy effect on aggressiveness connected

with distilled spirits than with wine or beer because, perhaps,

they are consumed in different circumstances and have different

types of social beliefs surrounding them, and, perhaps, there will

even be differences between different types of distilled spirits

and this should also be related to independent social research studies on beliefs about the different types of alcoholic beverages. Is

wine drinking, for example, more strongly related, through expectancies, to sociability and intimacy or even sexuality than liquor

and especially beer? Perhaps at least in certain subpopulations.

In short, qualitative specification of expectancies in experimental research as related to social beliefs in the population from which

subjects are drawn would solidify the more speculative connection

drawn in expectancy studies to its social basis in beliefs and reinforcements of behavior. The findings on expectancy effects make

even more desirable than before an integrated research strategy

using social research methods such as surveys and ethnographic

observations and, ideally, using the same population base in

psychological experimental studies.

Despite the clear methodological advantages of the balanced

placebo design, 1 think we should not disregard findings from

studies which have not used this experimental design. At least it

seems that we should take into consideration findings which have

been reached in double-blind designs with the "unbalanced"

placebo design, as someone might call it. The reason for this is

simply that, althougii expectations as to the contents of the beverage consumed are not systematically varied, this design is completely congruent, with two of the cells in the two-by-two table of

alcohol expectancy and alcohol content of the drink the subjects

consumed. Thus, although studies by Zeichner and Pihl and Taylor

and Gammon did not have a no-alcohol expectancy condition, unless

we assume block effects or other sequential effects or some other
104 PERNANEN: COMMENTARY

such effects, this does not impair the validity of their results for the

two cells of the alcohol-expectancy condition. And here we find

interesting discrepancies in the results, and we should ask what

differences in the experimental set-up these could arise from. For

example, Zeichner and Pihl (1979, 1980) and Taylor and Gammon

(1975) find both main effects and interactive effects of actual alcohol consumption on measures of aggressiveness, whereas in the

balanced placebo studies under the same conditions no diffE rences

were found.

The fact that there is an expectancy effect of this magnitude does

not mean and Dr. Lang has been very careful to point this out

that there are no real effects of alcohol which are relevant in

explaining social behavior; in fact, he outlined a social learning

theory to explain these expectancy effects.

There are some intriguing questions about how the expectancies

arise. If there should be no actual physiological effects which are

relevant to disinhibited behavior, I think this would be an important area for study. Is it just that we extrapolate from, for example,

the real extreme reactions to alcohol by biologically or psychologically atypical individuals with perhaps atypical consumption patterns? Or, is it a generalization from the effects of alcohol on

psychomotor abilities? Or, to borrow Mac Andrew and Edgerton's

term, on physical comportment? Anyway, we need to think this

through.

As I mentioned, I personally do not think that alcohol is totally

inactive in determining behavior and social interaction in alcohol

use events, and the whole discussion by Dr. Lang points to the

necessity of taking into account the whole range of dimensions and

values of dimensions such as different blood alcohol levels in

assessing the potentially causal role of alcohol in disinhibited

behavior. And so does his brief discussion of the two theories which

are based on alcohol's possible effects on cognition, but which do not

seem to take into account the explanatory significance of expectancies regarding alcohol and its effects.

Culture, pharmacology and psychology are all relevant, and

probably relevant to different degrees in different subpopulations

with different drinking patterns and beliefs about drinking. The

task of those who want to advance the field is to try to disentangle

these influences and work out the pharmacological aspects, the

cultural aspects, the expectancy aspects the symbolic and rhetorical, the social utility or voluntaristic, if you will aspects of the

link. All these things are important. And as I heard Robin Room

say: We should note that the cultural factors should not be viewed as

being less real than the pharmacological ones.

1.19
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 105

It seems to me that we are on the threshold of some exciting

developments in the field of explanation of behavior connected with

alcohol use and also of reasons why people drink. After a long period

of what seems like narrow, causalistic thinking on alcohol effects,

on the one hand, and insightful and valid but somewhat disparate

voluntaristic descriptions of alcohol effects including the lost

wisdoms of anthropology we seem to be on the verge of consolidating the knowledge gained from these traditions and, hopefully,

also integrating research approacheg which would grow out of such

a consolidation. The experimental findings on the powerful effects

of expectancies on drunken comportment are extremely important.

But, as Dr. Lang correctly points out, we are merely beginning at

the beginning of a theoretical and hopefully methodologically integrated effort which should prove very fruitful.

1
Discussion

JOY LELAND: I want to ask Dr. Lang a question. I was interested in what you saw in the way of policy implications from your

findings and your suggestion that we might just tell people about

these expectancy effects and see what this ;:d. Could you use that in

an experiment?

I was looking through your paper. I think you mentioned that

someone else had done that in a way either telling people that

behavior was going to be altered in a certain way or it wasn't going

to be just providing information about expectancy effects and

what we know about them and filtering that into the experiment.

Wouldn't that be sort of fun?

LANG: Well, aside from possibly being fun, the findings from

efforts to manipulate people's expectations about what the effects

will be rather than their expectations about what they're receiving

suggest that that's not a very powerful manipulation; that is, if you

tell people that alcohol is going to make you do something that you

don't think it's going to make you do, you tend not to believe it and

behave accordingly. So, that has not proven to be a very fruitful way

of exploring this connection.

As for looking at whether or rot manipulating or telling people

what the actual expectation effect is and showing them how that

might subsequently influence their behavior, I expect that, since

most of the subjects in these experiments were undergraduates who

weren't particularly enamored with participating in the experiments in the first place, their inclination would be to disprove

whatever your theory was if they had a chance to do it. And I see

that there would be considerable difficulties associated with trying

to implement that kind of design; in other words, it might be fun for

them but not for the experimenter.

MARLATT: We've done some work with problem drinkers who

have very strong belief systems about the role of alcohol and their

need for it; for example, somebody who really believes that drinking does make them feel really relaxed after a hard day at the office

and so forth. I've actually brought people like that in at the end of a

hard day and had them have a drink which is actually devoid of any

alcoholic content in this one particular case I have in mind, a man

108

121
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 107

who customarily drank a couple of beers very quickly right after

work, we gave him near beer, which doesn't contain any alcohol to

speak of, instead of the real beer, and we had him talk about how it

felt. Yes, it does feel very relaxing and so forth and then told him

that in fact this was not due to the alcohol itself. In many cases, that

has a real impact on the person's own belief system about how much

they think they need alcohol to produce certain kinds of effects. And

it seems that with people who depend on alcohol or have strong

belief systems about the effects of alcohol on their own behavior that

this procedure can after attO)utional systems in such a way as to at

least get your foot in the door when you're working with them.

LELANI): It sounds as if it might be kind of dangerous to the

experimenter, too, if the guy gets mad enough.

LANG: They're usually delighted to have free alcohol, or what

they think is free alcohol.

JAMES MOSHER: This morning we had a short discussion on

the difficulties of going from animal behavior to human behavior

and from laboratory behavior to outside behavior. Do you want to

comment on your experiments in that light? What are the difficulties in translating your results into more complex settings, such as

in bars.

LANG: I think it's certainly a significant problem, as I pointed

out in the paper, and I think the direction that we need to go even in

laboratory studies is toward looking more at actual interactions.

The studies that have been described here, even those that involved

more than one person, for the most part haven't been interactions;

they've been one person behaving in the presence of another person.

The other person either has some programmed way of behaving, or

is not behaving at all, or is maybe riot even there but the subject

thinks that they're there, that sort of thing. I think that really

minimizes the knowledge that we might gain from laboratory studies. We might look, for example, at conversational patterns and

verbal communication in the laboratory as a function of expectancy

manipulation as being one possible aspect that has really not been

explored to date.

LUM: I want to ask Alan and Kai whether or not there have been

any studies that try to look at expectancies from a social class

standpoint. I was thinking about videotaping a whole bunch of

typical scenes, such as well-dressed people in E igland drinking,

and then stage a fight after, and then having people in the lab look

at that and a whole series of such tableaux, and sit and talk about

their expectancies with regard to these typical scenes.

LANG: No. As a matter of fact though, one of the things that a

colleague of mine in the Sociology Department at the Florida State

1-)') 40 4,
108 DISCUSSION

University is currently planning is something very similar to what

you've described: staging a variety of interactions between people

and then giving the observers information, different information

about whether or not they've been drinking and what explanations

they give for their behavior under those circumstances. But, you've

suggested a new idea, which might be to vary the dress or other

characteristics of the individuals in the settings to see how that

might affect their behavior also.

EHLERS: I thought it was interesting in the beginning of your

paper, Dr. Lang, that you chose subjects who considered themselves

to be heavy social drinkers versus subjects without much drinking

experience. And there's been a common point made that I think is

important, and that is that the ritualization or behavioral tolerance

to alcohol may be an important preceding factor in the response

that the person would have in the experiment, especially on a single

trial basis.

LANG: Well, I think if people have a lot of experience with

drinking, building up their pharmacologic and behavioral tolerance, they also have lots of experience with what the consequences

of drinking are for themselves and with what the attitudes of the

persons around them regarding their behavior while inebriated

might be. And, in fact, it appears that fooling subjects, if you will, in

these balanced placebo designs is much simpler with persons who

are heavy drinkers because they have built up an anticipation of

what reactions the cues will set off for them, and that includes both

physiological cues and the social implications of those cues.

So. I think it's a point well taken, and as Dr. Pernanen has

mentioned in trying to contrast the findings of Taylor and his

colleagues and Pihl and his colleagues, one of the differences

between those studies and the studies that I've described was that

we exclusively selected people who were heavy drinkers, who might

have systematically different expectations than those who were

used in the other research, and this could at least partially account

for the fact that we did not get an actual alcohol effect, whereas they

did in the other studies.

EHLERS: I just want to say one other thing, and that is that in

some classic studies in the early development of the brain opiate

system it was found, in an analgesia study where the person was

expecting an analgesic or placebo and where the drug had an

analgesic effect or a painkiller effect, that it was, in fact, related to

brain endorphin levels in response to the placebo. This indicates

that there may be a physiological response to taking the placebo,

which may be correlated to the same effect that the drug itself

produces (Levine et al. 1978). So, there still may be a physiological

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PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 109

link even though it's disassociated, particularly with someone having an expectation or ritualized response set different from the

pharmacological response.

LANG: The work of Siegel and his colleagues (Hinson and Siegel 1980), though, suggests that actually the reverse should happen.

He's demonstrated that there is a drug compensatory reaction that

is developed, presumably through a classical conditioning phenomenon, such that. that person's physiologic reactions, when the drug

cues are present. are counteractive to the actual effects of the drug.

So. what we should anticipate if a placebo were given is that those

counteractive effects would occur rather than a facilitative effect.

EHLERS: That depends on whether they've had prior experiences with the drug or not.

LANG: It might be difficult for us to find subjects who have not

had prior experiences with alcohol.

MARSHALL: I wanted to come back to a point that Dr. Pernanen raised in his definitions of disinhibition, because one of the

definitions you gave bothered me a lot, and that is you defined

disinhibition as being behaviors that are in violation of or contravene social norms; I think we have to rethink that idea, because

disinhibition, as you're using it there, may be, in fact, quite in

keeping with social norms in the drinking context; certain kinds of

disinhibited behaviors might be viewed as normal rather than

deviant behavior in certain contexts where people are drinking. The word "deviant" always bothers me, and it came up in that

definition, so I just wanted to get this out on the table as something we might kick around.

PERNANEN: Yes.

PARTANEN: I have a very trivial question concerning those

really, truly shocking results you showed us about the inefficiency

of alcohol. Have there been any balanced placebo experiments with

blood alcohol levels well above the .1% level? In real-life situations

one could expect that it would be far beyond that.

LANG: Well, I don't know whether one would expect that it

would be far beyond that, but in answer to your question, no, there

haven't been.

PARTANEN: You mentioned this as a reservation in the

differences.

LANG: Well, it's difficult to tell to what extent alcohol might

affect behavior at levels of .20, for example. In part, the difficulty

from an experimental point of view is maintaining the deception

at that level. When people are falling down drunk, you know, it's

difficult for you to tell them they haven't received anything. That

attempt would defy a man's credulity.

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110 DISCUSSION

MOSHER: Perhaps the link between alcohol and violence is

actually performing a function in the society. Alcohol provides an

explanation and is in some sense an excuse for such violence.

LANG: Yes, I agree. The point was made in Mac Andrew and

Edgerton's book, and Robin Room's (Room 1980) paper says that

there's a kind of a structural maintenance of the current social

structure that is facilitated by these expectations. And I think that

there is a broader social function rather than just the individual

level that I focused on.

JOAN SILVERMAN: I'm an historian, not a social scientist,

but in the Nineteenth Century, especially towards the end, alcohol

was an explanation for everything that was wrong in the country.

This was Eden and alcohol was the serpent, and it explained all the

problems that existed: the paupers, and then the divorce, and the

high accident rate, and everything was heaped on that. And that,

apparently, is an American attitude. Hofstadter (1955) has

addressed himself to this. It's looking for a scapegoat, and alcohol is

certainly at least in the literature of the Nineteenth Century

"the" scapegoat for everything that was wrong in the society.

ROOM: I think this is a good introduction to this afternoon. Herb

Fingarette gets the last word.

FINGARETTE: My last word is that I find the scapegoat theory and the excuse theory, as an explanation of why people drink or

how people view drinkers who get into trouble, a very "provocative"

kind of explanation. It seems entirely plausible that something of

this kind operates, but it is an explanation which leaves more

questions than it answers; if you know that something is going to

make you irresponsible, then what is the psychology or the moral

reasoning whichever way you want of drinking alcohol while

knowing this? That is, how could you view yourself as excusable for

your future irresponsible conduct if, as we are assuming, you

believed even at the time you took the alcohol that it would make you

irresponsible, disinhibited? How can that possibly make sense psychologically or logically? It seems to me that question is generally

not addressed, and the more you think about it, the more puzzling

and basic it becomes.

MARSHALL: That assumes human behavior to be sensible.

ROOM: Well, we'll have time for more discussion of that.

125
The Good Creature of God and the

Demon Rum:

Colonial American and 19th

Century Ideas About Alcohol, Crime, and Accidents*

Harry Gene Levine

Prefacer

This paper was first drafted several years ago in conjunction with

the "Alcohol, Casualties, and Crime" study conducted by the Social

Research Group, University of California, Berkeley. The casualty

project was a large-scale review of the literature on the relationship

of alcohol to what were termed "serious events," essentially crimes

and accidents. I was commissioned to prepare a short report on

historical aspects of the question, along the lines of a paper I had

written tracing ideas about alcohol addiction. I had done quite a bit

of research and thinking about the Temperance movement and the

history of the liquor problem in America, but the question of "casualties" was not one I had ever considered. The assignment was a sort

of exercise for me: Given what I knew, and what I could learn

quickly, what could I say about the question?

My personal agenda involved broadening my understanding of

the ways Americans have interpreted the relationship of alcohol to

'References and footnotes are combined for this paper and appear as endnotes.

ti have cannibalized the paper for other projects. Some of the material on Temperance appears in "Temperance and Women in 19th Century America," in: 0. Kalant

(ed.), Research Advances in Alcohol and Drug Problems, Vol. V. New York: Plenum

Press, 1980. Much of it was used in my dissertation, "Demon of the Middle Class:

Liquor, Self-Control, and Temperance Ideology in America," University of California, Berkeley, 1978. An earlier version was presented at the annual meetings of the

Society for the Study of Social Problems. Chicago, September 1977. Work on the

original paper was in part supported under a contract from the National Institute on

Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, ADM-281-760027 to the social Research Group,

School of Public Health, University of Califomiia. Berkeley.

111

t it-3
112 LEVINE

the individual and to society I had become convinced that many of

the ways the "alcohol problem" is defined today were first. articulated in their essential forms at the beginning of the 19th century

when physicians and laymen associated with the Temperance

movement argued for a new view of alcohol as a dangerous and

destructive substance. The new view of alcohol and its effects

quickly became part of scientific and popular understanding and

continues to shape thought today. My earlier paper had traced the

birth of the contemporary idea of addiction, suggesting that the

condition and experience of the habitual drunkard was fundamentally reinterpreted or reconstructed at the end of the 18th century. I

now wanted to use the casualty project paper as a way of looking at

how ideas about an incident of drunkenness differed from one

period to the next. I was sure there had been significant changes,

though I was not at all sure what they were.

The paper was to have been a fast and easy once-over, but I

became fascinated and overwhelmed by the data and the conceptual questions, and it grew far longer and more detailed than ever

imagined. I also became involved in the intellectual questions of the

casualty project and my focus was developed in regular conversations with the directors of the study, Robin Room and Ron Roizen.

Ultimately, I never really wrote the paper they wanted, nor what I

had hoped to do. As a way of arranging evidence and argument, I

grafted the conceptual division suggested by the work of MacAndrew and Edgerton onto my historical schema in order to set up a

discussion of what to me was the really interesting questioa: the

200-year medical and popular obsession with self-control and selfrestraint. However, the paper directly addresses that point only in

the final 10 pages of the text. Much of the paper sorts through and

arrays the differing ideas about alcohol as a cause of crime or

accidents in the colonial period and the 19th century. Finally,

because no one had ever done anything like this, I was encouraged

to include lots of evidence and examples that could be used by

others. My paper became, therefore, something ofan archive for the

casualty project and for further work on the question.

I have presented the paper at sociology meetings, and it has been

circulated within the alcohol field, but I have never published it in a

journal. Partly I always thought I would find time to cut and

rewrite it; partly I was never satisfied with the focus on causality,

and some generalizations about it and other issues. When I fint

wrote this paper I included ideas about both alcohol and drunkenness as a cause. I have revised the paper for this conference focusing

exclusively as possible on ideas only about alcohol as a cause of

crime and accidents. There is clearly a major difference between
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 113

viewing alcohol or drunkenness as a cause of something; I hope one

topic of this conference will be exploring the different implications and assumptions involved in making alcohol or drunkenness (or

other things) the independent variable in causal statements.

Introduction

The history of ideas or sociology of knowledge about alcohol

problems does not exist as a field or body of literature. There is only

one monograph on American drinking practices and attitudes

before the 20th century, and it covers only the 50 years between

1790 and 1840 (Rorabaugh 1979). Outside of a handful of studies on

the Temperance movement, there is almost nothing systematic written on 17th, 18th, or 19th century American attitudes about

drinking or drunkenness.

This paper attempts to chart colonial and 19th century American

thought about the relationship of alcohol to crime and accidents. It

should be frankly noted at the outset that thisreport is tentative and

somewhat speculative. It is covering almost 300 years of American

history, discussing a question which has never been treated before.

Thus it only attempts to outline broad features of American thought

on the topic, suggesting certain fundamental continuities, as well as

discontinuities and shifts. This paper, then, is just a beginning; it is

hoped that further work will refine and add to the points made here. We are concerned here with short-term incidentsas opposed to

chronic conditions; such incidents or "serious events" can be divided

into two types:

Accidents in which individuals inadvertently harm themselves

or others (falls, drownings, transportation, industrial, and fire

accidents); and

Crimes or acts of violence and aggression against people or property (rape, fights, brawls, family beatings, murder, robbery, theft, muggings, arson, and suicide).

The focus here is on how Americans have perceived the relationship

between alcohol and these events, and particularly whether alcohol

was thought to cause them. Like the few other students of the

history of American attitudes toward drink (Gusfield, Krout, Rorabaugh), I have found significant differences between the colonial

period and the 19th century. Indeed, one aim of this paper is to

clarify and extend what is known about those differences.

To analyze how Americans have perceived the effects of alcohol

on behavior, I have adapted the two broad categories described by

MacAndrew and Edgertor, (1969). I call these deviant physical

comportment and deviant social comportment.

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By deviant physical comportment I mean things like stumbling,

falling, mispronouncing words, and passing out, Mac Andrew and

Edgerton argue that all cultures and societies which have regularly

used alcoholic beverages have believed that alcohol consumed in

sufficient quantities causes some physical incapacity. Given

enough alcohol, individuals lose some coordination and balance;

they become dizzy, and even lose consciousness. Alcohol affects

sensorimotor capacities, and drunkenness is a state of being temporarily physically handicapped. Thus alcohol or drunkenness

might be said to cause accidents, as in the ease of a drunken individual who falls into a well or drives into a tree.

By deviant social comportment I mean illegal, immoral, unethical, dnful, or just bad behaviorbehavior which violates norms.

values, or laws about proper conduct. MacAndrew and Edgerton

point out that while in all societies drunken persons manifest

deviant physical comportment (staggering, etc.), in only some cultures and societies do they manifest deviant social comportment. In

societies where individuals do act immorally or criminally when

drunk, there are a number of themes employed to explain how

alcohol causes such behavior. It is said that alcohol heightens passions, animal impulses, and desires: that it weakens moral controls,

the conscience, or super-ego: that it affects higher portions of the

brain; and that drinking alcohol involves possession by spirits,

demons, or the devil. Many Americans in the 19th century believed

at least some of the above. On the other hand, people in other

cultures and societies, including colonial America, observed that

drinking or drunkenness accompanied or preceded deviant social

behavior, but they did not believe alcohol was the cause of the

deviant behavior. In this paper, therefore, I am expanding on

MacAndrew and Edgerton's thesis. I am suggesting that in some of

the cultures and historical periods in which there is a considerable

amount of deviant social comportment while drunk, people do not

explain that deviant behavior with reference to the effect of alcohol.

In the following pages, first for the colonial period, and then for

the 19th century, I briefly review important drinking patterns and

examine thought about the relationship of liquor to deviant social

and physical comportment (crime and accidents). Finally, in the

conclusion, I discuss some of the social and ideological underpinnings of the idea of alcohol as disinhibitor (1).

12a
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 115

Colonial America

Colonial America has a "reputation for earthiness and lustiness"

and even Puritan New England manifested a spirit we, today,

identify as "Elizabethan" (2). Called the "Good Creature of God"

even by Puritans, liquor, and especially rum, was an unequivocal

good and an essential part of life. According to Rorabaugh, doctors

prescribed rum for "colds, fever, snakebites, frosted toes, and

broken legs. As a medication it was both a pain reliever and a

stimulant, Rum was also regarded as a relaxant. It would cure

depression by raising spirits, relieve tension by creating mirth." (3)

John Allen Krout, the foremost historian of the early Temperance

movement, summed up colonial attitudes about alcohol thusly:

Parents gave it to children for many of the minor ills of

childhood, and its wholesomeness for those in health, it

appeared, was only surpassed by its healing properties in

case of disease. No other element seemed capable of

satisfying so many human needs. It contributed to the

success of any festive occasion and inspirited those in

sorrow and distress. It gave courage to the soldier, endurance to the traveller, foresight to the statesman, and

inspiration to the preacher. It sustained the sailor and the

plowman, the trader and the trapper. By it were lighted

the fires of revelry and of devotion. Few doubted that it

was a great boon to mankind.(4)

The predominant drinking pattern in the 17th century was the

regular, daily, use of alcohol in moderate quantities, with some

incidence of drunkenness. The tavern was a key institution, the

center of social and political life. Frequently iodated near the meeting house, it provided the main source of secular recreation and

entertainment. Wedding parties, funerals, and even church services were held in the tavern. Running a tavern was regarded as

important and responsible business and, like every other aspect of

life, taverns were carefully regulated by the ruling class; in New

England, for example, tavern owners were supposed to make sure

that their patrons did not get drunk. Drunkenness did, of course,

occur with considerable frequency. and the stocks, whippings.

fines, and wearing the red letter "D" were among the punishments

meted out, especially to lower class individuals (5).

The degree of drinking and drunkenness at all levels of society

was considerable. One writer suggested the drinking at ministers'

funerals could be taken as an indication of larger drinking patterns. For example, in 1685 at the funeral of Reverend Tnomas

('obbett, the mourners consumed a barrel of wine and two barrels of
116 LEVINE

cider (6). Outside of New England, things were not at all restrained;

according to Edmund Morgan, the tobacco boom in 17th-century

Virginia produced an enormous demand for alcoholic beverages.

The thirst of Virginians became notorious in England,

and the ships that sailed up the James River were heavily

freighted with sack and strong waters, even if they neglected to bring more solid fare....The ships that anchored

in Virginia's great rivers every summer were, as one

settler observed, moving taverns....The Virginians

crowded aboard and drank away their promises and

their profits. Anything that smelled of alcohol would

sell.(7)

By the early 1700s, drinking and drunkenness had increased, and

they continued to do so throughout the 18th century. Rum manufacture began around 1700 and, mixed with juices, rum became a

favored drink. The general pattern for the 18th century was for

men and women to drink alcohol everyday, at all times throughout

the day, and in large quantities on almost every special occasion.

The respectable elements of society, especially the upper and

upper middle classes, set a prodigious drinking standard. Ministers' ordinations are often mentioned as occasions of heavy drinking. According to one visitor, Captain Francis Goelet, the upper classes of Boston, especially the prospering mercantilists, had a

"very merry" social life, which included parties, tavern hopping,

and drinking until dawn(8). At a dinner honoring the French

Ambassador, New York Governor George Clinton and his 120

dinner guests consumed "135 bottles of Madeira, 36 of port, 60 of

English beer, and 30 bowls of rum punch." In the Southern colonies

things were no different. According to William Byrd, during Virginia's Quarter Session "people 'came to court and got drunk.' On

election days, he 'walked to the courthouse, where the people were

most of them drunk'....Even the gatherings of the colony's most

important men were accompanied by liquor. When the Council of

State convened, they were furnished regularly with a brandy

punch. At many of these meetings Byrd and his colleagues 'were

merry and almost drunk.' "(9)

The lower class at least equaled, and probably exceeded, the

standards set by the upper class. Over the course of the 18th century

taverns multiplied in number, became centers for working class

social life, and were less and less under the direct control of the elite

groups(10). Workers received a daily allotment of rum, and certain

days were set aside for drunken bouts; in some cases employers paid

for the liquor. For example, George Washington's agreement with

his gardener included "four dollars at Christmas with which he

1 3 .1
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 117

may be drunk for four days and nights; two dollars at Easter to

effect the same purpose; two dollars at Whitsuntide to be drunk for

two days."(11) Heavy drinking was also part of special occasions

like corn huskings, barn raising, court and meeting days, and

especially training days. Even by the beginning of the 18th century,

Cotton Mather was complaining that "Training Days become little

other than Drinking Days."(12) And in Virginia, after one militia

drill, William Byrd provided a punch which, he observed, "entertained all the people and made them drunk."(13)

The universality of alcoholic beverages for much of the 18th

century, and for the early 19th century as well, has been aptly

described by William Rorabaugh, who writes:

The drinking of alcohol was pervasive in American culture; it crossed regional, sexual, racial, and class lines.

Americans drank at home and abroad, alone and

together, at work and at play, in fun and in earnest. They

drank from the crack of dawn to the crack of dawn. At

night taverns were crowded with boisterous, uproarious,

mirthmaking tipplers. Americans drank before meals,

with meals, and after meals. They drank while working

in the fields, and while travelling across half a continent.

They drank at formal events such as weddings, ministerial ordinations, and wakes, and on informal occasions

by the fireside, or on a hot day when the mood called.(14)

In short, colonial Americans drank and drank and drank and they

got drunk.

Physical Comportment and Accidents

Colonials were well aware that alcohol consumed in sufficient

quantities affected physical or sensorimotor capacities. Connecticut law described a drunk person as someone "bereaved or disabled

in his use of his understanding, appearing in his speech or gesture."

And in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the colonial government defined

a drunken individual as a person "that lisps or falters in his speech

by reason of drink, or that staggers in his going or that vomits or

cannot follow his calling."(15) On the more everyday level, one

historian of early America suggested that some colonials, at least,

subscribed to the following definition of drunkenness:

Not drunk is he who from the floor,

Can rise again and still drink more,

But drunk is he who prostrate lies,

Without the power to drink or rise.(16)

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In a similar vein, Ebenezer Cook reported in the original Sot-Weed

Factor that on a Maryland court day, "A Herd of Planters on the

ground, O'er-whelmed with Punch, dead drunk we found."(17)

Colonials also believed accidents resulted from people being

physically affected by alcohol. Carl Br idenbaugh found that notices

of deaths from drunkenness "appeared frequently in the newspapers." For example, a New York newspaper reported in 1764 that

Margaret Jones "drank too freely of spirituous liquor, fell from the

Main Deck into the hold of the Coventry man of war . . . and was

killed." And in 1728, a Benjamin Douglass of Newport was killed

while relieving himself: "being in drink and going into a little house

he fell down from ye seat and broke his neck."(18) One Puritan

minister suggested that some people, "by their being drowned first

in Drink, have been exposed to a second drowning in the

Water."(19) Finally, there may have been cases where some persons

literally drank themselves to death. In 1741 Philadelphia newspapers reported a girl "about 4 or 5 years of Age, died by drinking a

large quantity of Rum."(20)

A poem, "The Danger of Excessive Drinking," captured well, if in

somewhat exaggerated form, the casualties thought to result from

drinking too much alcohol.

How many fall down by the way,

Are killed in the dark.

And so their lives are swept away,

This often we may remark.

Liable to fall into the fire,

And there to burn to death.

Then suddenly they must expire,

To flame must yield their breath,

Seamen their spirits to inflame,

Scarce able for to steer.

So thousands perish in the main,

Large numbers every year.

Some almost perish with the cold,

And others freeze to death.

So many die before they're old,

So they lose their breath.

The problem addressed by this last verse, that people got so drunk

they did not realize how cold it was, was probably not unusual given

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GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 119

the drinking habits and the northern winters. Another point made

in the poem, and also made by Cotton Mather (1708) in a sermon,

was that soldiers might be injured or killed in battle because they

were drunk. The colonial period was marked by a number of wars,

and although drink was an essential part of the soldiers' ration,

excessive drinking could make one incapable of fighting very well.

Some generals upon the land,

Their armies are made small.

By this we sometimes understand,

Many of them do fall.(21)

The types of accidents discussed in the poem, and also in newspaper accounts and sermons, were ones in which the only injury was

sustained by the drinker; intoxicated individuals f411, froze,

drowned, and got beaten up. Colonials did not seem to worry much

about drunken people inadvertently injuring others. Probably the

best example was the case of fire. Fire was a terribly serious

problem for colonials, and throughout the period they constantly

sought means of controlling it. Though they were ever on the lookout for the causes of accidental fires, it seems not to have occurred to

colonials to blame drinking alcohol. They did, however, find

another common habit to blame. Massachusetts lawmakers forbid

smoking "out of doors" because, as they put it, "fires have been often

occasioned by taking tobacco." Similarly, Pennsylvania officials

ordered fines for anyone who "shall presume to smoke tobacco in the

streets of Philadelphia either by day or night." The comparison

with alcohol is striking: In Charlestown, for example, the night

watch, whose major duties included watching for fires, were given

permits to sell liquor. Indeed, alcoholic beverages played an important role vis-a-vis fires, but not the one we might expect, as Bridenbaugh has pointed out.

Panic stricken Bostonians prayed fervently to Jehovah,

and bravely sought to arrest the progress of each fire

when it broke out, but with the methods then known

there was little they could do beyond saving their movable property. On such occasions, to revive their flagging

courage, they depended upon other than heavenly stimulants, as in 1672 when Nathaniel Bishop, innkeeper,

supplied 3.6 worth of "beer" at Mrs. Oliver's fire, "by

Order of the Deputy Governor and some of the select

men." Contemporary opinion clearly endorsed the theory

that, "There's naught no doubt so much the spirit calms,

As rum and true religion."(22)

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Social Comportment and Crime

In general, colonial Americans thought the effects of alcohol on

the mind and body were overwhelmingly positive. However, colonials made two particular complaints about the effects of a bout of

heavy drinking on social behavior.

For some members of the colonial elite, and especially Puritan

ministers, the first order of complaint about drunkenness was

simply with the state itselfdrunkenness was sinful. "Now Drunkenness is a Vice which the Lord both in the Law and the Gospel hath

strictly prohibited." Lawmakers defined drunkenness as judged by physical comportment as an offense, and in New England. at least,

punished people for it. In religious and secular terms, drunkenness was a disorderly state(23).

Second. the colonial elite condemned the idleness they found

intimately connected with drunkenness. Drinking to the point of drunkenness often meant that one was not working or following

one's calling; further, ifone drank enough one was unable to work

physically incapable of it. For Protestants generally, and Puritans

especially, work was required and demanded by God. Moreover,

idleness concerned the masters and supervisors of indentured servants, apprentices, laborers, and slaves. The relationship of drunkenness to labor discipline was explained well by Ernest Cherrington, the Prohibition movement's own historian.

Early efforts in the Massachusetts Colony to prevent the

sale of intoxicating liquors to servants and apprentices

were due to economic rather than to humanitarian

motives . . and were not championed by the early colo- nists for any other reasons than that which grew out of class distinction, which was strongly marked in the early

days of American history. The time and services of servants and apprentices were supposed to belong absolutely to their masters and principals. Consequently any

time spent in loitering, drunkenness, or even in idling

around public inns, was so much lost time; hence the

early regulations against the sale to servants and

apprentices were purely conservation measures from the

view point of the master and employer.

As in England, employers believed that more money for workers

"would only mean more time lost in drunkenness." In the Southern

colonies masters were convinced their laborers were "shiftless,

irresponsible, unfaithful, ungrateful, dishonest; and that they got drunk whenever possible." Employers tried to prevent their laborers from getting drunk in order to keep them working(24). In short,

1 33
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 121

colonials believed that alcohol in sufficient quantities caused two

particular deviant social behaviors the physical state of drunkenness, and idleness(25).

Except with regard to Indians, and perhaps habitual drunkards,

both of which we will discuss later, colonial Americans did not in

general believe that the effect of alcohol on the mind or body caused

people to act wild, rowdy, or immorally. They did not believe alcohol caused people to fight, brawl, attack, mug, rob, or beat each

other up; they did not think it caused men to rape women, or parents

to beat their children. In short, colonials did not believe alcohol

caused people to be physically aggressive or violent; they did not

believe alcohol caused crime.

There is no doubt that colonials recognized that drinking and

drunkenness preceded and often accompanied violent and criminal

behavior. Rioters, brawlers, robbers, muggers, and murderers

were often drunk. Although colonists noticed that lawbreakers

were drunk, they did not believe alcohol caused lawbreaking, and

they usually explained the association between drunkenness and

crime without referring to the effect of alcohol on the mind or body.

Often they focused on the tavern. During the 18th century, taverns increasingly moved out from under elite control and became

autonomous centers of lower class social and political life. Workers

spent evenings and free time there, as did prostitutes, criminals,

and the unemployed. People met their friends and neighbors in the

tavern, gambled, and plotted various activities. Wealthy and powerful colonials believed taverns were seedbeds of disorder. John

Adams tried unsuccessfully to reduce the number, and Benjamin

Franklin labelled them a pest. In fact, probably the main drinkingand drunkenness-related complaint made during the period was

about taverns. Drunkenness was associated with crime and violence, it was thought, because the main place where one would get

drunk was also the place where one would be encouraged to engage

in all sorts of illegal or immoral activities. Thus while alcoholic

beverages were not seen as a cause of crime and violence, the lower

class tavern was(26).

Colonial Americans had a number of explanations for why

drunken individuals engaged in violent or criminal behavior.

Besides blaming the tavern, colonials blamed the lack of police or

military force, the irresponsibility of the night watch, various political and economic factors, a lack of religiosity among people, and

the natural depravity of human beings. And perhaps the most

common explanation was simply that people who committed

crimes, drunk or not, were bad peoplethe "rabble"(27).

In general, drunkenness was not so much seen as the cause of

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deviant social behaviorin particular crime and violenceas it

was construed as a sign that an individual was willing to engage in

such behavior. Ministers, especially Puritans, believed that drunkenness opened one to the devil: by getting drunk, or by frequently

getting drunk, a person was in essence admitting a willingness to do

the Devil's work. A more secularized version of this identified

drunkenness as a sinful, "unclean," or disorderly act, and allowed

that after having committed one such act a person would be more

willing to commit othersa variation on "well now that I've gotten

my hands dirty, I might as well keep going." In colonial society, the

act of getting drunk was interpreted by both participant and

observer as an indication that the drinker was willing to take "time

out." By getting drunk one was, in effect, saying "I choose not to act

according to strict morality," and depending upon the case the

observer might reasonably conclude that other immoral, illegal, or

deviant acts would follow.

Habitual Drunkards

Puritan ministers were the only group to imply that alcohol

caused colonists to behave illegally or immorally, and they almost

always did so only in relation to drunkards or habitual drunkards.

Given the ubiquity of alcoholic beverages, even the most righteous

might occasionally or accidentally become, as Increase Mather put

it, "merely drunken." The ministers, therefore, directed their

attacks against repeated drunkenness and against the drunkard.

For Puritans, an incident of drunkenness was a disorderly state.

Regular or habitual drunkenness, therefore, was a kind of permanent disorder of both behavior and personality. As Samuel Danforth explained, such a condition could incline people to commit "all

tholes Sins to which they are either by nature or Custom inclined."

Making a similar point, Cotton Mather called drunkenness "this

Engine of the Devil"(28).

Puritan ministers implied that liquor caused crime, but they

were bound by the logic of their theology which always made the

individual responsible for moral choices. To have said that alcohol

caused crime would have been to say that under certain conditions

people are unable to do God's will. In Freedom of the Will (1754),

Jonathan Edwards offered one of the best summations of the Puritan position. He wrote:

It cannot be truly said, according to the ordinary use of

language that a malicious man, let him be never so malicious, cannot hold his hand from striking, or that he is not

able to show his neighbor kindness; or that a drunkard,

1 3
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 123

let his appetite be never so strong, cannot keep the cup

from his mouth. In the strictest propriety of speech, a

man has a thing in his power if he has it in his choice or at

his election. . . . Therefore, in these things, to ascribe a

non-performance to the want of power or ability, is not

just.(29)

Thus ministers chose their words carefully and did not claim that

alcoholic beverages caused sin. Alcohol was a "creature of God" and

could no more cause sin than, say, a piece of wood; thus even when

describing the consequences of habitual drunkenness, Puritans

avoided causal language(30).

Indians

As noted earlier, the only times colonials routinely considered

alcohol a cause of crime or violence was with regard to Indians. All

the colonies had laws forbidding the sale of liquor to Indians. The

laws, however, were only erratically enforcedthere was profitable trade with Indians. The restrictions, based on the settlers' fears

and fantasies about Indian violence, appeared to have some basis in

reality. Europeans introduced Indians to alcohol, and the natives

seemed to respond to it explosively; Indians sometimes did exhibit

significant degrees of aggressive and violent behavior while drunk.

In Drunken Comportment (1969), MacAndrew and Edgerton

review a number of first-hand accounts of Indian drinking and

report that both Europeans and Indians explained the aggressive,

violent, and sexual behavior of Indians by referring to alcohol. One

observer in Nova Scotia in 1693 said: "The brandy that they drink

without moderation, carries them to obscenities and extremities of

fury and cruelty which are unimaginable. They slaughter one

another, they murder one another like ferocious beasts; being

drunk they disfigure their faces." Another anonymous report in

1705 claimed: "Everyone knows the passion of the savages for this

liquor, and the fatal effects that it produces on them....The village

or cabin in which the savages drink brandy is an image of hell." In

1750, a French priest noted: "The savagesespecially the Illinois,

who are the gentlest and most tractable of menbecome when

intoxicated, madmen and wild beasts. They fall upon one another,

stab with their knives, and tear one another."(31)

These sorts of statements about the effects of liquor on Indians

were made early in the 17th century, and commonly repeated

throughout the colonial period; but such statements were rarely made about whites. Further, Indians themselves regularly

explained their own behavior while drunk by referring to the

.1 3j
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effects of alcohol. In the 1630s, after one Indian had killed a

member of his own tribe, a Father Le June was told: "It was brandy

and not the Savage who had committed this murder....'Put thy wine and thy brandy in prison,' they say; 'It is thy drinks that do all the

evil, and not we.' "(32) In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin

told of being sent, around 1750, to negotiate a treaty with the

"Indians at Carlisle." He refused to sell them any liquor while they

were doing business "as those people are extremely apt to get drunk

and when so are very quarrelsome and disorderly." After the treaty

was settled, however, Franklin supplied them with enough for a big

party. "They were all drunk," he wrote, "men and women, quarrelling and fighting . . . running after and beating one another with

firebrands." The next day the Indians "sent three of their old counsellors to make apology. The orator acknowledged the fault, but laid

it upon the rum."(33)

Like whites, Indians sometimes engaged in a variety of aggres- sive, violent, and "out of bounds" behaviors while drunk. And, like

whites, sometimes they did not. MacAndrew and Edgerton docu- ment many cases where Indians got drunk and simply sat around,

talked, prayed, or fell asleep. The authors' aim in amassing a range of examples of different types of drunken comportment, from a variety of cultures around the world, is to utterly discredit the

contemporary idea that alcohol as a drug or chemical affects the brain or body so as to produce deviant social behavior. They sug- gest, instead, that drunken comportment is learned and normatively regulated behavior. In many cultures, drinking to the point of drunkenness is part of something they call "time out " --a socially

`.`sanctioned time and place for doing many things that would be

categorically inexcusable under normal circumstances."(34) Thus

one learns how to act when drunk, including the kinds of situations

which are time out and those which are not. Indians, they argue,

introduced to alcohol by whites, learned how to act when drunk from

watching whites.

MacAndrew and Edgerton's brilliant reformulation of the question of drunken behavior is essentially correct(35). Indeed, one aim

of this paper is to extend and locate their insights in historical

terms. I am suggesting that the ideological horse they ferociously

try to beat to deaththe idea that alcohol dissolves super-egoshas

a history, at least with regard to crime and v ;olence. Only at the end

of the 18th century do European-Americans begin to talk seriously

about alcohol as a cause of their own criminal and violent behavior.

And not until the 19th century did large numbers of whites believe

that alcohol affected their behavior in the same way as it did

Indians.

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GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 125

To sum up: Colonial Americans drank a great deal of alcohol

often to drunkenness. They noticed its effects on physical comportment, and they believed it affected the body in such a way as to

cause accidents. Colonials also believed that liquor consumed in

sufficient quantities caused idleness and drunken comportment,

and both were judged by some people as sinful or illegal. In the

overwhelming majority of cases, colonial Americans did not believe

alcohol affected the mind or body so as to cause violence or crime.

They noticed that drunkenness frequently accompanied violent and

criminal behavior, and they had theological, political, economic,

and other explanations for that association. Moreover, there were

two apparent contradictions in colonial thought about the relationship of alcohol and drunkenness to crime and violence.

A handful of Puritan ministers, the one group of all colonials most

concerned with issues of self-control and self-discipline, came closest to describing drunkenness as a condition in which violent

impulses were beyond control. Drunkenness was clearly a disorderly state, and the ministers believed that people who regularly

consume intoxicating amounts of alcohol were more likely to commit crimes, but to have said that alcohol caused crime would have

taken responsibility away from the individual and made alcohol a

force or power beyond the control of the will. As Perry Miller has

pointed out, for Puritans, other than God's will, "there can be no

compulsion upon man"; the individual always had the freedom to

choose to sin or not(36). The Devil or God could be held responsible

for human events, but a physical object like alcohol could not. In

short, drunkenness was viewed as a sign or indicator of depravity

and not as a cause of it.

Second, although colonials were not willing to blame their own

deviant social behavior on liquor, they were quite willing to say that

alcohol caused Indians to act violently. A full discussion of why

colonials believed liquor caused Indians to be violent and criminal

is not possible here, but a few things should be noted. For the

European settlers, Indians were radically different creatures from

whites; they were savages, almost a different species. Indians did

not live like or conduct themselves like Europeans. Colonials

believed that Indians were naturally violent and bloodthirsty and

that they were compelled by their natures in ways that whites were

not. That liquor might also compel Indians to act violently was not

difficult for colonials to accept. Further, Indians blamed alcohol for

their own deviant behavior while drunk. Indians said that liquor

made them violent and in the absence of other explanations for the

behavior, and knowing very little about the natives, colonists were

willing to take Indians at their word(37).
126 LEVINE

In short, colonials had little difficulty maintaining two different

assumptions about the effects of liquor: one for Indians, and one for

whites. However, in the 19th centurywhen whites came to regard

the effects of liquor on themselves in much the same way as colo- nials had described liquor's effects on Indiansthe two images came together. In a sense, only during the 19th century, when whites came to recognize and fear the "Indian" in themselvesthe

uncontrolled savage withindid alcohol as a substance become

problematic.

Nineteenth Century

The 50-year period from roughly 1776 to 1826 marked a transition in American thought about the problematic consequences of

drinking and drunkenness. At the beginning of the period alcohol

was the good creature of God for virtually everyone; by the end a

significant and rapidly growing minority had concluded that distilled liquor was a demon, and within another 20 years millions of Americans had pledged to give up use of alcoholic beverages

entirely. The new view of alcohol was part of a larger social and

economic transformation; changes in drinking patterns were part of that transformation, and they, in turn, provided fuel and evi- dence for the new image of alcohol as a demon.

Drinking Patterns

According to Rorabaugh, during the first 31/2 decades of the 19th

century, per capita consumption rose among most people, espe- cially the working classes. However, he suggests that a decline began to appear among the upper and upper middle classes. The

new abstemious pattern, or at least the much less frequent use of

alcohol, quickly spread after 1830 to a broad cross section of the

middle class, and even certain sections of the workingclass. For the

rest of the 19th century (and the 20th century as well), consumption

remained significantly below the 18th and early 19th century

levels.

The strongest support for total abstinence came from native

born, middle and upper middle class Protestants. In the 19th century. for the middle class and middle class aspiring, alcoholic beverages were tabooed. Abstinence was part of the middle class

lifestyle, justified in terms of a whole system of values and ideals.

The lower classes, on the other hand, retained well into the century

the older traditional view of alcohol as a "good creature" and the

141
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 127

tendency toward frequent and heavy use. The only study bearing on

drinking in the general population during the period implies that

regardless of sex and ethnicity, the poor and working class drank

more than the middle class and wealthy(38).

One of the most significant differences between colonial times

and the 19th century was the status accorded the tavern the main

drinking-related social institution. In the colonial period the tavern

had been an important part of social and community life; in the 19th

century, the tavern was stigmatized, identified with the lower

classes and immigrants, and an essentially male preserve. In the

19th century the saloon was where middle class men went slumming, and where all men went to get away from their families.

Further, while some colonials had complained about people who

spent too much time in taverns, the 19th century featured the full

flowering of a heavy-drinking subculture, isolated and stigmatized

by the more respectable elements of the community(39).

For our purposes, the most important change in drinking patterns was the development among the middle class of a pattern

which William Rorabaugh has called "individual binge drinking"(40). As drinking alcohol became excluded from more and

more parts of everyday life and associated with nonfamily and

nonwork activities, it became increasingly disreputable to have

even one drink. Further, as the pace of rapidly developing capitalist

society came to demand a high degree of organization and discipline in one's daily life, "drinking time" came also to be a time to let

go of the impulses and desires ordinarily kept in check. For men

especially, when the pressures of maintaining control in work or

family life built up, to get really drunk was one of the only outlets

available it was "time out." Thus if a respectable man was ever to

go to a prostitute, beat his wife, get in a fight, or do anything he

would not ordinarily do, he would very likely drink before doing it

or would do it when drunk. To get drunk was to abandon both

respectability and self-control. Further, the middle and upper class

domination of political and economic life restricted drinking times

for the working classes as well. For factory workers on 12-hour

schedules, for miners, railroad workers, and lumberjacks, one or

two nights a week were set aside for play which in many cases

meant getting drunk. Drunkenness was socially structured as a

time for letting go and forgetting the hard labor of the rest of the

week. For both middle and working classes, then, to get drunk was

to enter a time and space in which one did not worry about selfcontrol and self-discipline,

14
128 LEVINE

The Temperance Movement

The Quaker reformer Anthony Benezet, today most noted for his

antislavery efforts, wrote what one Temperance writer called the

first American Temperance pamphlet. Benezet's attack on ardent

spirits, entitled "The Mighty Destroyer Displayed," concentrated

on liquor's detrimental effect on health, religiosity, and worker

efficiency. Benezet did not describe specific immoral or illegal acts

which result from consuming spirits, but he did make a general

statement about the effects of spirits on passions, morality, and

religiosity.

The most afflictive and dreadful effect of the common use

of distilled spirituous liquors is that it not only heightens

the passions of men and depraves their morals, but what

is infinitely worse, and ought to be an awakening consideration, they become prophane and abandoned, and to

the last degree regardless of their duty to God and man;

the feelings of the mind are gradually benumbed, and an

insensibility to the healing influence of religion

ensues.(41)

Benezet was not the first American to say such things; ministers

had occasionally made similar statements about the excessive use of

alcohol, and about habitual drunkenness, and many colonists had

said such things about Indians. Benezet's statement was unique,

however, because it was couched in the general framework of a case

against all use of distilled liquors. For the first time someone was

unambiguously claiming that liquor caused bad behavior.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, prominent American physician and a disciple of Benezet's, played the key role in launching the antispirits

crusade, and eventually the total-abstinence movement. In "An

Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits," first published in 1784

and revised a number of times, Rush, like Benezet, focused on issues

of health and disease, but he also listed specific immoral, illegal,

and violent acts which he thought were directly caused by consuming spirits. According to Rush, distilled spirits:

impair the memory, debilitate the understanding, and

pervert the moral faculties. . .They produce not only

falsehood, but fraud, theft, uncleanliness, and murder.

Like the demoniac mentioned in the New Testament,

their name is "legion," for they convey into the soul a host

of vices and crimes.(42)

Rush's case against distilled liquor provided fuel for a growing

concern about drinking and drunkenness as increasing numbers of

wealthy and powerful Americans became concerned with the
GOOD CREATURE OF GUI) AND DEMON RUM 129

effects of liquor on morality, order, and worker discipline. Major Protestant denominations issued statements discouraging their

members from using spirits, and some churches prohibited it entirely. Temperance societies were formed in many parts of the

country, but before 1826 Temperance societies were primarily elite organizations, split on the question of whether they should encourage moderation in all drinks, or abstinence from spirits and moderation in beer and wine. By 1826, with the formation ofthe American

Temperance Union, "Temperance" meant abstinence from distilled liquor, and by 1836 the Temperance crusade had become a

mass movement committed to total abstinence from all alcoholic

beverages. A new medical and popular understandingof the effects

of alcohol on the mind and body had arrived.

The following discussion of 19th century thought about alcohol will concentrate on the ideology of the Temperance movement, for several reasons.

First of all, Temperance ideology was in part a product of changes in popular thought about alcohol, and the Temperance

movement in turn shaped and changed popular opinion. The belief

that liquor was the Good Creature did not die out, of course, and it

was continually reinforced by the perspectives of immigrants from

different cultural traditions. But the image of liquor as the merry- maker and cure-all tonic existed under the shadow of the Demon

Rum. Nineteenth century Americans, especially middle class Protestants, lived in a society in which a whole series of assumptions and images about alcohol as a powerful and destructive substance

made sense. People had at their disposal, in everyday terms, a

symbol system in which alcohol was pernicious and evil. When

contemporary writers talk about American ambivalence about

alcohol, what they are groping to describe is the coexistence of two

different gestalts of the relationship of alcohol to social life. In one

picture, alcohol is medicine; in the other, it is poison. Both are plausible and both at times fit the facts. In one gestalt, alcohol

makes people merry and sociable; in the other, itbrings out destructive impulses and destroys moral sensibilities. Since the early 19th

century both images have been part of the popular culture and

imagination of the American people. The Temperance movement developed the most articulate and elaborate version of the image of alcohol as destroyer. And Temperance ideology offered the fullest

use of alcohol as an explanation for social problems in particular crime and violence(43).

Second, throughout the century the total abstinence position was extremely popular, and Temperance forces were very well organized. The Temperance movement was the largest enduring, secular
130 LEVINE

mass movement in 19th century America: doctors, lawyers, ministers, presidents, judges, Congressmen, and Senators, and a legion of

elected officials, businessmen, merchants, laborers, farmers, and

their wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters, supported the campaign to rid the Nation of alcohol. Temperance forces combined the

pressure of their own formidable organizations with the weight of

all the major Protestant denominations, a sizable contingent of

Catholics, labor groups, farm groups, and numerous civic and professional associations. Temperance supporters turned out an enormous quantity of literature including pamphlets, articles, books,

novels, short stories, plays, poetry, and songs, and major newspapers and magazines lent editorial support to the Temperance line.

The power and impact of Temperance ideology is, perhaps, best

illustrated by the fruit of the efforts of Edward C. Delavan, a

wealthy merchant from Albany, New York. To a statement condemning the use of distilled liquor, Delavan secured the signatures

of the following Presidents of the United States: Madison, Adams,

,Jackson, Van Buren, Tyler, Polk. Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Lincoln,

and Johnson(44). Temperance ideology was respectable, respected,

and not to be taken lightly.

Finally, for much of the century there was little ongoing organized opposition to Temperance. In local political conflicts, antiTemperance support came from the alcohol beverage industry,

immigrants groupsespecially Germans, some merchants, and

various ad hoc groupings. Outside of the liquor industry, there was

no one interested in spending a great deal of time and energy

refuting the argument that alcohol was a terrible evil and the cause

of so many social problems. Further, because the campaign against

alcoholic beverages began with the everyday observation that

drunken individuals engaged in "time out" behaviorthat people

did things when drunk they would not do when sobermuch of the

Temperance argument appeared to be common sense. Anti-

. Temperance forces, therefore, were in the defensive position of

trying to minimize the number of problems caused by liquor. In the

major campaigns against prohibition, anti-Temperance groups

tended to avoid taking on Prohibitionist. arguments directly. It

must be remembered that the Temperance movement flourished

;luring fir capitalism when the political ideal (though not

the reality) was of little or no State intervention in people's lives.

Thus anti-Temperance writers and speakers focused on the issue of

freedom: freedom to do whatever one wants, and freedom from

government interference in private affairs and business. Hence,

while a massive literature of Temperance arguments and facts was

developed, until the 20th century there was no systematic body of

143
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 131

anti-Temperance facts and positions. And even when they did

write, anti-Temperance advocates did not, for obvious reasons,

make detailed arguments about the social problems resulting from

alcohol use(45).

In short, because it WES so popular, well organized, respectable,

and credible, the Temperance movement defined the terms of what

became known as "the alcohol problem" in America. No one

doubted that alcohol caused some problems; the only issue was

which ones and to what extent.

Physical Comportment and Accidents

Like colonials, 19th century Americans believed that sufficient

quantities of alcohol made people lose balance, stumble, fall down,

and even pass out. Newspapers reported in some detail various

accidents and injuries which resulted from drink. For example, in

Main Street on the Middle Border, Lewis Atherton noted that small

town newspapers were filled with stories of alcohol-induced

accidents.

Newspapers and diarists constantly referred to tragedies resulting from intoxication. John E. Young of the

little town of Athens, Illinois, recorded the death of a

local physician in 1893 from an overdose of morphine

following a drunken spree; the serious injury to a local

citizen, who fell off the railroad car while on a "tare" in

Springfield on the fourth of July, 1894; the loss of an arm

by "old man Hess," who fell under a train at the local

depot while on a Christmas drunk in 1895.(46)

Such incidents were part of the regular life experience of most

Americans. Nearly everybody knew or heard of someone who was

injured or almost injured while drunk. Henry Conklin, in his

memoirs about his "hard-scrapple" boyhood in New York, told of

his father's almost freezing to death because he was too drunk to

walk home to their farm. One time, after dragging his father in

from the snow, Conklin was so upset that he swore that liquor would

never touch his lips. Given the widespread apprehension about the

effects of liquor, reactions like young Henry's were probably not

uncommon(47).

Those people most concerned with showing any unfortunate consequence of drink, including accidents, were Temperance oriented.

Accidents were not a major theme of Temperance speeches and

literature, mainly because there were much more dramatic and

awful things to talk about, but they were sometimes mentioned. A

14G
132 LEVINE

pamphlet titled "Who Killed the Man," issued around 1875 by the National Temperance Society, focused on the question of accidental deaths. After explaining that a drunken man was run over by a

train, the pamphlet went through an entire cast of characters from

the engineer of the train to the bartender, the distiller, the doctor,

the minister, the victim's Wife, and so on, trying to determine who

was responsible for the man's death. The point, of course, was that

his death was not really an accident, but was caused by liquor and

an environment which sanctioned and encouraged drinking.

Another tract published about the same time was about a woman

who mistakenly drank poison and died, the moral being the dangers of drinking anything but water. One of the more bizarre accidents, which some Temperance writers described, occurred when a

drinker's breath ignited and the njuries. One study of sentimental

fiction in the 19th century considered, in a somewhat humorous

vein, the question of alcohol-related deaths, and cataloged an amazing variety of alcohol-related fatalities(48).

For Temperance supporters, and for many middle class Americans, the single most important negative effect of alcohol was that it

weakened or destroyed self-control. The facts that drunken individuals did not walk well, talk well, think well, or act morally were all manifestations of alcohol's effects on the system of inner controls.

Thus Americans at the time did not divide the effects of alcohol

between physical comportment and social comportment. If some- one raised it as a question, a Temperance speaker would have

claimed it to be a legitimate but not very useful way of separating

problems. He or she would have suggested instead categories based

on alcohol's effects on religious behavior and sentiment, on intellectual capacities, on moral fibre, on political judgment, on work

performance, on social responsibility, and so on. The liquor problem, as it came to be defined in the 19th century, centered on grand

social issues: crime, poverty, violence, family problems, health, business productivity, individual mobility, and financial success

and failure. That drunken individuals sometimes inadvertently

injured themselves or others ranked relatively low on the list of

problems(49). Accidents were regarded as but one instance of the

fundamental and truly important effect of alcohol: that it weakened

or destroyed individual self-control(50).

Social Comportment and Crime

The principal arguments made in behalf of the idea that liquor caused crime and violence centered on alcohol's powers to loosen moral restraints and free destructive impulses. One physician writ14
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 133

ing in the 1870s explained the effects of "one small glass" of liquor

on the drinker.

He is a changed man, and will say and do things he would

not say or do if he was unaffected by liquor....He has lost

some of his reason. While his passions are more readily

provoked, he has become weakened in the power of selfcontrol. He is not only more inclined to do wrong, but is

less liable to restrain himself from wrong-doing. He has,

therefore, undergone a very serious transformation.(51)

John Marsh, writing in the 1830s, put it more forcefully: "the

natural effect of alcohol," he said, was that it,

makes every man that drinks it a villain. It breaks down

the conscience, quickens the circulation, increases the

courage, makes man flout at law and right, and hurries

him to the perpetuation of every abomination and crime.

Excite a man by this fluid, and he is bad enough for

anything. He can lie, and steal, and fight, and swear, and

plunge the dagger into the bosom of his nearest

friend.(52)

People unhappy with the total abstinence line argued that alcohol

did not have such effects most of the time, or on most people; but

virtually no one suggested liquor did not, on some occasions at least,

cause violent or criminal behavior As the famous Temperance

lecturer John B. Gough pointed out, some types of crimes were

committed only when drunk.

I know when we hear of wife-beating and all that kind of

thing, we say, "Men are brutes." They are not brutes. I

have worked among them for forty years, and have never

found a brute among them. Yet I have found "hard

cases." But I attribute most of it to the influence of drink.

A man will not beat his wife if he is sober.

Concerning a similar problem, Gough told of once being

approached by "a lady of aristocratic bearing" with a question:

"You have had great experience," she said, "but have you

ever known or heard of a son striking his mother?" "More

than once," I said, "but never unless that son was influenced by drink; indeed, I cannot believe that any young

Lain, in his sober senses, would strike his mother." She

seemed relieved to know that hers was not a solitary

case.(53)

Alcohol, one writer observed, made the drinker commit "actions

which, when sober, he would have shuddered to have thought of." It

also enabled people to do things they could not do when sober. In a

pamphlet entitled "The Physiological Action of Alcohol," Dr. Henry
134 LEVINE

Munroe explained how when John Wilkes Booth saw President

Lincoln in his theatre box, Booth did not have the courage or "the

cruelty to strike the blow."

His better feeling over came him, and trembling with

suppressed agony at the thought of becoming an assassin,

he rushed into the nearest restaurant, crying out,

"Brandy! brandy! brandy!" Then, gulping down the hellish draught, it instantly poisoned his blood, fired up his

brain, transformed his whole nature into that of a raging

fiend; and, in this remorseless condition shot down that

noble-hearted President....What killed the President of

the United States? I answer, "Brandy! brandy!

brandy!"(54)

The first half of the Temperance case was based on a particular,

and historically new, view of the effect of alcohol. In the language of

psychoanalysis, alcohol was perceived as a super-ego dissolver, an

unlocker of the id. Or, in more familiar terms, alcohol was thought

to disinhibit people. From Benezet and Rush on, the Temperance

movement developed and promulgated this view of alcohol, and the

contribution has been a lasting one. It is still taken as scientific and

medical truth today that alcohol, as one Temperance writer put it,

"weakens the power of the motives to do right, and increases the

power of the motives to do wrong." Or, as Chafetz and Demone

explained in 1962:

The apparent "stimulation" from alcohol is the result of

the lower brain centers being released from higher brain

controls. This reduces inhibitions, and behavior which is

untoward when the individual is sober becomes acceptable. For example . . . an always proper, ladylike woman may become obscene and promiscuous when

intox icated.(55)

Since the late 18th and early 19th century, the notion that alcohol is

a disinhibitor has been, as MacAndrew and Edgerton put it, "the

conventional wisdom,"

The second half of the Temperance case was, again, based on a

particular, and historically new, view of the long-term consequences of drink. Just as an incident of drunkenness temporarily

incapacitated one's moral system, the long-term effect of even moderate amounts of alcohol was to weaken and eventually destroy the

capacity for self-discipline and moral action. From Rush on, Temperance supporters argued that drinkers tended to increase use of

alcohol in both quantity and frequency and eventually became

addicted. They believed that alcohol was inherently addicting, just

as people today believe that heroin is, and they were convinced that
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 135

the moderate drinker ran a terrible risk of becoming hooked. The

ultimate result of the process was the complete degradation of the

individual, but any of the stages from soon after the first drink to

the drunkard's grave could rightly be called intemperance. Thus it

was sufficient for Temperance people to describe someone as

"intemperate" without having to specify precisely what they meant.

Moreover, even many people who did not subscribe totally to the

Temperance line believed, beyond doubt, that heavy drinking or

spree drinking deleteriously affected one's entire moral system. As

Frances Willard observed in her 1889 Presidential speech to the

Women's Christian Temperance Union:

It is through the degradation of high ideals that alcohol

exerts its mightiest forces against the moral progress of

mankind. The voice of conscience is smothered in drink,

and whenever a kind of higher joy may be given, it is

swept away in the resistless current of appetite. This

pitiful loss soon makes itself manifest outwardly the

thought-life of a man is seen in his face. One has but to

glance at the great company of drinkers to see how, little

by little, the nobler traits of countenance disappear and

only a brutal expression remains.(56)

Because they believed that frequent consumption of alcohol destroyed morals, Temperance supporters did not believe it was

necessary for alcohol to be in someone's blood stream for it to cause

that person to be violent or criminal. Simply knowing that the

individual in question drank a lot, or was frequently drunk, was

sufficient explanation. Furthermore, some crimes, like robbery or

muggings and even suicide, might occur because the drunkard did

not have anything to drink. The main character in Walt Whitman's

Temperance novel pointed out that drunkards robbed people in

order to get money to satisfy their craving for liquor. Similarly,

Currier and Ives's famous lithograph, "The Drunkards Progress,"

showed a young man who, after having become a confirmed drunkard, commits armed robbery and suicide. It was not necessary for

the illustrator to put a bottle in the drunkard's hand, or liquor in the

blood stream, to show that alcohol had caused the ruin and death of

the man(57).

Armed with their twin concepts of intoxication and addiction

(what they usually called drunkenness and intemperance), supporters of total abstinence believed they could show that an enormous

portion of American social problems were caused, in one way or

another, by consumption of alcohol. As a way of getting across the

size of the problem. writers and speakers frequently suggested that

liquor caused a specific percentage of events and conditions. Justin

1 5
136 LEVINE

Edwards, one of the most important Temperance organizers in the

1830s, reported that in England "the best authorities attribute

one-half the madness, three-fourths of the pauperise, , and fourfifths of the crimes and wretchedness...to the use of strong drink." Kitteredge suggested that liquor is "the parent of one half the

diseases that prevail, and one half the crimes that are committed."

Another writer in the 1830s said "It is ascertained to be the source of

nine-tenths of all the pauperism, and nine-tenths of all the crimes in

the land." The Reverend John Marsh quoted the warden of the New York State Prison, Captain Pillsbury:

Nine-tenths of all the prisoners under my care . . . are

decidedly intemperate men, and were brought to their

present condition, directly or indirectly, through intoxicating liquor. Many have confessed to me with tears, that

they never felt tempted to the commission of crime...but

when under the influence of strong drink.

Marsh also noted that the Prison Discipline report stated "that of

125,000 criminals committed to our prisons in a single year, 93,750

were excited to their commission by spirituous liquors." Shortly

before the Civil War, one group concerned with Sunday liquor sales

claimed that the combination of alcohol and sabbath-breaking was

the "cause for nine-tenths, if not nineteen-twentieths, of the grosser

forms of crime which imperil and disgrace our crime-cursed city."

One writer in 1867 reported that "the late eminentJudge Cady" had

declared ",hat the greater portion of the trials for murder and

assaults and batteries that were brought into court...originated in

drunkenness." A prison agent in Philadelphia noted in his annual

report that of his inmates that year "three fourths were cases of

disorder arising solely from the use of intoxicating liquors." A New

York grand jury around 1870 reported that "nearly all the cases for

murder and batteries which have been investigated have been

found to spring from the sale and use of intoxicating liquor." And

the New York State Board of Charities stated that "probably more

than eighty-percent" of the criminals in the State are intemperate,

"intemperance being the chief occasion of crime." After detailed

study. the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor for Massachusetts found that in 1881 more than 84 percent "of all criminal cases

were due directly or indirectly to the influence of liquor." Finally,

in 1899, the prestigious Committee of Fifty, after its exhaustive

examination of the liquor problem, concluded that nearly 50 per- cent of crime was caused directly or indirectly by alcohol(58).

While Temperance sympathizers used a number of estimates of

the percentage of total problems caused by alcohol, probably the

most common figure was three-fourths. For example, a circular

1 5 1
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 137

sent out by the New York State Temperance Society in 1831 made

the following claims:

That ardent spirit makes three-fourths ofour criminals,

is the united testimony of judges and lawyers in this

country and in England. The most shocking cases have

occurred under the influence of alcohol. Almost all cases

of murder have occurred under the influence of alcohol.

Almost all the cases of assault and battery likewise.

Those guilty of burglary, larceny, counterfeiting, riots,

etc. are almost uniformly ascertained to have destroyed

their moral sensibilities and emboldened themselvesfor

the violation of their country's laws, by the inebriating

cup.(59)

Another writer from about the same time made a similar

statement.

Recent examination has developed a number of appalling facts, which few, if any pretend to question.. . .It is

admitted that three-fourths of all the crimes of the land

result from the use of intoxicating liquor. It is admitted

that at least three-fourths of all the sufferings of poverty

arise from the same source.(60)

In a Temperance tract written about mid-century, famed showman

P.T. Barnum also used the figure of three-quarters.

It is confessed that three-fourths of all the crime and

pauperism existing in our land are traceable to the use of

intoxicating liquors.(61)

As late as 1910, the figure was still being used by Charles N. Haskell, Governor of Oklahoma.

I find by careful observation that three-fourths of the

crime in the personal violence class are the result of a

mind made mad by intoxication. I find that even a

greater per cent of the crimes of burglary, larceny and

the like are the result of destitution and distress occasioned by personally spending their sustenance for whiskey and kindred evils, thereby being reduced to the

necessity of stealing for bread.(62)

The original source for the figure of three-fourths was probably

the study of Samuel Chipman, first published in 1834, and excerpted and quoted many times over the century. Chipman visited the keepers of jails, asylums, and poor houses of every county in New York State, and some neighboring States as well. In each case he

received a signed statement from the superintendent of the institution classifying each individual inmate as "temperate," "intemper- ate," or "doubtful." In addition, many of the supervisors signed
138 LEVINE

short statements describing unusual cases or patterns. Finally,

Chipmar .alculated, as best he could, the total county tax, and the

cost of running the poor house, and the entire criminal justice

system. After presenting the data and reports for each county,

Chipman gave his conclusion:

I have shown beyond the power of contradiction, that

more than three-fourths of the ordinary tax is absorbed

by the support of the poor and the administration of

criminal justice and that more than three-fourths of

the pauperism is occasioned by intemperance, and more

than five-sixths of those committed on criminal charges

are intemperate.(63)

Like Temperance supporters throughout the 19th century, Chipman believed alcohol caused people to be violent and even murderous. Temperance novels frequently featured beatings and murders,

and writers and speakers often told a story or two to make the evil

consequences of drink more personal. Chipman's report, however,

was unique in that it covered such a large number of incidents. Part

of the reason Chipman was so often quoted and cited was because he

provided documentation that even moderate drinkers acted violently, especially to members of their own families. Consider the

following excerpts from some of the county reports:

From Allegany County: "Of the intemperate, three for

whipping their wives one charged with poisoning his

wife two for arson one for abuse to his parents."

Jefferson County: "Of the intemperate, twenty-six were

intoxicated when committed. One was committed on

charge of arson, and nine for whipping their wives, or for

other abuse of their families."

Niagara County: "One man has lain in jail two-thirds of

the time for three years past, for abuse to his family when

intoxicated; when sober, is a kind husband and father."

Oneida County: "Of the intemperate, one was charged

with murder; eleven were females; and three men for

abuse of their families."

Orange County: "Of the intemperate, thirteen for riots

one, a man, for assault and battery on a female four for

whipping their wives, one of them whipped his wife with

a dog. One under sentence of death for kill ink his wife

when drunk most of them were brought here while

intoxicated."

Oswego County: "Of the intemperate, three were committed for whipping their wives."

1 5 3
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 139

Schenectady County: "Of the intemperate, one was a

woman for abuse to her husband, and sixteen men for

abuse to their wives."

Suffolk County: "Of the intemperate, one has been convicted of killing his wife; another is in jail, charged with

shooting his wife."

Columbus, Ohio: "Of the intemperate, two for burglary,

one for whipping his wife, and one for rape one for

murder committed at a house of ill-fame, kept by his

mother."

Ross County, Ohio: "Of the intemperate, one was a

colored man, for killing hiF child two for assault and

battery on females one for whipping his wife one

drowned himself when intoxicated."

Chester County, Pennsylvania: "Of the intemperate, one

for horse stealing, He was deranged, and his derangement caused by intemperance. One for arson two for

murder. In one case the murderer and the murdered man

were both drunk. Seven for assault and battery three

for whipping their wives, and one sober woman for whipping her drunken husband."

For Temperance supporters, and for many 19th century Americans, alcohol caused crime. Or, to put it another way, they believed

that if people did not drink, a substantial percentage of crime (and

other social problems) would be eliminated(64).

Conclusion

John Allen Krout, author of the still classic study of the early

Temperance movement, titled his chapter on colonial complaints

about liquor and drunkenness, "Voices in the Wilderness," and he

began it thusly:

The half-century following the achievement of American

independence was marked by a gradual change in the

popular attitude toward the use, manufacture and sale of

intoxicants. There is a temptation to find the genesis of

this movement for social reform in the isolated protests of

the seventeenth century, but no continuing element

seems to run through the early denunciation of intemperance. Condemnation of excessive drinking came from

various sources, and the underlying motives were as different as the individuals and groups who voiced the

154
140 LEVINE

warning. An exception might well be made, however, in

the case of the Puritan clergy, for the sombre background of Calvinism gave unity and continuity to numerous attempts to restrain individual excesses.(65)

Unfortunately, Krout only briefly surveyed those "isolated protests" without systematically examining their content or social

origin. One aim of this paper has been to test and supplement

Krout's conclusions.

He suggested several overlapping points. First, it is erroneous to

find the "genesis" of the Temperance movement and of 19th century

popular attitudes in colonial complaints about drunkenness and

excessive drinking. There was a qualitative difference between the

two periods. "On the eve of the Revolution," he wrote, ". . . nothing

short of a revolution in public opinion could remove itspirituous

liquorfrom its important place in American life." One implication of Krout's position is that 19th century ideas about alcohol arose

out of new social and intellectual conditions, and that changes in

thought about alcohol were part of a broader social and intellectual

transformation. While he did not really examine the revolution of

social and intellectual life, this suggestion is provocative. Second,

Krout claimed that there was no common element running through

the early condemnations of drinking and drunkenness: Complaints

tended to be ad hoc. Finally, he noted that Puritan ministers may

have been an exception; there was some continuity of theme among

Puritans, and between them and 19th century Americans.

I have one major disagreement with Krout. As noted earlier,

there were two complaints often made by elite colonials about the

effects of alcohol: that it caused the disorderly physical state of

drunkenness, and that it led to idleness. Further, both complaints

were made in the 19th century. For the Temperance movement,

and for middle class Americans in general, drunkenness as disorder was bad or sinful, and drunkenness was also condemned

because it caused idleness. On these points, then, Krout was not

correct: there was coherence to certain early complaints, and colonials did in some ways provide the "genesis" of 19th century ideas.

The two evils colonials identified formed parts of the 19th century

attack on liquor: Alcohol consumption undermined worker discipline and productivity, and it was antithetical to the controlled,

disciplined character of middle class ideals.

But if Krout was in error about the lack of continuity of theme, he

was correct in another sense: There was some fundamental difference between the two periods with regard to perception of the

effects of alcohol. Colonials thought alcohol caused primarily good

things: health, sociability, and most especially merriment; alcohol

153
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 141

gave pleasure and made people happy. In general they did not

believe alcohol caused Europeans to be physically aggressive, violent, or criminal. However, they did think alcohol made Indians

violent, and there may have been occasional statements, "voices in

the wilderness," about liquor causing fights or crime. But such

statements were rare. The view of alcohol as a destroyer of morals and stimulant of crime and violence was not part of everyday

thought and discourse; it was not common for people to say that

liquor caused someone to fight or rob. It was not common or typical

for colonials to think, for example, that a man who beat up his wife

did so because he drank alcohol, or a lot of alcohol, or that a man who

raped a woman, or who mugged or killed someone, did so because he

was under the influence of liquor.

Alcohol as Disinhibitor: The Social Context for an Idea

One of the central questions raised here is why, toward the end of

the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, Americans began to believe that alcohol reduces individual moral control, and why, after roughly 1830, that idea became deeply embedded in American popular thought, as a credible and reasonable way to interpret

everyday events. At this point I would like to begin a tentative analysis of the social context in which the idea of alcohol as a

disinhibitor was rooted.

Since the late 18th and early 19th century and continuing up to

the present, all explanations of the role of alcohol in causing crimi- nal, immoral, or violent behavior have rested or. a particular view of

the powers of alcohol, as well as a theory of social order. Kessel and

Walton (1967) give an adequate summary of the contemporary

form of the argument. After pointing out that alcohol "depresses activity in the nervous system," they write:

The first thing to be depressed is the power of restraint.

The inhibition of our actions or our wishes which we all of

us adopt in order to get on with our fellows is the product

of the highest mental processes and it is these that are

impaired first. When the curb we normally place on our

instinctual urges goes, unguarded behavior comes to the

fore and these released impulses are forcefully

expressed, giving the impression of stimulation. . . .At

first the increased press of talk and activity sets up

smiles, gaiety, even boisterousness. Generally we retain

enough self-control to keep these within bounds. .But

sometimes the drinking facilitates a p;roup mood of dejection or of anger, and people have had their passions so
142 LEVINE

inflamed by alcohol that they carried out cruel, senseless,

irrevocable actions from which, if the highest mental

processes were functioning intact, each individual would

recall with disgust.(66)

Implicit and explicit in this formulation is a theory of deviance

and social order. The theory assumes that people ordinarily conform, and that socially disruptive passions and desiresthe animal

impulses within the civilized beingare inhibited or restrained.

However, the theory is not concerned with external restraints, it

does not necessarily assume the need for any power or authority

outside the individual; fear of punishment and public humiliation

are not the main mechanisms of control. Rather, the theory assumes

that people usually control themselves, and that people desire to

conform because they view it as a moral obligation and responsibility. In short, the theory posits a system of controls, restraints, or

inhibitions within the body and mind of each individual. In contemporary psychological and sociological terms, this process of developing and maintaining inner controls is called socialization or

internalization of norms, and the restraining agency is called the

super-ego. In the 19th century the process was called moral education, or sometimes, moral treatment, and the agency was called the

moral faculties or the conscience. The theory assumes that conformity is the normal or natural or healthy behavior of most people,

and that deviation, rule breaking, and crime are the products of the

weakening or breakdown of the inner controls.

This theory of social order, based on individual inhibition, is

historically recent; it first developed as part of the world view or

ideology of emerging capitalist society. While there were anticipations and early developments of it in 18th century thought, especially among Enlightenment thinkers, it became popular ideology

only when the middle class the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie

assumed both political and economic power, and when the

market came to dominate social and economic life. It derived its

power, both as an explanatory device and as a political and social

ideal, in the conditions created by the breakdown of traditional

society especially the increasing freedom from superstition and

coercion, and the belief in the possibility of rationally ordering

social and economic life for the good of all. In America, the ideology

was also nourished by the hopes engendered by the rich land of a

relatively unpopulated continent.

By and large, colonial Americans, like Europeans of the same

period, did not have an inhibition theory of social order; they did not

believe most people refrained from doing immoral or illegal things

because of internalized moral restraints, Rather they believed that

151
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 143

social order was maintained externally. People lived their lives in a

web of human relationships, and it was thought to be the pressure

and demands of other people (especially of family, church, and

community relations) which shaped and controlled human behavior. It was hoped that people might conform out of a sense of

individual responsibility, but such voluntary compliance was certainly not assumed to be the basis of a social order.

Of all colonials, the Puritans put the most stress on the importance of self-regulation. Yet despite this attention to the cultivation

of inner discipline, they regarded with utter disdain the notion that

most people could or would voluntarily control their own behavior

most of the time. Summing up the "Puritan theory of the State,"

Perry Miller writes:

Puritans did not think the state was merely an umpire,

standing on the side lines of a contest, limited to checking

egregious fouls, but otherwise allowing men free play

according to their abilities and the breaks of the game.

They would have expected the rule of "laissez-faire" to

result in a reign of rapine and horror. The state to them

was an active instrument of leadership, discipline, and

wherever necessary, of coercion; it legislated over any

and all aspects of human behavior, it not merely regulated misconduct but understood to inspire and direct all

conduct. . .The Bible said and experience proved

that since the fall, without the policeman, the judge, the

jail, the law, and the' agistrate, men will rob, murder,

and fight among themselves; without a coercive state to

restrain evil impulses and administer punishments, no

life will be safe, no property secure, no honor observed.(67)

Punishing wrongdoing, and maintaining an atmosphere of fear of

punishment, was a central part of the State's method for keeping

order. As David J. Rothman has observed:

Eighteenth-century punishments were harsh and even

cruel. . . . Punishments could serve to intimidate the

offender, thereby discouraging him from further

depravities. When ministers occasionally spoke of

"reforming" the deviant, they meant only that severe

correctioa might terrorize him into obedience. Whippings, they believed, were apt punishments for the first

offender; he "ought to look on them as warning of more

severe punishments to be expected if he refused to be

reformed."(68)

In addition, stocks, brandings, and other forms of public degrada-
144 LES,'INE

tion served to mark out rule breakers. Finally, execution eliminated those incorrigibles whose behavior and example threatened

order and community security.

The ruling class of colonial society believed that order was maintained by getting people to obey the demands of family, church and

community and the rules and regulations of government. They

hoped that people might accept and believe in the legitimacy of

their rule, but they had no doubt that conformity required the

prudent use of force, while maintaining fear of punishment and

fear of humiliation. Deviance was not surprising and for most of the

period the dominant image of human beings was of creatures who

naturally turned to sin and crime. As one minister said: "The

natural man defiles every step he takes and the filth thereof

rebounds to himself."(69)

Over the course of the 18th century, some Americans began to

accept a new and radically different theory of social order. Farmers

and businessmen, it was said, property-owning individuals who

had a stake in maintaining order, could be trusted to conduct their

personal, public, and political lives with care and responsibility. In

its more idealistic form, the theory became part of a belief that

America's unique mission was to show that the good society could be

organized around the power and ability of individuals to control

their own behavior. This was to be accomplished, as Winthrop Hudson has put it, by means of an "inner check."

Jefferson and Jackson believed in the perfectability of

man and looked forward to the day when the need for

laws would have disappeared. The laws would then be

replaced within each individual by an "inner check" so

that there would be no need of external restraint. The

basic conviction was stated by Andrew Jackson in his

inaugural address of 1829, when he said: "I believe man

can be elevated; man can become more and more

endowed with divinity; and as he does, he becomes more

God-like in his character and capable of governing himself." The whole thrust of civilization, according to this

type of thinking, was to render men more and more

capable of governing themselves. The civilized man was

the virtuous man, and the virtuous man had no need for

the restraint of man-made laws,(70)

Even after the Revolution, however, wealthy and powerful Americans did not trust the judgment and discipline of the average citizen. The new Constitution, for example, was carefully constructed

to keep the influence of "the mob" out of government. States

retained property qualifications for voting, and Senators and the

1.59
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 145

President were to be selected by electors, not by the voters. The

Constitution was essentially a conservative document, designed to

maintain power and authority in the hands of the "well born and

able."

In the 50 years from the ratification of the Constitutionto the end

of the presidency of Andrew Jackson, the United States was transformed from a backwater, mercantile society, to a dynamic, rapidly

expanding capitalist Nation. The democratic and individualistic

heresies of the 18th century had become popular ideology. Laissezfaire was as much fantasy as fact, but the image of a people controlling themselves and their Nation, pursuing their self-interest in the

marketplace while creating themselves as "self-made" men, had

become part of the definition of American national identity. For

example, as Eric Foner has skillfully demonstrated, the ideology of

the Republican Party was based on a coherent middle class "model

of the good society." The Republican critique of the South was that

it "enslaved" men to fixed social positions. The North, on the other

hand, organized around the market, was the land of free men and

free labor. This belief in northern freedom was not without foundation in reality. W.A. Williams points out that for a time "the majority of Americans were probably blessed with more liberty than any

men in the modern age have known. In a spectacle that was at once

terrifying and ennobling they came unbelievably close to shaping

themselves and their world in their own image."(71)

Such freedom did have its costs, and it did entail responsibilities.

Foremost among these was that, for a decentralized, democratic

society of small entrepreneurs to function, ee lh individual had to

maintain control over his or her own behavior. Individual freedom

required individual responsibility for the maintenance of order.

Nineteenth century middle class Americans were intensely aware

of the social-psychological prerequisites for the kind of society they

were trying to create. For them, the question of individual "morality" was central to virtually any discussion about the structure of American life. School lessons, church sermons, advice to young men

and women, childrearing literature for mothers, fiction, and medi- cal theories all focused on the importance of individual moral

responsibility for the control of impulses and desires. Indeed, it is

fair to say that Americans were obsessed with the issue of self- control. Physicians and scientists drew diagrams of the brain showing that the uppermost sections were the seat of morality and

self-control. Educators, like Horace Mann, argued that "there are

but two methods of curbing or subduing the unlawful propensities of men; either by an external or by an internal power." Mann felt the United States would stand or fall as a republic insofar as its
146 LEVINE

citizens acted on an internalized moral system. Even treatment of

the deviant involved the restoration of a moral sensibility. Americans extended the idea of "moral treatment" for the insane to all

forms of deviation. Penitentiaries, almshouses, reformatories, and

orphan asylums were supposed to develop the dormant or decayed

powers of self-restraint within the individual. Nineteenth century

America was indeed the hey-day of the inner-directed man and

woman(72).

Middle class Americans were, by and large, unable to view their

society in structural terms; the focus was always on the individual.

Americans were concerned with environment, but chiefly in terms

of creating situations conducive to the development of individual

character. In effect, this meant the development less of a strong ego

than of a strong super-egoa set of internalized moral standards. A

favorite literary device involved characters discussing moral problems with their consciencesand what their super-egos told them

was that a good person resisted temptation and restrained desire.

People were to solve social problems by controlling the evil within

themselves(73).

I am suggesting that colonial and 19th century Americans held

radically different assumptions about the nature of social order,

and about the relationship of the individual to society. Colonials did

not find deviance especially problematic; they did not believe that

people ordinarily desired to conform, nor that the seat of social

control was a moral faculty within the individual. When drunken

people acted wild, rowdy, or violent they did not look to an injured

or poisoned conscience for an explanation. Nineteenth century

Americans, on the contrary, did find deviance problematic and

they did believe that social control rested with the individual. When

drunken individuals acted wild, violent, or rowdy, middle class

Americans looked for things which had affected the individual's

system of inner control. Ordinarily well-behaved people became,

when drunk, radically transformed, and they frequently acted in

ways which were both out of the ordinary and extremely threatening to social order. It was not hard to conclude that alcohol caused

the changes: The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde magnificently

captured the 19th century fear of and fascinations with a liquid

which could transform repressed civilized men and women into

uninhibited monsters.

Colonial Americans believed alcohol was a sacred and powerful

substance. They believed it relaxed people and stimulated them

it freed up the mind, the memory, and the tongue; it stimulated

physical activity, and it provided pleasure. For colonials all those

effects were beneficial. However, 19th century Americans, work161
(1001) CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 147

ing from the same assumptions about the effects of alcohol, reinterpreted the consequences of drink in terms of the new social

conditions confronting them. For a man trying to follow the maxims of Benjamin Franklin and rationally orgar *ze his life and

personality around the disciplined pursuit of money and success;

for the businessman trying to compete in a cut-throat business

world; for the men and women inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson

to greater and greater heights of "self-reliance"for the whole

pantheon of character types created by and self-created in response

to the structure and organization of developing capitalist society

for all these people relaxation, stimulation, and pleasure were

threatening and dangerous. There was always the possibility that

one might relax the tightly held inner controls too much, be too

stimulated, find pleasure too attractive and tempting. With only

the self to rely on for control one had to guard and protect one's

inner restraints with every ounce of energy that could be mustered.

In short, it was not so much that middle class Americans invented

completely new ideas about the effects of alcohol, but rather that

they redefined its effects as stimulant and relaxant in terms of a

new view or gestalt of the relationship of the individual to the self

and to society. The old effects took on new meaning when viewed

from a perspective shaped by the social conditions and ideological

concerns of the 19th century. Thus liquor, while still powerful and

sacred, was besides being part of God's world now also part of the

Devil's it was a Demon. And as a Demon, a destroyer of selfcontrol, it was blamable for many of the ills of American society

in particular crime and violence.

Notes

1. William J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: America, 1790-1840. Ph.D.

dissertation. University of California, Berkeley, 1976, chapter 2; now available

revised as The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. New York: Oxford

University Press. 1979. Craig MacAndrew and Robert B. Edgerton, Drunken

Comportment: A Social Explanation. Chicago: Aldine, 1969.

2. Carl Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt: Urban Life in America, 174..1-1776. New

York: Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 119; Perry Miller and Thomas

Johnson, The Puritans: A Sourcebook of Their Writings. 2 Volumes, New

York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963, pp. 379-395.

3. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, chapter 2.

4. John Allen Kraut, The Origins of Prohibition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,

1925. p. 38.

5. Foster Rhea Dulles, America Learns to Play: A History of Popular Recreation.

1607-194o. New York: D. Appleton. 1940, chapters 1 and 2: Edward Field,

The Colonial Tavern. Providence, Rhode Island: Preston and Rounds, 1897;

1 6
148 LEVINE

Alice Morse Earle, Stage Coach and Tavern Days. 1900, republished, New

York: Dover Publications, 1969; Mark E. Lender, "Drunkenness as an Offense

in Early New England; A Study of Puritan Attitudes." Quarterly Journal of

Studies on Alcohol. Vol. 84, No. 2. (1973); Krout, The Origins of Prohibition,

chapters 1 and 2; Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic; Daniel D. Dorchester,

The Liquor Problem in All Ages. New York: Phillips and Hunt, 1888, pp. 108-142.

6. Dorchester, The Liquor Problem in All Ages, pp. 124-125.

7. Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of

Colonial Virginia. New York: Norton, 1975, p. 119.

8. Dulles, America Learns to Play, pp. 47-48.

9. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, chapter 2, pp. 2-3. Also see Krout, The

Origins of Prohibition, chapter 2.

10. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, chapter 2.

11. Quoted in John Kobler, Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New

York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1973, p. 16. Also see Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, chapter 2, p. 2.

12. Dulles, America Learns to Play, chapter 2, quote from p. 30; Field, The Colonial

Tavern, especially chapter 4.

13. Quoted in Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, chapter 2, p. 4.

14. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, chapter 1, p. 12.

15. Quoted in Lender, "Drunkenness as an Offense in Early New England," p. 355.

16. Quoted in Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness: The First Century of Urban

Life in America, 1625-1742. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 355.

17. Quoted in Dulles, America Learns to Play, p. 30.

18. Quoted in Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt, p. 316, and Cities in the Wilderness, p.

390.

19. Samuel Danforth, "The Woeful Effects of Drunkenness." 1710, p. 30.

20. Quoted in Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness, p. 390.

21. This anonymously authored poem, published in 1793,was not strictly speaking

a product of the period we have been discussing; it was part of the rising

anti-drunkenness sentiment of the end of the century, and I have quoted a few of

its verses which relate to accidents and which are indicative of earlier concerns.

While the period following the War for Independence manifesteda significant rise in concern with drunkenness among the upper and upper-middle classes,

and the beginnings of an anti-spirits campaign, those sentiments had been

forming throughout the 18th century. Eventually they would coalesce around a

set of principles and beliefs about the effects of liquor on the body and mind and

become he ideology of the Temperance movement and a major strand of

American popular thought about alcohol. The poem, however, was not a

Temperance document in the 19th century meaning of the word, for it was a

polemic only against excessive drinking and not against spirits or alcohol.

22. Quoted in Bridenbaugh, Cities in the Wilderness, pp. 56, 60, 209; also see

Bridenbaugh, Cities in Revolt, p. 299.

23. Danforth, "The Woeful Effects of Drunkenness," p. 28: also see Lender,

"Drunkenness as an Offense in Early New England."

24. Ernest H. Cherrington, The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States.

Westerville, Ohio: The American Issue Press, 1920, pp. 12-13; Morgan,

American Slavery. American Freedom, pp. 319, 323.

25. It is important to note one other way colonials believed alcohol's effect on thi.

body and mind could lead to deviant behavior, because it shows the limits c.f

thought on the question. Like people in many cultures, colonials believ

4 f 1 1
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 149

alcohol stimulated speech, conversation, memory, and imagination. The young

Benjamin Rush, for example, proclaimed that wine "is another name for

philosophy" ("Sermons to Gentlemen upon Tc.nperance." Philadelphia,44 pp., 1774, p. 19). However, alcohol's effects on speech and imagination could

sometimes cause problems. On a trip through Massachusetts in 1704, Sarah

Kemble Knight wrote in her diary of stayingover one night in a tavern. She was

unable to sleep "because of the Clamor ofsome of the Town tope-ers in the next

Room," who were arguing vociferously about the origin of the name of their

town. As they argued they drank, which, as Knight explained, "like Oy le to

fire increased the flame." Unable to sleep because of the noise,she composed a

poem.

I ask thy Aid, 0 Potent Rum! to Charm these wrangling Topers Dum. Thou host their Giddy B,.ains possest The man confounded with the

Beast And I, poor I can gdt no rest. Intoxicate them with thy fumes; 0

still their Tongues till morning comes.

For Knight, the rum which caused the men to be so noisy could also silence

them. And she reported she got her wish, for after another drink her tormenters were silent (Knight quoted in Miller and Johnson, The Puritans, pp.

430-431). One of the best illustrations of an extreme concern with the negative

effects of liquor on speech was in Benjamin Rush's"An Inquiry into the Effects

of Ardent Spirits" (Eighth edition, 1814. reprinted in: Yandell Henderson, A

New Deal in Liquor. New York: Doubleday, 1934). While Rush's pamphlet was written after the period we are discussing here and, in fact, was the central

document of the new view of alcohol developing at the end ofthe 18th century

and beginning of the 19th century, the pamphlet also reflected some of the

earlier ideas about the effects of liquor. Rush listed 11 symptoms of a "fit of

drunkenness," and most of them were acts of speech including the following:

Unusual garrulity. . . .Unusual silence. ...Captiousness, and a disposition to quarrel....Uncommon good humour, and an insipid simpering,

or laugh... .Profane swearing, and cursing....A rude disposition to tell

those persons in company whom they know, their faults....A clipping of

words. . . .singing, hallooing, roaring, imitating the noises of brute

animals.

26. Rcrabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, chapter 2; Krout, The Origins of Prohibition, chapter 2; Thomas Foxcroft, "A Serious Address to those

Who Unnecessarily Frequent the Tavern." Boston. 1726.

27. David Rothman points out that colonials did not find crime or disorder

surprising, and they did not develop elaborate theories to explain it (Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1971, chapter 1, especially pp. 17-26).

Bv;denbaugh (1971a, 1971b) reports in passing, a number of explanations used

for riots and crime, especially economic and politic& ones. For a discussion of

the political motives and interpretations of riots see Pauline Maier, "Popular Uprisings and Civil Authority in Eighteenth Century America." in Stanley Katz (ed.), Colonial America. Boston: Little. Brown and Company, 1971. There was no lack of criminal and iolent activity during the period. In his massive two-volume study of urban life in the colonies, Bridenbaugh makes

frequent reference to a phenomenon he calls "mob violence."

Disorder and mob violence were characteristic of the populations in the

five towns (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Newport, and Charleston). Boston acquired such a bad reputation for mob activities

that the General Court passed a riot act in 1721....The town was hard!

161
150 LEVINE

vindicated by the action of "some wicked and evil minded...Persons" in

1725, who broke into Governor Dummer's coach house and "maliciously

broke to Pieces the Front Glass of his Chariot" or by the mobs which

rose in July 1729 to "prevent ye landing of Irish, and to hinder the

merchants from sending away ye corn as they attempted." On October

13, 1741 "Late at Night," Justice Anthony Stoddard and Sheriff

Winslow were knocked down and stoned while attempting to disperse a

large group of townsmen "being assembled in a riotous manner in King

Street. . .and committing great Disorders."

A similar disposition to mob violence developed in Philadelphia. "Some

vile Miscreants" broke into Mayor Clement Plumstead's garden in

March, 1729, tearing up plants and cutting down fruit trees. The

riotous propensities of the lower classes manifested themselves in the

latter part of 1726, when the pillory, and stocks in the market place

were burned by some who "had no good opinion of the law"....1741 and

1742 were years of tumult. In January, 1741, a group of sailors were

indicted by the Grand Jury for taking up the public pumps and

carrying them off, thereby inciting a riot, and a few weeks later a mob

rose because the bakers had refused to make bread during the

controversy over the use of the English halfpence in trade. In August

the Common Council decided that in order "Speedily and Effectually"

to prevent future riots, the members should immediately "repair to the

Mayor's house with all the inhabitants they can raise in event of an

outbreak." Their opportunity came on October 1, 1742, when the

famous "Bloody Election" took place. Party feeling was running high,

and two violent encounters occurred between country people and about

thirty sailors, "mostly strangers" on one side, and townsmen on the

other. Many citizens were badly hurt, several seamen jailed, and

everyone blamed everyone else in the fracas (Bridenbaugh, Cities inthe

Wilderness, pp. 382-384).

Given the high esteem which alcoholic beverages were accorded by all classes,

and the frequency with whic3, they were drunk, it was extraordinarily likely

that people drank before, during, and if possible after many of the events

described above, and countless similar ones. Bridenbaugh was well aware of

the degree of drinking and drunkenness in the colonies, and he suggested the

people in mobs were often drunk (Cities in Revolt, p. 117). He appeared to

expect his readers to understand that the "Bloody Election" brawl, for

example, featured townsmen drunk on election day, as was the custom, and

sailors drunk as usual, which was their custom. In this case, as Bridenbaugh

put it, "everyone blamed everyone else." For our purposes it is important to note

that nobody blamed liquor. Bridenbaugh only made a point to mention

drinking in connection with riots when it appeared in some way out of the

ordinary as for example when the mob happened upon something to drink

during the riot.

Caleb Heathcote informed the Board of Trade in 1719 of the disposition

of the Newport "rabble" to mob the customs officers. in one case the

collectors had seized some illegal claret, "yet the town's people had the

insolence to eise upon them, and insult both them and the civil officers"

by staving in the casks, drinking their fill, and pouring the remainder

into the streets (1971a: p. 224).

One riot in 1765, had begun in a protest against taxes, including looting

the houses of William Story of the Admiralty Court and Benjamin

1 6 5
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 151

Hallowell of the Customs. ...Filled with the latter's good Madeira, the

rioters followed Mackintosh onto the Hutchinson mansion in Garden

Street, forced its way in as the owner fled, and for two hours vented its

spleen upon the first gentlemen of New England by carrying off or

destroying everything within and without the beautiful establishment

(Cities in Revolt, p. 307).

It is probably fair to say that all colonials, including the colonial elite, noticed

an association between riots and alcohol. However, the relationship as they saw

it was not a causal one alcohol use was not responsible for riots. Indeed, in

some cases, like the last two mentioned above, they probably noticed that riots

caused drunkenness meaning that people were able to get drunk because

they were rioting. Of course not all rioters were drunk or even had anything to

drink at all, and there may well have been completely sober riots. It is also true

that the vast majority of drunken individuals did not riot. Drinking to the point

of drunkenness was one of the things people did during riots, along with other

activities like shouting, walking, and throwing objects.

While colonial society featured much less disorder than Europe of the same

period, crime, including violent crime, WM a significant fact of life especially in

the 18th century.

The prevailing offense against society was theft. Boston suffered most

from this crime, both because of its size and wealth, and because

hundreds of people flocked there during the wars to increase the

number of what Seawall called the "disorderly poor." A wave of petty

robberies occurred in the years 1704-1707. The thieves made a

speciality of articles readily convertable into cash, such as silver, linen

and silks. . . .A similar epidemic broke out in 1712. A series of

housebreaks occurred in 1715.

Not only was dishonesty on the increase, but townspeople tended to

greater violence in their behavior toward one another. The Mayor's

Court at New York had continually to deal with cases of assault and

battery. May Wilson accused Hugh Grow in 1704 of attacking her "with

double fist"....In a fishwive's scuffle in 1705 Jean Atkins, "with staves,

swords, clubs and other weapons, did beat, wound and evil treat"

Isabelle Maynard, but no indictment was brought. Citizens of

Philadelphia seem to have been continually running afoul of drunken

sailors and getting themselves beaten up. In 1713 John Hof fin and John

Buckley preferred charges of this nature against John Barfield and

Daniel Moody (Citizens in the Wilderness, pp. 220-225).

For a slightly later period, Bridenbaugh notes the increase in crimes of

violence.

Footpads appeared in each town rendering the streets dangerous at

night even for the watch. . . .Killings were not frequent, but the

nature of the few committed would easily have gained them headlines

in a modern tabloid. The number of bastard children murdered

increased greatly in these years. . . .More assaults and robberies

occurred at Philadelphia than in the other towns, and the mounting

violence there explains the ordering of severe penalties that have so

frequently been criticized as unbecoming a Quaker society (Cities in the

Wilderness, p. 582).

After the middle of the century the pa' n continued.

In the wake of the French and In, War came not a diminution but an

increase in crimes of all sorts: counterfeiting, petty thievery,

6 t.3
152 LEVINE

housebreaking, burglaries of every description, highway robbery,

rape, assaults and murder, Worse still, the cities had no police to curb

them. It seemed to many law-abiding persons that the age of violence

had arrived (Cities of the Wilderness, pp. 299-300). Once again, it was extremely likely that someone had a drink, or two or

three, or more, before committing a crime, and that many brawls occurred

between intoxicated individuals. Members of the colonial elite noted that

drinking was associated with such activity meaning that it occurred before

or during it. But they did not issue statements claiming that the effect of alcohol

on the body or mind caused people to rob, rape, or attack.

28. Increase Mather, "Wo to Drunkards: Two Sermons Testifying Against the Sin

of Drunkenness: Wherein the Wofulness of the Evil, and the Misery of All that are Addicted to It, Is Discovered from the Word of God." Cambridge,

Massachusetts, 1673, p. 21; Danforth, "The Woeful Effects of Drunkenness," p. 22; Cotton Mather, "Sober Considerations on a Growing Flood of Iniquity."

Boston, 1708, p. 7.

29. Jonathan Edwards, "Freedom of the Will." 1754, reprinted in: Jonathan

Edwards, Basic Writings. New York: New American Library, 1966, pp. 218- 219.

30. There was a phenomenological, and not cans, focus of colonial and Puritan

remarks. It was what in contemporary jargon is called a "stepping-stone"

notion. Drunkenness was seen leading to other sins. For example, as with other

types of sinful behavior, murder was the one crime Puritan ministers

frequently discussed as consequence of habitual drunkenness (see Rothman,

The Discovery of the Asylum, pp. 15-16). And the favored occasion for delivering

warnings was the execution of someone who murdered while drunk. Thus

Danforth's sermon, "The Woeful Effects of Drunkenness," was delivered at the

execution of two Indians who, while drunk, had murdered twu other Indians,

also drunk. The preacher concluded that all four deaths were "Instances of

Divine Verigence manifested against this Sin" (p. 41). We learn from the Bible,

he said, "That it is no new thing for the Sin of Drunkennessto be followed with

Murder; or at least with the ruin and Destruction of the Drunkards themselves"

(p. 23). He pointed out that drunkards "have unquiet and uneasy lives"; nothing

pleases them, and as a consequence "the husband is exposed to Murder the Wife

of his Bosom. and the Neighbor left to rise up and kill his friend or Neighbor in

the Field" (pp. 11-12).

Similarly in 1686 an habitual drunkard named Morgan was executed for

murder, and three ministers preached sermons. In addition, the condemned

man read a statement (probably prepared for him) from the gallows to the

crowd of spectators.

I warn you to have a Care of the Sin of Drunkenness, for that isa Sin that

leads to all manner of Sins and Wickedness. . .For when a Man is in

drink, he is ready to commit all manner of Sin, till he fill up the Cup of

the Wrath of God, as I have done, by committing that Sin of Murder....

Have a Care of Drunkenness and ill Company, and mind all good

Instruction, and don't turn your back upon the Word of God, as I have

done. (Quoted in Miller and Johnson, The Puritans, p. 420).

However close this sounds to Temperance formulations, it is far apart from

the idea that alcohol causes murder. In these cases alcohol is not demonic,

people are.

31. Quoted in INfacAndrew and Edgerton. Drunken Compartment, pp. 1.01-103. 32, Quoted in NiaAndrew and Edgerton, Drunken Cornportnunt, pp. 149-150.

161
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 153

33. Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography and Other

Writings. New York: New American Library, 1961, pp. 132-133. 34. Mac Andrew and Edgerton, Drunken Comportment, p. 94. 35. I have said that Mac Andrew and Edgerton are "essentially correct" because I differ with 'them on one point. They offer two explanations for why in some

cases Indians excused deviant behavior while drunk. First they point out itwas

consistent with Indian ideas about the way the world worked.

The Indians' precontact cultures already contained an ample array of

time out ceremonies and supernatural agents (e.g., witchcraft, dreams,

spirit possession, etc.) under whose "influence"a man became less than

strictly responsible for his actions....The Indian observed the dramatic

transformation that alcohol seemed to produce in the white man; and,

reaching into his repertoire of available explanations, he concluded, as

the historian A.G. Bailey put it, that "Brandy was the embodiment, or

was the medium through which an evil supernatural agent worked."

Thus it was that the Indian came to see that at such times the drinker

was temporarily inhabited by an evil supernatural agent (pp. 148-149). I think this is a workable beginning explanation of why Indians excused

drunken behavior. MacAndrew and Edgerton also suggest another reason why

Indians used drunkenness as an excuse they learned to do so from whites.

What is more, the notion that the state of drunkenness was excusing of

those transgressions committed while 'under the influence' was

entirely consonant with his own drunken transgressions, and those of

his fellows, the white man, too, ignored much and forgave still more on

the grounds that when drunk, one is 'under the influence' (p. 149).

I have not found evidence to suggest that whites excused their own

deviance while drunk because one was "under the influence." I think, rather, that insofar as they excused behavior while drunk it was because

drunkenness having large amounts of alcohol in the body was

acknowledged as part of time out. Drunkenness was viewed as a form of time

out behavior; drinking alcohol was seen as initiating and accompanying time out behavior, not as causing it.

Much of MacAndrew and Edgerton's evidence came from 19th

century reports about drinking. However, 19th century attitudes are not

indicative of colonial concerns. The authors appear to have looked hard for examples, and had they been able to find English colonial statements about

alcohol causing drunken behavior, they probably would have quoted them. Further, while this paper is concerned primarily with ideas about alcohol as a

cause of deviance. and not as an excuse for it, those two ideas go logically and historically together: When wealthy and powerful people worry about drinking and drunkenness as a cause of deviant behavior, the lower classes use

it as an excuse. Once again, there is no evidence to suggest that alcohol functioned among the lower classes as an excuse. For example, A Classical

Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (edited by Robert Cromie, 1971), first published in 1785, contained thousands of phroes and expressions used

by the English working and lower classes. With perhaps a hundred expressions

for ways to con people, inclmding police, gentlemen, wives and husbands, and

dozens of expressions for drinking and drunkenness (including, for example, "Mellow" for almost drunk, "Mauled" for extremely drunk, and "Maudlin

Drunk" for someone who cried when drunk) there was no hint of any use of drunkenness as an excuse. While there were many words for nasty or ornery

individuals, there was no equivalent for the contemporary expression, "mean

163
154 LEVINE

drunk." Further, had the lower class attempted to use alcohol consumption as

an excuse on any scale for various crimes (as they did in the 19th century), it

seems likely there would have been upper class reactions. Some people would

have used those "excuses" in arguments that drinkers themselves testified that

liquor caused disorder or crime (as in the 19th century). While the Classical

Dictionary contained the expression "Cat's Sleep" for counterfeit sleep,

pretending to be asleep, pretending to be asleep in order to spring on someone

or fool somebody, there was no expression for counterfeit or faked drunkenness,

which is one of the things Mac Andrew and Edgerton suggest Indians learned

from whites. Counterfeit drunkenness may have been an independent

invention by Indians, perhaps in part to fool whites. In addition to 19th century

sources, the authors also used colonial French reports. There may, in fact, have

been a tendency among the French to excuse drunken comportment

drinking norms do vary considerably from culture to culture. However, I

suspect that there was not a significant French tradition for explaining crime

or violence with reference to the effect of alcohol on the mind or body at least

until the later part of the 18th century. It may also be that French fur traders

learned drunkenness as an excuse from Indians, or perhaps considerably

elaborated upon a mild French tradition in order to exploit Indians. Obviously,

this is all fertile ground for further research.

36. Perry Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. Boston:

Beacon Press, 1961, p. 232.

37. On European perceptions of Indians see Howard Mumford Jones, 0 Strange

Neu. World, American Culture: The Formative Years. New York: The

Viking Press, 1964, chapter 2; Morgan, A merican Slavery. American Freedom , chapter 3; Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America. New

York: Schoeken, 1965, chapter 2; Winthrop D. Jordon, White Over Black:

American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-181. Baltimore, Maryland:

Penguin Books, 1968.

Despite the fact that colonials in some ways tended to lump Indians and blacks

together, they also made radical distinctions between them. Among the

distinctions made between the two peoples was on the question of the

effect of liquor on them: colonials did not by and large believe that alcohol

made blacks wild or violent. Blacks lived and worked alongside whites, and

were governed by whites, and in 17th-century Virginia, at least, masters made

few distinctions between the traits and natural propensities of whites and

blacks (Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom.) Indians, however,

lived mainly under their own rule, and colonials differentiated between

Indians and blacks on the issue of their governability. According to Winthrop

Jordon "Americans came to impute to the braves of the Indian 'nations' an

ungovernable individuality...and at the same time to impart to Negroes all the

qualities of an eminently governable sub-nation" (p. 90). In the colonial period

the "savagery" on the Indian was more important for whites, than that of

blacks. In the 19th century, however, black "savagery" became a prominent

theme and included the idea that alcohol quickly made blacks wild and violent.

Such assumptions were built into the Committee of Fifty Report (John Koren,

Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem, An Investigation Made far the

Committee of Fifty. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1899). Interestingly, while the

Committee concluded that blacks were more likely than whites to go out of

control under the immediate influence of alcohol, they noted that blacks were

less likely to become addicted to it. Presumably those people most capable of

compulsive conformity (whites) are most prone to compulsive deviation

(addiction).
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 155

38, Robin Room, "Cultural Contingencies of Alcoholism: Variations Between and

Within Nineteenth-Century Urban Ethnic Groups in Alcohol Related

Death Rates," Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Vol. 9, No. 2 (June 1968),

pp. 99-112; R-rabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic; Dorchester, The Liquor

Problem in All Ages.

39. Lewis Atherton, Main Street on the Middle Border. Chicago: Quadrangle

Books, 1966, especially pp. 57-60; George Ade, The Old-Time Saloon: Not Wet

Not Dry Just History. New York: Richard R. Smith, 1931: Allen M. Winkler,

"Drinking on the American Frontier." Quarterly Journal of Studiesow Alcohol.

Vol. 29, No. 2. (June 1968), pp. 413-445; Jon M. Kingsdale, "The 'Poor Man's

Club': Social Functions of the Urban Working-Class Saloon." American

Quarterly. Vol. 25, No. 4. (October 1973), pp. 472-490.

40. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, chapter 6,

.11. Quoted in Ernest H. Cherrington, Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol

Problem. 6 Volumes, Vol. 1, Westerville, Ohio: The American Issue Press,

1925, p. 325,

42. Rush, "An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits." p. 195.

43. While I have a considerably more positive view of the concept of ambivalence

than he does, the best critical review of the entire issue in the alcohol field is

Robin Room. "Ambivalence as a Sociological Explanation: The Case of

Cultural Explanations of Alcohol Problems," , American Sociological

Rrriew Vol. .11 (December). pp. 1047-1065, 1976.

44. The statement signed by the various Presidents read:

Being satisfied from observation and experience, as well as from

medical testimony, that ardent spirits, as a drink, is not only needless

but hurtful, and that entire disuse of it would tend to promote the

health, the virtue and the happiness of the community, we hereby

express our conviction that should the citizens of the United States, and

especially the young men, discontinue entirely the use of it they would

not only promote their own personal comfort but the good ofour country

and the world. (Quoted in Ernest Cherrington, The Erolution of

Prohibition, Westerville, Ohio: The American Issue Press, 1920, pp. 114-115).

45. A good example of the tendency of anti-Temperance advocates to accept much

of the Temperance argument regarding the effects of alcohol was the

speech of former Governor John A. Andrew (1867) to the General Court of

Nlassachusetts urging rejection of a prohibition law.

Still does not poverty owe its own origin oftentimes to drunkenness?

Undoubtedly, yes. So also is it due ofteh to luxury and idleness

originating in bad moral training, the sudden acquisition of unearned

wealth. leading to habits of self-indulgence to degenerating into

drunkenness and other vices. But, drunkenness in our own modern

society. ending in either pauperism or crime, in one of good training,

grounded in reasonable intelligence, with the means of comfort, and

supported by the inspirations of hope. is a rare and exceptional

phenomenon. Drunkenness is, however. one of several causes

immediately generating crime and pauperism the reduction of

which to the minimum, is one of the studies and aims of civilization. Yet,

the effort to reduce them by a war on the material abused to pi.oduce

drunkenness, is scarcely less philosophical, than would be an attempt to

prevent idleness and luxury, by abolishing property and imitating the

legislation of Sparta..
156 LEVINE

When you charge crime to drunkenness, as one of the frequent

proximate causes of crime; and when you charge the sinking of many a

man into deeper degradation, by abandoning hope, and abandoning

himself to drinking as one of the seductive forms of sensuality, you are

right. But much of that I hear leads me to dread the return to our

Christian community, of that pharisaic morality which substitutes a

ritual conformity, in matters not essential in nature nor by the divine

law, for the heart of love and the embrace of charity (John A. Andrew, "The Errors of Prohibition, An Argument Delivered in the

Representative's Hall, Boston, April 3, 1867, Before a Joint Special

Committee of the General Court of Massachusetts." Boston: Ticknor

and Fields, 1967, pp. 91-93).

A good example of the way representatives of the liquor industry treated

the claim that alcohol caused crime was H.E.O. Heineman's column for the

American Brewers Review titled "Intemperance in Food Causes more Distress

than Intemperance In Drink."

The advocates of (moderation). . .have devoted much time to efforts to

controvert or minimize the charge that intoxicating drink not only

contributes to those evils, but is the chief cause of them. Estimatesof the

share of crime, pauperism and insanity caused by liquor run as high as

seventy -five percent. . ..For my own part, I do not believe that twentyfive percent is even approximately a true figure. Certain investigations

abroad go as low as two percent for poverty. . . .It is not liquor that

makes the drunkard, it is the man. It is not the fine cooking that makes

the glutton, it is the man, and of course, his environment, consistingof a

thousand influences.

But, be the percentage large or small. let us admit for the sake of the

present argument, that an appreciable amount of poverty and crime is

due to the intemperate use of liquor. What does it prove? What

conclusions as to the use of fermented beverages does it justify?

I should like to see a Committee of Fifty send out a few hundred skilled

observers to gather statistics showing the percentage of crime, poverty,

insanity, etc. that ought to be charged up to dyspepsia, indigestion.

overeating, gluttony, or whatever they might wish to call the protean

forms of that constant abuse of the alimentary canal to which nearly all

people are subjecting themselves.. . Let us grant, for the sake of this argument only, that liquor causes some

crime, poverty, etc. But I must insist that food causes many times as

much. . . . It may cause a chronic false thirst or appetite and lead from bad to

worse. For another thing, if irrational and excessive eating I do not

speak only of over-eating causes many bodily evils, it is by that fact

alone a fertile source of crime, for it is bodily evils thr.t largely generate

the mental and moral conditions in which crime is hatched. It is the

general state of mental t.r.rest, of moral depression, the pessimistic or

narrowly brutal view of life, the abnormal stimulation of sexual passion

the latter being one of the most important of all sources of crime

that bring in their train that revival of primitive humanity, the

expressions of which a civilized society stigmatizes as crime.

Heinemen sent copies of his column to members of the Committee of Fifty, and,

incredibly enough. received responses, including one from Charles W. Eliot,

171
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 157

president of Harvard University, Eliot responded from his own set of

interests and prejudices.

I agree that "The main question is not what we eat, but how we eat," and

also that over-eating causes quite as many bodily evils as over-drinking.

It does not, however, cause as much crime. Further, I agree with you

that it is better to drink beer than whiskey; but then it is easy to drink

too much beer, as the experience of the German nation abundantly

proves. A cheap and good provision of beer and light wine will not

prevent Teutonic peoples from drinking distilled liquor to excess. On

this point see the experience of California. Drunkenness is a vice that

goes by race. The Latin races are not addicted to it; the Russian and

Teutonic races are Heinemann, The Rule of "Not Too Much".

Chicago: American Brewers Review. 1909, pp. 15-23).

The first developed body of anti-Temperance arguments and facts appeared

in the five volume work of the Committee of Fifty. For a review of their ideas

and place in the liquor question see: Harry Gene Levine, "The Committee of

Fifty: the Origins of Alcohol Control," in the Journal of Drug Issues

forthcoming 1983.

46. Atherton, Main Street on the Middle Border, p. 84.

47. Henry Conklin, Through "Poverty's Vale": A Hardscrapple Boyhood in

Upstate Net York. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1974.

48. For a brief description of alcoholic fires see J.C. Furnas, The Life and Times of

the Late Demon Rum. New York: Capricorn Books, 1965, pp. 189-191. On

accidental deaths and other issues in Temperance literature see Herbert Ross

Brown, The Sentimental Novel in America: 1789-1860. New York: Pageart

Books, 1959. Brown writes:

The inevitable learned monograph on "Deaths Resulting From Acute

Alcoholism ir American Fiction from the Beginnings to the Present

Day" will undoubtedly be given us in the fullness of time. In it, deaths by

freezing will have prominent place, for temperance novelists seem to

have been fascinated by scenes in which the body, "still as buckram,"

was chopped from the ice with a jug clutched firmly in the dead man's

hand. Deaths by cremation will also bulk large. How easy for a reeling

mother to drop her babe in an open fireplace, or as did Mrs. Wild in The

Cider Merchant, fall into the flames herself and be burned, as Porter

described it, "almost to a cinder." The incineration differed only in

degree in The Mysterious Parchment, where the author preferred to

have his victim done "to a crisp." The variety of the catastrophes is

almost as amazing as their number. Drunken captains ran their heavily

freighted barks upon the rocks to prove that lemonade was more

wholesome than grog for sailors; intoxicated stagecoach drivers

cascaded their passengers over steep embankments; bad bartenders

heaved beermugs at the skulls of tiny tots who entered the swinging

doors in quest of errant papas: while insane alcoholics used crowbars,

knives, poison, guns, and pitchforks to work their fatal mischief. The

curious reader who is not sated by deaths caused by "internal fires" or

by excessive draughts of eau-de-Cologne, may find more to his taste the

fate of ex-Congressman Hargrave, who awoke from a stupor to find

himself more than half devoured by a big, bad and very hungry wolf: or

the unfortunate error of Messrs. Robbins and Simmons, who drained to

the last drop a bottle of what they fondly believed to be rum. but proved

instead to be a concoction not untruthfully advertised as "Dead Shot for
158 LEVINE

Bed-Bugs." A complete catalogue of horrible examples must await a more scientific study (Brown, pp. 323-324).

49. It should also be noted that there was some limited attention given to industrial accidents and, especially toward the end of the 19th century, Temperance

groups focused on train wrecks as a consequence of worker thinking.

50. While this paper has focused on events rather than on long-term or chronic conditions like disease, it is important to note that one common argument for total abstinence was that alcohol made one sick. Anthony Benezet and Rush discussed disease and ill-health, and Temperance writers continued to do so

throughout the century. The argument that alcohol was a disease-producing poison was one of the central appeals to the self-interest of the moderate

drinker. Col. Jacob L. Green, President of Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance

Company, explained the many diseases caused or aggravated by moderate drinking.

The degree to which many diseases commonly referred to as malaria, over-work, and other vague, general, scapegoat causes, are actually

grounded in what would almost invariably be called a temperate use of drink by persons of reputed temperate habits, would be incredible to the mass of people unaccustomed to careful observation and

comparison of related cases. That habitual sottish drunkenness should

issue in disease and death, most people can understand; but that moderate, orderly, decorous indulgence should issue in congested

brains, insanity, suicide, paralysis, diseases of kidneys, liver, stomach,

pneumonia, rheumatism, and in general in those diseases which at

bottom mean a poison imparted into the blood, most persons do not know, and are slow to believe; but the reason is simple, and worth

noting. (Dorchester, The Liquor Problem in All Ages). The point of Col. Green's remarks, as he explained, was that "the death rate

is more profoundly affected by the use of intoxicating drinks than from any

other one cause, apart from heredity." Significantly, when Green computed the effect of alcohol on mortality, accidents were not one of the factors he included

in his calculations. For the President of the Life Insurance Company, the disease-producing effect of alcohol was so overwhelming that accidents were

simply not a significant enough problem to be included in the figures.

51. Sumner Stebbins, "Moderate Drinking, The Worst Phase of Intemperance."

New York: National Temperance Society and Publication House (c. 1875).

52. John Marsh, "Putnam and the Wolf; or the Monster Destroyed." 1829. reprinted

in Select Temperance Tracts. New York: American Tract Society, n,d., p. 5. 53. John B. Gough, Platform Echoes; or, Lining Truths for Head and Heart.

Hartford. Connecticut: A.D. Worthington & Co., 1887, pp. 162, 185.

54. Henry Munroe, "The Physiological Action of Alcohol." New York: National

Temperance Society and Publication House (c. 1875).

55. Morris Chafetz and Harold Demone Jr., Alcoholism and Society. New York:

Oxford University Press, 1962, quoted in MacAndrew and Edgerton,

Drunken Comportment, p. 7.

56. Frances Elizabeth Willard, Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of An

American Woman. Chicago: Woman's Temperance Publication Association,

1889, p. 118. While many contemporary students of alcoholism might wince at

Willard's language, or her choice of symptoms, they would agree with the

thrust of her argument: alcohol weakens the alcoholic's moral system. 57. Walt Whitman, Frank! in Evans or tbo Inebriate. 1842. republished New York:

Random House, 1929, pp. 147-148.

173
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 159

58. Justin Edwards, "The Traffic in Ardent Spirits." In: American Tract Society, Select Temperance Tracts. New York: American Tract Society, n.d., p. 8; Jonathan Kittredge, "Address on the Effects of Ardent Spirits." 1827. republished in: American Tract Society. Select Temperance Tracts, p. 5; "Barnes on the Traffic in Ardent Spirits." in: American Tract Society, Select Temperance Tracts, p. 5; Marsh, "Putnam and the Wolf," p. 6; several quotes

from Thomas Lape, "Statistics of Intemperance." No. 28. New York: National

Temperance Society and Publication House, (c. 1875); Carrol D. Wright, "Influence of Intemperance Upon Crime." Twelfth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor. for 1881. Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co.. 1889, p. 11; Koren, Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem, p. 30. 59. New York State Temperance Society, Third Annual Report of the New York Society for the Promotion of Temperance. Albany: Packard and Van Benthuy- sen, 1832.

60. Baxter Dickinson, "Alarm to Distillers." 1830. in: American Tract Society, Select Temperance Tracts, p. 2.

61. P.T. Barnum, "The Liquor Business, its Effects upon the Mind. Morals and Pockets of our People." Whole World Temperance Tracts No. 4. New York:

Fowler and Wells, n.d.

62. Quoted in the March 1910 Issue of the Anti-Saloon League publication, The American Issue.

63. Samuel Chipman, "The Temperance Lecturer: Being Facts Gathered from a

Personal Examination of All the Jails and Poor-Houses of the State of New

York . . . Showing the Effects of Intoxicating Drinks in Producing Taxes,

Pauperism and Crime." Albany, 1845, p. 30.

64. Since the repeal of prohibition the idea that alcohol consumption is a major cause of crime has not had a broad base of popular support. Further, while the

theoretical underpinning of that idea the notion that the short and long

term effect of alcohol use reduces moral controls has not disappeared, and is probably as respectable and credible as it was in the 19th century, it is rarely

linked to social policy recommendations anymore. It is mostly used in very

general ways (as in alcohol education programs),or in very specific ones (as in

alcoholism treatment). Occasionally, however, someone in the health or legal professions, or the alcoholism field uses the notion to suggest that drinking

causes social deviance. For example, in 1942 Dr. Ralph Banay. Chief Psychiatrist at Sing Sing Prison, reported the results of hisstudy of alcoholism as a cause of crime among the inmates. Like Samuel Chipman, over a hundred

years earlier, Banay was also interested in isolating the "intemperate." Banay

determined that for 1938-39, of the 1,576 admissions to the Prison, 43 percent were intemperate. Of that group only 19 percent were, as Banay put it. "alcoholic criminals"that is, those men whose "alcoholism led to the

commission of the crime." The other 25 percent were only criminals who are

"alcoholic." and their drinking habits did not lead them to com rn it a crime. The

"alcoholic criminals" committed 22 percent of sex crimes, 23 percent of homicides. 31 percent of grand larcenies, and only 6 percent of all other crimes. A more recent example is from an article entitled "Alcohol and Crime"

in a 1976 issue of the British publication The Journal of Alcoholism:

Gayford's study of battered wives showed that 74 percent of the husbands were heavy drinkers. Murder studies have revealed that a high

proportion of both offenders and victims have been drinking heavily

immediately before the attack. Football violence appears to be very much linked with alcohol consumption amongst young supporters.
160 LEVINE

Recent studies carried out by the Luton police suggest that alcohol

plays a significant part in a number of crimes especially amongst 16

and 17 year old boys. To my mind the association between alcohol and

crime is strong enough to make it a matter of urgency to look to waysof

coping with the alcohol problem as the most likely way of reducing

crime, especially violent crime. (Douglas I. Acres, "Alcohol and Crime."

The Journal of Alcoholism. Vol. 11, No. 3 (Autumn 1976), pp. 80-84. Very recently this sort of argument has begun appearing with greater

frequency. We still live within the definition of the alcohol problem as it was

first worked out in the beginning of the 19th century.

65. Krout, The Origins of Prohibition.

66. Neil Kessel and Henry Walton, Alcoholism. Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin

Books, 1967, pp. 26-27.

67. Perry Miller, Errand Into the Wilderness. Cambridge, Massachusetts:Belknap

Press, 1956, pp. 142-143.

68. Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum, p. 18.

69. Quoted in Rothman, The Discovery of the Asylum, p. 18.

70. Winthrop S. Hudson, American Protestantism, Chicago: University of Chicago

Press. 1961.

71. Eric Foner, Free Soil. Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican

Party Before the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.

William Appleman Williams, The Contours of American History, New York:

Franklin Watts, 1973, quote from pp. 227-228.

72. Horace Mann. "Two Lectures on Intemperance: The Effects of Intemperance

on the Poor and Ignorant: the Effects of Intemperance on the Rich and

Educated." Syracuse: Hall. Mills and Company, 1852, p. 88. On American

middle-class concerns with self-control see: C. Wright Mills, White Collar:

The American Middle Classes, New York: Oxford, 1951; Charles E. Rosenberg,

The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832. 1849 and 1866. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1962. Eric Foner. Free Soil. Free Labor, Free

Men. New York: Oxford, 1970. David Rothman, Discovery of the Asylum, 1971.

New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1964. David Riesman,

The Lonely Crowd: A Study in the Changing American Character. New Haven:

Yale University Press. 1961. Michael Katz, The Irony of Early School Reform,

Boston: Beacon Press, 1970. Michael Paul Rogin, Fathers and Children:

Andrew Jackson and the Subjugation of the American Indian, New York:

Alfred A. Knopf, 1975. Joseph Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and

the American Temperance Movement, Urbana: University of Illinois Press,

1963.

73. For a discussion of literary portraits of efforts to maintain self-control and

conform see: Henry Nash Smith, "The Scribbling Women and the Cosmic

Success Story." Critical Inquiry (September, 1974) Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 47-69. My

personal favorite is Mark Twain's conversation and confrontation with his

conscience who has suddenly materalized. Twain spends the story plotting

ways to kill the now corporal conscience, and in the end he succeeded. The

result is revealed in the title of the story-"The Facts Concerning the Recent

Carnival of Crime in Connecticut" (1876). Though Twain hates his conscience,

and all consciences. he regards them as essential to social order. To kill the

individual conscience is to begin a reign of violence and mayhem: "I killed

thirty-eight persons during the first two weeks-all of them on account of

ancient grudges. I burned a dwelling that interrupted my view. . .1 also

committed scores of crimes of various kinds. and have enjoyed my work

7:)
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 161

exceedingly." For Twain, like other 19th century middle class men and women,

the conscience was the seat of social order because it said "No" to the destructive and antisocial desires. The story is in Mark Twain, The Mysterious

Stranger and Other Stories, New York: New American Library, 1966.

1 7 ,3
Presenter's Comments

ROOM: Harry Levine, who is a faculty member at Queens College at the City University of New York, also has a long-time

association with the Social Research Group.

LEVINE: I want to mention a couple of disclaimers concerning

my paper, I'm not an historian but a sociologist, though I've worked

for quite a while in historical materials and I also don't think it

makes all that much difference. However, there is a way in which

my concerns are especially sociological: I am concerned with what I

take to be the grand questions of sociology, in some sense the difference between tradition and modernity, between the world that was

once and the world that we have been living in for the last couple of

hundred years or so. I understand that to be what de Tocqueville,

Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and so on were struggling with and

puzzling with, and that's really what interests me above all; I

approach the alcohol materials with that problematic and with that

question.

The second disclaimer is that although I fundamentally agree

with the paper I presented, I have always felt somewhat uncomfortable with it, and I've never quite been able to figure out why. It was

first written under a particular set of circumstances, which I describe in the "Preface." I've revised it, updated it and changed it,

but it still fundamentally is shaped by those circumstances. Though

it wasn't written by a committee, there is a way in which it was

responding to the demands and needs of a committee; that it's so

huge, sprawling, and covers so many things has always been aesthetically uncomfortable to me as well. The one or two times I've

ever tried to talk on the topic or about the paper in a brief period of

time, I've always been overwhelmed by exactly what to talk about

and what exactly to focus on.

Finally, I'm unhappy about the paper's focus on causality. It is

difficult enough to talk about inhibition, disinhibition, and morality in different historical periods; it is much harder to talk about

changing meanings of "cause." and I know far less about it. Perhaps

one of the agenda items for this conference is to figure out what it

means to talk about "cause," or what are all the different things

meant by the phrase "alcohol causes." My sense is that there are not

162

177
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 163

clear distinctions to any of these things and that the whole language

of cause, which sometimes seems to be very concrete, is in fact very

flimsy and airy.

After struggling for several days, trying to figure out exactly

what to say, I finally decided not to talk about the paper very much

at all, but rather to talk about some additional things which extend

the argument and findings of the paper, including some things I

only learned in the last few weeks.

The idea of alcohol as a disinhibitor assumes that alcohol is a

substance that diminishes the powers of the moral portions of the

brain or mind. This doctrine claims that alcohol as a chemical acts

to weaken, undermine, or destroy moral feelings and sensibilities,

and that it consequently releases from higher brain controls more

primitive and animalistic impulses and desires. As a result, people

disinhibited by alcohol, it is said, are more physically and sexually

aggressive and violent. I would like to try to briefly locate historically the general concern with disinhibition and to outline the

beginnings of a critique of its biological underpinnings.

The key distinction I would like to make is reflected in two

phrases: "The Good Creature of God" and "The Demon Rum." They

refer to two fundamentally different ways of picturing the place of

alcohol in society and the effect of it on the individual. The first view

was the dominant. one during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth

Centuries in America. The second image, of alcohol as a demon, was

the new view articulated during the Nineteenth Century.

This shift in the perception of alcohol from good creature to

demonic substance should be understood, I believe, in terms of a

large shift in ideas about the sources of social order and control

from outside the individual to inside the individual. Seventeenth

and Eighteenth Century religious and political authorities thought

that most people have very little capacity for self-regulation. They

viewed social order and social control as primarily external to the

individual. In the Nineteenth Century, however, a great many

people came to believe that men and women could regulate and

control their own behavior. In a free and democratic society, it was

said. social order depends upon self-control. The primary mechanism for the preservation of order was the "inner-check" within

each individual.

This new concern with individual self-control and self-restraint

produced language and concepts with which to talk about these

kinds of control. One of the changes has been the addition of meaning to the word "inhibition." The word "inhibition" has always

meant things like "hold back," "curb." "prohibit," "forbid," "restrain," and so on. However, until roughly the end of the Eighteenth
164 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

Century and beginning of the Nineteenth Century it was used only

for processes external to the individualone subject, group, person, law inhibits another. This is still common in such phrases as "This seat beh inhibits my movements," or "Fortunately, stop signs and

traffic lights inhibit his driving style," Both refer to people being

restrained by things outside "if themselves. In the Nineteenth Century, however, the word came to be used to describe internal pro- cesses as well a person could now be said to inhibit him or herself.

'This now seems so common-sensical that the "in" of "inhibition"

almost acts as a cue for us to think about something going on inside of the person.

I am suggesting that widespread acceptance of the idea that

there is a special moral faculty in the mind which inhibits behavior

is less than 200 years old. The idea was first systematically developed by a group of thinkers in the Eighteenth Century, sometimes

referred to as the Scottish Moralists or the Scottish Enlightenment. Contrary to much Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century philosophi- cal and scientific thought, they argued that reason was not the only

faculty that people used to determine right from wrong and good

from bad. They believed that there was an innate moral sense which

reacted automatically to perceptions of good and evil. The idea of the moral sense of the conscience as it is popularly

called became part of conventional wisdom in the Nineteenth

Century. I see the rise ofconcern with individual self-control as part of a much larger transformation the emergence of modern, capitalist society. Many historians and sociologists have pointed out that one zentral characteristic of the culture of the middle or business class in the Nineteenth Century was the obsession with self- restraint. In the Nineteenth Century the notion of the conscience

of a particular moral faculty of the mind became central to the

common sense understanding of how people function. Weare still so

much inside of that idea that itseems hard to imagine what it would mean not to think it.

All this is well illustrated by a story of Mark Twain in which Twain tells of the day that his conscience materialized before him.

Twain discovered to his horror that his conscience was a three foot

dwarf covered in green fuzz. Throughout the story Twain and his conscience have a long conversation about consciences in general and how they make people feel guilty no matter how .cood the people are. Twain spends the story plotting how to kill his now visible

conscience. and finally he succeeds. He beats, pummels, and rips his conscience into bits. The title of the story is "The Facts Concerning

the Recent Carnival of Crime" a title which makes no senso until

the very end. In the last. paragraph, Twain explains that since he

17()
GOOD UREA l'URE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 165

eliminated his conscience, he has been perfectly happy: he has

killed a couple dozen people that bothered him and swindled others

out of everything they owned. All of these things he could do without

the slightest pang of guilt because he had no conscience. Despite the

black humor tone of the piece, Twain's story is a moral tale. Without

the conscience, he says, there would be nothing but chaos, anarchy,

and destruction.

In short, underlying the whole supposed idea that alcohol "disinhibits" is a Nineteenth Century, middle-class view of people as

ordinarily "inhibited" by an internal mechanism. This supposed

natural inhibition is said to be weakened or destroyed by alcohol.

Throughout the Nineteenth Century this idea had widespread religious, political, medical, and scientific support. Further, as

MacAndrew and Edgerton (1969) demonstrate, despite the vast

anthropological evidence to the contrary, it is still widely believed

today that alcohol, as a chemical, physiologically weakens this

"natural inhibition."

One of the Nineteenth Century elaborations on this view suggested that the nervous system consisted of more and less recently

evolved layers, and that it was the more recent and higher additicAs

to the brain that constituted the seat of moral authority and control.

This idea is still widely cited in discussions of the effectof alcohol on

the nervous system.

It did not seem likely to me that there were "moral centers" to the

brain which were more recently evolved, but I had never encountered a critique of that model. Over the past several years, I'd looked

informally for relevant physiological evidence, but all I found

essentially supported the idea that the higher and more recently

evolved portion of the brain is the seat of moral feelings, and that

one or another signal stress, for example can disrupt it and bring out the more primitive, lower nervous system behaviors. Three weeks ago I finally stumbled upon the beginnings of the

critique I had been looking for, end also the alternative biological

model. Since then I have been trying to learn as much as I can, and I

want to report to you on what I have discovered.

Most of what I have learned comes from Jonathan Miller, who

produced a series of BBC television shows called "The Body in

Question" and then put out a book (Miller 1979) with the same

name. Miller is, among other things. a physician who has done

original research in the history of medicine. He points out that the

body is conceived of differently in different historical periods, and

that the body is always conceived of in terms of something else

ultimately, any symbol system is a metaphor. For instance, one

can't describe the body in terms of electricity if there is no concep-
166 I-AESENTER'S COMMENTS

tion of electricity. Miller suggests that the image of the nervous

system as a stratified system with a recently evolved moral faculty

on top was the product of a particular social and economic context:

Victorian upper class or upper middle class culture.

Miller reports that in the mid-Nineteenth Century the English

clinical neurologist John Hughlings Jackson, who spent most of his

life observing, and cataloging the behavior of patients suffering

from strokes and epilepsy, "was one of the first scientists to systematize the notion of the nervous system as hierarchical and layered."

According to Jackson, the most primitive layer appeared first, and

then on top of that a more recent system appeared, and then on top

of it again, in human beings. is the ultimate nervous apparatus.

Jackson believed that nervous disease showed the reverse of this

process "that the illness had stripped away higher levels of

nervous-system development that is to say, those most recently

acquired leaving the older ones exposed." For example, Jackson

wrote:

I have long thought that we should be very much helped

in our investigation diseases of the nervous system by

considering them as reverses of evolution. By evolution I

mean a passage from the most complex, as passage from

the most automatic to the most voluntary. The highest

centers, which are the climax of nervous evolution, are

the most complex and the most voluntary. So much for

the positive process by which the nervous system is put

together. Now for the negative process. Dissolution is a

process of undevelopment; it is a taking to pieces in order

from the most complex and most voluntary towards the

most simple and most automatic. (Miller 1979)

J:4ekson made an additional set of observations and conclusions

relevant to the question of "disinhibition." He believed that disease

did not reveal lower functions, but it "somehow released them as

well, allowing them to express themselves with unprecedented

vigor." Jackson concluded that the higher nervous system "appeared

to exert cr c vilizing influence on the more prim it ire part"(emphasis

added). For example, .Jackson found "that patients who had lost

most of the power of speech were sometimes left with an exaggerated tendency to utter oaths and swear words; patients with brain

damage sometimes became energetically uncouth. This led him to

believe that evolution was not simply the successive addition of

more and more sophisticated skills, but the concomitant repression

of the more ancient ones." In other words, the evolution of the

nervous system was a succession of restraints as Miller puts it

"pressing down the lid on the jack in the box of all previous evolunISI
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON Rum 167

tionary stages. Illness or injury brought about a recapitulation of

the patient's evolutionary history."

The similarities between Jackson's ideas and contemporary

notions about alcohol as a disinhibitor are striking. For example,

consider the following passage from the widely cited Alcoholism

and Society by Chafetz and Demone (1962):

The apparent "stimulation" from alcohol is the result of

the lower brain centers being released from higher brain

controls. This reduces inhibitions, and behavior which is

untoward when the individual is sober becomes acceptable. For example . an always proper, ladylike woman

may become obscene and promiscuous when intoxicated.

The authors' ideas about alcohol are little more than a gloss on

Jackson's views. In both cases, something a disease or alcohol

weakens the recently evolved higher brain controls, releasing the

primitive impulses. As a result, one curses, fights, or makes sexual

advances. In 1903, two other English scientists, the anthropologist

W.H. Rivers and the clinical neurologist Henry Head, conducted an

unusual experiment testing Jackson's ideas. Henry Head had a

surgeon cut a small sensory nerve in his forearm. "The wound was

closed, the limb splinted, and the hand left free for testing." While

Rivers administered a regular series of pin pricks, hair pullings, and other tests, Head carefully recorded the gradual return of

feelings in his hand, Head reported that the first feelings to return

had a "coarse, primitive roughness." Only later did greater sensitivity and discrimination in feeling return.

According to Head and Rivers. this little experiment

brought about a brief replay of nervous evolution. In the

first phase of recovery, the primitive, coarse, ancient

nervous system was revealed in its true colours

released from the inhibition of the more sophisticated

stages, it expressed itself with unrestrained vulgarity: as

the nerve was restored to full function, the dog beneath

the skin was restrained and put back on its leash. (Miller

1979)

The experiments have been repeated several times but "noone since

has been able to get the same results." Leaving aside the obvious

built-in unreliability of the experiment, Miller points out that Head

and Rivers' conclusions "do not really make sense. It seems highly unlikely that the ancestral nervous system was as crude as Head

and Rivers maintained only a sea anemone could hope to prosper with such sensitivity."

Miller suggests that Head and Rivers had. in fact, started out

strongly favoring Jackson's evolutic nary theory of the nervous sys-
168 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

tern. Head "unconsciously reshaped his own feelings until they

confirmed the theory which had moved him to embark on the

experiment in the first place." First Jackson, then Head, Rivers, and many others, had interpreted nervous disease and dysfunction using a Darwinian metaphor. Indeed, Jackson's theory was so popular and persuasive "partly because it seemed to follow so nearly

from Darwin's" the exemplary and hegemonic scientific theory

of the Nineteenth Century. When disease (or in our case alcohol) strips away the thin and recent layer of civilization, the primitive

animal is revealed.

However, Miller's argument does not stop here. In an excellent piece on the sociology of knowledge, he argues that the ideas

reflected in Jackson's work derived from larger social and eco- nomic sources. "When Jackson summarised his doctrine of release,

he expressed himself in revealing political terms: 'If the governing

body of this country were destroyed suddenly, we should have two

causes of lamentation: 1. the loss of services of eminent men; 2. the

anarchy of the now uncontrolled people.' " In short, Jackson's ideas

were extensions of European, upper class anxieties about their

control over the lower classes. Jackson's theory was so persuasive because it mapped these more general social and political concerns onto human physiology. "Long before Darwin, Thomas Hobbes had

insisted that the aggressive appetites of individuals could be reconciled only if everyone submitted to the restraints of a single sover- eign authority. Left to itself, nature was in a state of war, and man

unregulated by society would eke out an existence which was 'nasty, brutish and short,' " The revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848 had

struck fear into the European upper classes, who believed "Hobbes' theory had been dismally confirmed by the events of the previous 100 years."

Given this ideological and political background, "the idea of

regression must have seemed just as captivating as the biological theory of evolution. By demonstrating that man was genetically

related to the lower orders and that he retained active residues of

his own primitive ancestry, Darwin made it easy to believe that the

tendency to regress was not an accidental misfortune but was

written into the very constitution of man." These same ideae, also

found expression in political thought. as in the ideas of the political

economist Bagehot, who coined the term "atavism." Working at the

same time as ilughlings Jackson, Bagehot wrote:

Lastly we now understand why order and civilization are

so unstable even within progressive communities. Wesee

frequently in states what physiologists call atavism. The

return in fact to the unstable nature of their barbarous
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 169

ancestors, Such scenes of cruelty and horror as happened

in the French Revolution and as happened more or less in

any great riot, have always been said to bring out a secret

and repressed side of human nature. And we now see that

they were the outbreak of inherited passions long

repressed by fixed custom but starting into life as soon as

that repression was catastrophically removed. (Miller

1979).

Miller concludes that the doctrine of regression owed its popularity

not simply to Darwinism, but also to the general pessimism and

political anxiety of bourgeois intellectuals.

The only addition I would make to Miller's analysis would be to

locate the doctrine of regression in terms. of concern with internal

moral authority and control. The difference between Eighteenth

Century Hobbesianism and Nineteenth Century bourgeois thought

was that Nineteenth Century political, religious, medical, and

scientific thought placed much of the responsibility of Leviathan

within each man and woman. It was no longer external authority as

much as internal authority which was regarded as key. Schools,

moral improvement programs, and reforms like temperance, were

supported so strongly by the middle class as well as the upper class

because it was believed by all that social order depended upon the civilized (or moral) portion of the person controlling the animal within.

Locating an idea in terms of class-based fears and prejudices does

not necessarily mean that it is wrong. Therefore, the final question

is: What is biologically or neurologically wrong with the theory of

regression. On this point as well, Miller has something important to

add: a critique of the idea of the layered nervous system.

The point is that the results [of Head's experiment] were

unrepeatable, biologically implausible, and suggested an

entirely unrealistic relationship between one part of the

nervous system and another. The damaged nervous system is bound to be less efficient than the intact one: both

action and sensation will inevitably deteriorate when

their physical foundation is injured. But there is no justification for saying that the repertoire of the damaged

nervous system is a replica of any one of the previous

healthy states.

By the same token, the fact that the brain is a more recent

acquisition than the spinal cord does not mean that when

it is damaged the functions that are set in action express

those of the spinal cord as it was in the days of yore. The

nervous system does not evolve by a successive addition of

Os
170 PRESENTER'S CONIMENTS

parts which leaves all the rest in a state of arrested

development. The acquisition of something new is accompanied by a progressive modification of everything that

was there in the first place. The spinal cord did not stop

evolving because more sophisticated apparatus was being screwed onto the front end: it was becoming more

sophisticated itself at the same time, so that damage to

the more recently acquired parts of the nervous system

would not automatically re-create a picture of some pre- vious stage of evolution. In any given creature, man or dog, brain and spinal cord are contemporaries. . . . It was just two weeks ago that I read Miller's book. I immediately

tried to find someone else who knew about this. A friend of a friend

located Robert Schear, a recent Ph.D. in neurophysiology. He con- firmed Miller's statement that the nervous system is an integrated

unit and that of course anyone doing work in neurology knows that.

He said that the idea that a primitive nervous system is overlaid by

a more recent system is "nonsense." He also suggested that it was

completely unfounded to make neurological connections between

alcohol and complex human behavior like drunken comportment. He had worked for three years on the eye, and he said that they

could not explain how the iris or retina worked, or even very simple

reactions like why colors look different in different color contexts--

despite the fact that things can be quantified and described very

precisely. Unfortunately he didn't know anything about the history of the idea of the layered nervous system or its critique. Finally,

though he didn't know him, he suggested I try calling the Harvard

biologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould.

On Sunday, in the name of science, I got Gould's number from

Cambridge information and called him up. Stephen Gould said that of course the nervous system evolved as a unit, and the idea that

human beings have a primitive system lurking under a civilized

one is silly. However, according to Gould, the idea is still fairly

common. He said that the most prominent present day advocate is

P.D. MacLean (1973) and that Carl Sagan repeated it in Dragons of

Eden (1977). Unfortunately, Gould didn't know much about the

history of the idea or its critique, and he suggested I call Ralph Holloway, a physical anthropologist at Columbia.

I spoke with Holloway on Monday and explained to him the

conventional wisdom that alcohol acts as a disinhibitor, affecting

the higher, moral centers of the brain, and that drunken behavior

reveals the lower animal impulses and desires. Holloway thought about it for a moment and said: "Well, if it was true that we reverted

to a more primitive or earlier nervous system, that would mean that

1 S
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 171

when we were drunk we would feel reptilian." We agreed that

neither of us felt reptilian when drunk. Holloway also observed that

the theory of regression was unfortunately still cited and used,

despite the fact that it wasn't true. He mentioned that he himself

had recently written a review of Dragons of Eden (Holloway 1979)

critiquing Sagan's use of MacLean's idea of a "triune" brain. I

explained that it seemed to me that the contemporary proponents of

the idea of a stratified nervous system were working within a

Nineteenth Century tradition which extended from moral philosophy to religious ideas to scientific conceptions that present day

versions were articulations of these older ideas. "Where is the counter tradition to the three level model?" I asked. "Where's the sophisticated biological understanding laid out for social scientists to

use?" Holloway said, "I don't think it exists, or at least as far as I

know it doesn't exist."

So, to come to the end of my story, I have several conclusions to

offer. First, the idea that there is a higher portion of the brain which

when weakened by disease or alcohol releases lower animal

impulses and behavior is just plain wrong. It is false biology and

neurophysiology. Second, this incorrect biological model derives, in

part, from Darwinism it is a form of social Darwinism. It also

derives from Nineteenth Century upper class fears of revolution by

the "animalistic" lower classes, and from broader bourgeois beliefs

about the importance of self-control and the conscience in the maintenance of social order. Third. this incorrect biological model is still

used and accepted, despite the fact that scientists who study the

nervous system know that it is not true. The biological counterargument and critique of the doctrine of regression has not yet been fully

developed. Those knowledgeable enough to make the full case have

not needed to do so for their own work, and apparently, other than

.Jonathan Miller, no one recently has attempted the historical and

biological critique.

Finally. there is absolutely nothing standing in the way of a

radically social analysis of drinking behavior and especially of

drunken comportment. Social scientists should proceed with the

serious scientific questions of what people do and how they feel

when they drink. get drunk, or are in the vicinity of alcohol. This

involves understanding the different meanings people have attached to drinking and drunkenness, the ways these meanings and

understandings have been learned, invented, and changed. and

how these activities and meanings relate to other social, cultural.

economic and political processes. institutions, and beliefs. Drinking

behavior and drunken comportment are truly social phenonena.
Commentary

Joan Silverman

ROOM: The most recent issue of the International Journal of

Addictions that came into our library had an article with a classic

statement explaining the experimental results precisely in terms of

the layers of the brain and the disinhibition that resulted from

extinguishing the higher levels of the brain (Natale et al. 1980). So,

it's still very much alive in the literature.

Now, to comment on the paper and presentation, Joan Silverman,

who is an historian in American studies. Dr. Silverman recently

completed a major work (1979) on the temperance fiction up to and

including the films of D. W. Griffith.

SILVERMAN: I'm going to comment on Harry's paper even

though he didn't, and I'm going to comment on his model of the

differences between Colonial and Nineteenth Century attitudes

toward drink. I'm going to emphasize some of the points that he

glossed over and amplify some that he made and then disagree with

some others, and in the course of this I'm going to deal with topics as

diverse as different kinds of Protestants, the relationship of women

and drink, and the attitudes toward the saloon, which became a

focus and was the reason, probably, why we got national

Prohibition.

Robin mentioned my dissertation, which was called "I'll Never

Touch Another Drop: Images of Alcoholism and Temperance in

American Popular Culture" it's one of those long-winded titles

"1874 to 1919." Those dates were taken to indicate the founding of

the WCTU and the passage of the 18th Amendment.

What I did was study temperance fiction, temperance plays, and

temperance movies that's where Griffith comes in . and also

what are called "mainstream" plays, mainstream no,,els, and not

too many mainstream movies but a few, and showed that the negative images of alcoholism overwhelmed the positive ones. The positive images were in full flower, but there were more negative

images. And that's a factor influencing popular attitudes towards

trying Prohibition.

172

18/
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 173

What started me on this is the quote from the philosopher Ciorin

(1976), who wrote, "If you want to know a nation, frequent its second order writers; they alone reflect its true nature." Some of the writers that I studied, of course, were not second order Mark Twain

among them but a great many of them were hacks. They ground out a lot of this material. Another source which is invaluable is a

book that was published in 1916 by the Methodist Publishing Con- cern, called The Cyclopedia of Temperance, Prohibition and Public

Morals. In the course of what I'm going to say in the next few minutes, I'm going to quote from them very liberally. Well, the first thing I want to discuss is something that Harry Levine mentioned, that "while alcoholic beverages were not seen as

a cause of crime and violence, the lower class tavern was." This was

in the Colonial period.

What happened in the early years of the Twentieth Century, actually starting from 1893 when the Anti-Saloon League was

founded, was that in order to enlist the support of a large section of

the population in getting a national amendment added to the Constitution, rather than focusing on individual drinking habits which some people would say was a violation of their civil liberties

the League focused on the urban saloon. So, this attitude that the

Colonials had was in full flower in the early Twentieth Century. I have a quotation here from one of the numerous publications of

the Anti-Saloon League which I think describes their attitude very well: "The saloon is a storm center of crime, the devil's headquarters on earth, schoolmaster of a broken decalogue, defiler of youth, enemy of the home, foe of peace, deceiver of nations, beast of sensuality. pastmaster of intrigue, vagabond of poverty, social vulture, rendezvous with demagogues, enlisting office of sin, serpent of Eden, and second edition of Hell, revised, enlarged and illuminated." They, of course, lumped together a large number of people who were associated with the saloons, and these people were opposed to decent government, and you find there: anarchists, low- class foreigners, corrupt politicians, etc., vote-sellers and buyers. This theme about democracy being endangered by drink got started with Lyman Beecher, who wrote six sermons for young men

in the 1820's, and then it was carried on by his son, the archhypo- crite, Henry Ward Beecher, whowrote, I think, twelve sermons. lie

improved on his daddy. He was very worried about what drinking would do to democracy because, as Harry Levine mentioned, of the

idea that these masses, these hordes, would get drunk and then

there goes the republic. And so it was very necessary to curb their

appetite. Whereas Harry discusses social classes in relation to attitudes, I think that you also have to take into account ethnicity and
174 SILVERNIAN: CONIN1ENTARY

an anti-urban bias that affects this country, as threads that go

through a lot of this literature. I have a quote here from the Reverend Josiah Strong, who wrote a best seller in 1885 called Ooir

Cf llintry; he sees the United States as being in peril from "Romanism. intemperance, socialism and wealth, all enhanced in the city

and all concentered there."

I might also mention here that there was a great deal of antagonism towards beer and beer being manufactured by Germans,

particularly. This is in the period just before the United States

entered the First World War, In these plays and novels that I read,

the saloon keepers tend to have German or Irish names. They never

have good old, Anglo-Saxon names. And there are a number of

comments about what beer will do to you and about these German

brewers who are fomenting the "maggots of treason," and they keep

citing the names of these brewers Pabst and Schlitz and

Anheuser-Busch. The message is that this is an unAmerican drink,

and that there are all sorts of negative outcomes to drinking beer.

The Cyclopedia of Morals points out, for example, that in Baltimore most of the saloon keepers are of German origin or born of

German parents, and that the vice of beer-drinking is particularly a

city vice in the United States: "probably nine-tenths of the beer is

consumed by the adult male population in urban communities."

Nobody in the United States drank beer, according to them, before

the Germans came here and introduced it to the public. There is a

play called "No King in America" which is an outright attack on

German brewers, and also on Irish politicians, for wrecking the

society. So that all through this material you have negative images

of drink. but you also have strong ethnic biases.

Something else that you have to bear in mind when you're dealing

with this type of material is that it's not enough to say that the

Protestants were interested in Prohibition or were interested in the

Temperance Movement in general, because not all Protestants felt

the same way about drink. I relied on the distinction that Paul

Kleppner (1970) made in his book called The Crow Of Culture, which

had to do with Middle-Western political attitudes in the Nineteenth

Century. He posits two kinds of religious beliefs, the ritualistic and

the pietistic. The ritualist, according to this view, accepts the world

as a sinful place but has no plans to change it; he eschews emotionalism and favors tradition, ritual and symbols in his religious observance; his relationship with the deity is mediated by a member of

the chu re h h ierarchy; morality and salvation are the province of the

church. not. the government: he emphasizes "right helier or "right

faith": and he tends to he a Roman Catholic. a Protestant Episcopalian. it ( lerman Lutheran or in some cases a Russian Jew. Now, few

ritualists endorse prohibition.
Goo') cREATuRE GOD AND DEMON RUM 175

On the other hand, you have the pietists; they agree that the world

is a sinful place, but, in contrast to the ritualists, they feel that they

have a responsibility to save people from themselves, to save people

from their life of sin, and that the sinner must be taught the ways of

the righteous and made to conform to the moral imperatives of

society. The pietists' religious observances are marked by a lack of

ceremony, with an emphasis on preaching, relative informality,

revivalism and personal experience of the spirit, and their prime

emphasis is on "right behavior." A pietist is usually a Methodist, a

Congregationalist, a Baptist or a Presbyterian. And those are the

people who are the spearheads of the movement against alcohol, the

people who led prohibition and who were the chief supporters of the

Anti-Saloon League, which organized this national movement and

put it over the top, helped, of course, by the First World War.

Now, Harry mentioned ambivalence about alcohol, the coexistence of two different attitudes. I think one of the more interesting

things that we might mention is that sometimes these attitudes

coexisted in one person. Jack London wrote a sort of alcoholic

memoir called John Barleycorn somewhere around 1912. This book

is credited by a number of people with preparing the public for

prohibition because he was, at the time he wrote it, one of the most

popular writers in the country. Upton Sinclair says that "Jack

London won more fame and infamy with John Barleycorn than with

any of the other books that he published in his seventeen year

literary career." This book was supposed to be an attack on alcohol,

and the Prohibition Movement took it up and reprinted it. But if you

read it carefully and it's not clear that the public did it's very

contradictory. It illustrates the love/hate relationship that Americans have with drink. London writes about the effects of alcohol and

the charms of saloon life, and then he abruptly reminds himself that

he's writing a prohibitionist book, and so he repeats a lot of the

negative properties of alcohol that temperance authors have

detailed over the years. For example, John Barleycorn "shortens

life," "habitual drunkards die of trifling afflictions ordinary men

could survive." And then he says: "An absolute statistic of the

percentage of suicides due to John Barleycorn would be appalling..

. . Alcohol poisons the brain, the soul and the body, causing the

sickness of pessimism and emptiness." And it incites men to crime:

"Men did drunk what they would never dream of doing sober." And

then he says of John Barleycorn: "He coarsens and soddens those he

does not turn into maniacs. . . ,He destroys the best we breed. He

stands in every highway and byway, accessible, law-protected,

saluted by the policemen on the heat, speaking to them, leading

,
176 SILVERMAN: COMMENTARY

them by the hand to the places where the good fellows and daring

ones foregather and drink deep. With John Barleycorn out of the

way, these daring ones would still be born and they would do things

instead of perishing."

London says that the women, whom he calls the "true conservators of the race," will save their men, they will drive the nails into

John Barleycorn's coffin by voting for prohibition; and when you

get prohibition, life will be more abundant for the young girls born

and growing up to share the lives of the young men. But at the same time that he's raving against drink, he's getting

very nostalgic over these saloons, which are about to be eliminated he grew up in Oakland and he says, "the saloons were the

brightest spots"; and that the "saloon keepers were his ideal of good, kind men. Wherever life ran free and great, there men drank. Romance and adventure seemed always to go down the street, locked arm-in-arm with John Barleycorn." The men that he met in

saloons were "good fellows, easy and genial, daring and on occasion

mad, generous-hearted and -handed and not rabbit-hearted." And

he doesn't like people who don't drink or go to saloons or smoke or

fear to do much of anything brave: "they are too busy keeping their feet dry, conserving their heartbeats and making unlovely life- successes of their spirit mediocrity." This is in a book supposedly

supporting Prohibition. And then he goes on, and, thinking about all the places that he's seen in the course of his life, he says he has no

desire to see them again except "with glass in hand."

Often writers played both sides. William Dean Howells had a

Squire Putney, who is an incorrigible drunk, but Howells is very kind to him and very indulgent; however, he has him carrying

around most of the time in two novels his son who became crippled when the father got drunk and dropped him accidentally. The idea of the lovable sot played a very important role in the popular culture. The longest running play before "A bie's Irish

Rose" is a play called "Lightnin'." It features a lovable sot who is a

literary descendant of Rip Van Winkle. Charles Hoyt had characters in his farces who go around hiccuping and burping and acting, in general, very merry and very jolly. These are popular presentations in the Nineteenth Century along with the dire effects of alcohol and the dire effects of the urban saloon. Charlie Chaplin, who is, of course, English, but who is the most popular actor in the history of the American movies, certainly had, in his silent films, the

lovable sot, the drunk, but with a wrinkle, and that is the idea of the

hangover later. You have this adorable person who goes to sleep in

the bathtub and gets into all sorts of interesting scrapes but suffers

remorse afterwards. Again, there was a musical celebrating the

191
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 177

joys of drink but also with a song that became a national hit in its

day called "The Morning After," which spelled out the word

remorse as part of the jingle. All this would give you the idea that

we love all these drunks, but that they must suffer some ill effects

from boozing at the same time we embrace them.

As far as the women are concerned, there were some great comedies which Griffith directed, called "The Jones Comedies," where

he makes fun of the temperance women. Jones slips alcohol into the

coffee cups of his wife's sisterhood who were temperance ladies

but they don't realize it, and they start putting plates on their

heads and dancing with each other and having the most marvelous

time. The underlying story is: "Well, maybe now they'll realize

what we boys are up to." So, the idea of the woman as the lawgiver is

very important. She's a long sufferer as a result of the man's drinking, but she's also the lawgiver and, according to Jack London, she's

going to save people from themselves by voting for Prohibition.

There are, of course, numerous episodes in all of this literature

about physical comportment and accidents relating to drink, and

there are always people lurching and falling in these stories, and

hiccuping and acting what they call in the idiom of the Nineteenth

Century "half seas over." The women are the people who are the

primary sufferers here, the ones who have to endure all of this

drunkenness.

Apropos of Harry's argument about levels of the brain, this is a

quote from the New York Health Department bulletin: "Civilized

man equals the brute animal plus the brain development. Alcohol

blocks out the high brain development and leaves the brute

animal." Even a very little alcohol has a damaging effect on the

brain. Man, when he becomes intoxicated, loses first his sense of

decency, his ability to think clearly and accurately and to associate

ideas, and then the Health Department goes on to say he begins to

see double, etc. And the man who becomes dead drunk within the

space o; a few hours undergoes very much the same change as the

man who becomes gradually insane. And he who keeps his association and motor senses slightly drugged all the time by moderate

drinking is not entirely a sane man. He is constantly drunk to a

slight degree and, is therefore, constantly insane to a slight degree.
Discussion

SUSANNA BARROWS: I'd like to ask Joan Silverman if she

could comment for us on the layers of meanings in her own descriptions of those quotations. I'm almost totally ignorant about American history, but as I listened to that rich material, I thought to

myself, it sounds just like another chapter of John Higham's

Strangers in the Land (1972); that is to say, the focus on the saloon

and so on and associating it with foreigners was in some way just

another case study in the general fear of ethnic groups and immigrants. To what degree do you think these very upset reformers

were in some way simply reshaping acts about ethnic groups

running saloons and Irish people or Germans drinking more and in

different ways and more "viciously" than other sectors of American

society?

SILVERMAN: Well, I think that you have this Gusfield (1966)

model of "moral suasion" versus "legal coercion ": you try to persuade the immigrant groups who come to adopt your value system

and then when that fails, you have to turn to the law. You turn to

"legal coercion" because they just wouldn't buy the Presbyterian,

Methodist, Congregationalist model of right behavior. They had

their own traditions.

1 mentioned this morning the idea of scapegoating. They used the

saloon as a hotbed of everything that they disliked about the country. The saloons were in the cities, and they felt the cities were a

threat to the old-line values; the cities were a threat to the earlier

America that they had imagined the idea of chastity and religious observance and the family circle and all of those things which

they held dear. The saloon was the evil monster there in the city, and

that had to be eliminated. They neglected the fact that there was

already a very high degree of alcoholism in the country. They just

forgot about that altogether.

NORMAN LINTON: We have a problem I think, with the historical material. Most of it is not about America; it's about Massachusetts. And until last year when Michael Hindus (1980)

published a piece on South Carolina, we had very little of anything

archival on any other state than Massachusetts. And Massachusetts

is exceptional; the focus on drinking in South Carolina is much

178

193
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 179

different from that in Massachusetts; that is to say, they were not

concerned about such things as public drunkenness, they were

concerned about licensing, and the legal system was preoccupied

with violence rather than property offenses. We don't even have

studies on New York and Pennsylvania.

LEVINE: I don't think that's so. The Temperance Movement

was strongest in the early period in New York, and the New York

State Temperance Society was a very powerful mover and shaker.

While the original group was in Boston, it quickly moved to New

York, and by the 1830's, for example, the New York State Temperance Society had published the most developed arguments, keeping

all the statistics and so on. Activity was especially heavy in what is

called the "burnt over district" of New York, where the waves of

religious revivals were in upstate New York, but there were also

sizable Temperance groups in Connecticut, New Hampshire,

Maine, Pennsylvania, and even in parts of the South.

LINTON: I suppose I need to limit my remarks to the law's

regard for drunkenness, and for violence, and for crime. That's

where we're really limited.

EDWIN LEMERT: The first temperance publication actually

was started in Honolulu, Hawaii, namely the Seaman's Friend and

Temperance Advocate. Also, there's pretty good archival material

there in the Missionary's Children Society library. True, it's kind of

an offshoot to Massachusetts' Temperance development, but still,

there's considerable data there.

MARCUS GRANT: I'd like to bring a European note to this bit

of American history. Grammatically I'm not sure if the verb "to

disinhibit" is often used transitively, but one thing that both of those

presentations suggested is that one can actually look to disinhibit

not only individuals, but also aggregations. If one considers Nineteenth Century Europe and mid-Twentieth Century America, one

sees a curious similarity in one particular regard. In the beginning

of the Nineteenth Century in Europe -- in France and in England

with the Romantic Movement, you had poets who were using

drugs largely opiates in order to do something to their consciousness, to disinhibit themselves, which they saw as relating

directly to the plays and poems and so on that they were writing.

But they also used drugs to enable them to disinhibit society, to

criticize it, to present alternative notions, to create a disinhibited

form of social view, if you like (1-layter 1968).

Now, during the Twentieth Century in America, you have novelists doing the same thing with alcohol; that is to say that they're

using the alcohol on one level to influence the way in which they seek

their inspiration, but perhaps at a more important level to create a

19 4
180 DISCUSSION

lifestyle for themselves which works as a metaphor for a disinhibited society. I think that that comes out from the historical presentations we've heard. And I think there are roots for the Twentieth

Century American phenomenon, not just in Nineteenth Century

America but in Nineteenth Century Europe as well.

PARTANEN: If I could add another European viewpoint: in

the context of looking at historical character types in the Nineteenth Century as responses to the emerging urbanized working

class, there are curious differences between various countries. I

know of at least one French treatise (Cottereau 1980) where the

development in France and England has been contrasted, and the

basic argument is that what was achieved in England through

religion was achieved in France through the family and the role of

women. After all, France also became an industrialized country

with internal controls.

And then I have a question for Harry Levine. I've been thinking of

all the complexity of this process of modernization. How far would

you be willing to go in sorting out the different kinds of determinants? You could resort to structuralist explanations, in terms of

the inner structure of capitalist society, you could invoke, as Foucault (1975) does, the role of the state. There might even be other

alternatives, perhaps more idealistically formulated alternatives.

It's rather easy and quite suggestive to point out these oppositions,

but much harder to go into the explanations of how they were

shaped.

LEVINE: I agree. I think in any particular empirical case, depending upon what it is that you're studying, you get some answers based on what is in fact going on in that particular

situation.

PARTANEN: So your answer is, through concrete analysis?

LEVINE: Yes, very concrete not a highfaluting theoretical

answer, just good. solid, grounded, empirical history or analysis of a particular situation.

ROOM: I'd like to pose a question I've asked Harry before, and

I'm wondering if he has a better answer for it now. To me, it seemthat you're making a very powerful argument that there was

change in consciousness at the beginning of the Nineteenth Ceti

tury, and that it was related to larger things but that alcohol

became very much mixed up in that change in consciousness.

And, implicitly, one could get from your paper the argument that

we are living today with a set of understandings about alcohol with

respect to its disinhibitory effects that are derived from the Nineteenth Century. And, certainly, I think, you've given us some more

strong evidence for that in what you had to say about the layers of

L93
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 181

the brain model coming straight from the middle of the Nineteenth

Century, and about !t still being fallen into as a rhetoric to talk

about the brain by a lot of folk not just social scientists.

A lot of history has happened since then. We had Prohibition, we

had Repeal, we had the Alcoholism Movement. Is it really true that

this set of ideas came through unchanged, and how could that have

happened?

LEVINE: I think that's one of the big questions in talking about

the modern era. There's one long tradition which has talked about

the difference between the Nineteenth Century and the Twentieth

Century, which is captured in a variety of contrasts: the shift from

old middle class to new middle class in C. Wright Mills' (1951) work

in David Riesman's (1953) shift from inner directed to outer

directed, or the difference between laissez-faire, entrepreneurial or

market capitalism, on the one hand, and corporate capitalism on

the other. You can talk about religious changes, changes in family

life, and so on. Clearly, Christopher Lasch (1979) in the narcissism

book is trying to talk about a different sort of character structure

that appears in the Twentieth Century. My sense is that at least

until recently that has been the dominant way in which intellectual

discourse has been carried on concerning these broad issues of

modern social life.

I think there's another tradition which has tended, perhaps in

response, to emphasize the continuity between the Nineteenth Century and Twentieth Century. A thing that seemed overwhelming to

me when I first got into the Nineteenth Century alcohol sources was

how contemporary so much of this was. I was attending and observing AA meetings at the same time I was reading temperance

material, and the parallels and similarities were striking. I think

this is true for many other facets of social life.

Why is it so I'm enough of a sociologist to believe that ultimately there is some kind of structural condition for it. Certain

fundamental organizational aspects of everyday life make the

world appear in a certain kind of way, and I think we still share

quite a lot with the Nineteenth Century. To say we are still "of that

world" is my shorthand way of talking about that. But I see the

question of what is different and what is the same as one of the big

questions in alcohol research, as in much modern social history.

EHLERS: There is an interesting analogy to the history of theories of the levels of the brain in the earlier beliefs about mental

illness in terms of an outside view of inhibition versus a later inside

view meaning an internal inhibition. At the time of Hughlings

Jackson, neurology and psychiatry were the same discipline, and

Hughlings Jackson. in looking at epileptic patients going into fits,

196
182 DISCUSSION

perceived this phenomenon in terms of an exterior loss of inhibition

and talked about it in terms of a reptilian brain because the deeper

brain sites were more common in lower vertebrates.

However, when the Freudian viewpoint came in, the idea of

inhibition became internalized, and disinhibition would be viewed

not in term6 of reverting to a reptilian brain, but rather in terms of

reverting to a primitive drive or a more child-like state. This was,

then, an internalized definition of disinhibition, instead of an externalized view, based upon she development of our concepts of

behavior.

LEVINE: Internalized and externalized? You mean physiological versus psychological?

EHLERS: I don't know. I was just drawing it out as a concept.

LEVINE: There's a recent book about Freud called The Biologist of the Mind (Sulloway 1979), and there's been substantial critical response to it, but one argument it makes about Freud is that he

was translating the biological concepts of his time into psychology.

EHLERS: Exactly.

ROIZEN: I was just wondering this, Harry. Alan Lang comes

here and tells us about the experimental assessment of two kinds of

expectations: expecting alcohol and expecting no alcohol, and we

get a nice new conclusion out of it, something we can sink our teeth

into: expectations and not just chemistry matter.

But can we view history as providing the same thing? Can we look

at one historical time where the expectation was that alcohol would

create disinhibition and lots of untoward behaviors afterward, and

at another historical time when alcohol didn't carry the same cultural expectations? You've told us that such variation exists in

American history, so we can try to run Alan Lang's table on your

data, so to speak.

I've been trying to do that in my mind, and I don't find myself able

to come out with a conclusion. But if you were to try to compress the

historical account into my framewcrk, what would be your estimate

of the verdict of history on the relation between biology and belief in

disinhibition?

LEVINE: I don't know if this is the answer to your question, but

it's something I wanted to say. My sense is that very often scientific

and medical understandings and definitions simplify and vulgarize. falsify what is in fact the more complicated, rich experience of

most people. I don't have a clear way of expre3sing it, but I have a

sense that there is this widely accepted and generally understood

definition of drunken behavior as "time out," very much along the

lines that MacA ndrew and Edgerton suggest: we are taught to

understand, and we do understand drunkenness as "time out," and

1 97
GOOD CREATURE OF GOD AND DEMON RUM 183

we don't, in fact, routinely think that alcohol affects our moral

senses or our brain or disinhibits us. We use that language

especially if we're socialized into it but we actually have a more

complicated, difficult-to-verbalize understanding of it as time in

which you're allowed to do certain sorts of things; drinking is part of

the ritual signs that allow you to do these certain things.

In the Seventeenth and the Eighteenth Centuries, it's clear that

people understood that when they got drunk they did all sorts of

things they didn't ordinarily do, but they didn't need to say that

"alcohol made me do it." I have a feeling that even today, when

people say "Alcohol made me do it," they don't mean the same thing

in the everyday sense that is meant in scientific language. When

somebody says, "I expect alcohol to make me happy or merry," what

it evokes is the stock image. In fact, what is felt, understood, and

perceived is "When I drink alcohol, I am in a time and space in

which I get to do things I don't ordinarily get to do."

I don't know if that answers your question or not.

ROOM: Let me make sure if I understand. You're saying that in

the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries those complicated

understandings would also have been different?

LEVINE: I'm not sure. I don't have a picture of them fully, but I

think that they were definitely there.

FINGARETTE: Just continuing with this same theme, it seems

to me that it is enormously important to go into this kind of intellectual history as a background, because while it's all very well to

collect data and to be empirical as has been quite appropriately

suggested unless you know what you're being empirical about,

what you're trying to explain, it doesn't get you very far. There is

always this problem which can't be divorced from the empirical

explanatory aspect: the problem of understanding the concept in

terms of which you are describing or understanding behavior,

which you then want to explain on chemical or other grounds.

Thereto' , I think that the kind of inquiry that you suggest, going

into the history of the concept of conscience, the concept of the moral

sense, is very important because those Eighteenth and Nineteenth

Century, and, indeed, even Seventeenth Century ideas are very

much a part of our thinking today.

The question has been raised how could this have persisted

through time? Well, the answer is that a great deal of our thinking

in the world that we are E familiar with is straight John Locke

from the Seventeenth Century. All one needs to do is examine the

presuppositions of everyday common sense, and you're reading

John Locke's essay. So, in terms of intellectual history there's

nothing surprising about it, but then I think we have to go into it

1 9
184 InscussioN

more fully to see what people have in mind, in turn, when they talk

about disinhibition. And I don't think we can get around this by

saying we're going to use a neutral description of it, such as"violating a norm," because then we lose our hold on the very thing we

were trying to explain.

Let me add one substantive point, if I may. The notion of the inner

moral sense which you mentioned is important, but the moral sense

idea, as I understand it, was more a matter of perception: being able

to perceive what is right and wrong. The idea was that we have this

inner faculty, and just like seeing space and colors, we can see the

moral values. But it hasn't yet quite gotten in touch with the disinhibition idea, because there the point is that while you may see what is

right, the task is to do it. The problem that seems to me to be more at

the center of this loss of inhibition idea is the idea of giving way to

temptation, of knowing what is right; but, nevertheless, for some

reason, giving into or indulging in what is wrong, to put it very

crudely. So, I think we have to trace the idea back to conscience in

the sense of a restraint on the will, which is a peculiar notion

because it divides the will in two, you have a twofold will.

You also have to take into account the various fundamental paradigms of how we control our conduct in our own Western European

thinking. One of the fundamental paradigms is that we do so by the

use of reason, as someone mentioned. We do it by knowing to

know the good is to do the good. That goes back as far as Plato.

Including this paradigm, we have three models of control of

conduct, at least. One is: to know the good is to do the good; but if

doing good depends on one's use of reasoning powers to discover

what is good, you may not know the good because you are mentally

confused the rational faculty is confused which may result

from alcohol. The second is that we perceive we "see" the good

by direct insight as intuition. Here alcohol may be taken to confuse

our moral perception. The third possibility is that even if we "see"

the good, we don't will to do it the will itself is corrupt.

And my final comment is that at the same time that these new

ideas you're discussing come into play. there's also a tremendous

surge of faith in the materialist interpretation of human psychology: the idea of Benjamin Rush and many others of this period that

we can understand human behavior in terms of material causes

acting on the brain. They have a very naive faith in that. When you

put this faith. the thought "We're going to look for the material

cause, and that's where progress lies," together with the philosophical, moral, religious conceptions of a will which is somehow restrained by a conscience. you begin to build up a picture that's

important to the disinhibition idea. It's important to examine this

19j
GOOD CREATURE OE GOD AND DEMON RUM 185

level of assumptions before too hastily connecting up the empirical

data with something.

LANG: I have some appreciation of what you're saying, but I'm

afraid that we're getting bogged down again in the moral aspects of

disinhibition. And I think the way to draw together the Colonial

historical period and the Temperance Movement period is not so

much in terms of whether or not alcohol causes evil behavior; what's

in common between the two periods is that drinking seems to be

related simply to different behavior. People feel and act differently

when they're intoxicated. And whether that behavior is seen as

better by them or better by those around them or worse by them or

worse by those around them is a function of the beliefs of the

contemporary culture rather than a direct effect of the substance

or rather than having anything to do with conscience, for that

matter. People may become more altruistic when they've been

drinking; and this may be different from the way they were when

they were sober. That's in a sense a disinhibition as well.

BARROWS: To add just a point, what fascinated me in Mr.

Levine's talk was the matter-of-fact tone with which people in

Colonial times described violence in taverns, in a state of drunkenness. When we look beyond the world of drink and ask ourselves

"What's the inhibited behavior?", we might understand disinhibition somewhat better. Violence, at least in Europe in the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries, was far more prevalent than

it is today. And so, not surprisingly, observers who looked to the

world of drink and its locale and the activities it engendered described them not necessarily as caused by intoxication, but, rather,

almost as a normal state of affairs. While in the course of the

Nineteenth Century, if we look at Britain and France, it's precisely

when murder, violence. and serious kinds of physical assaults are

on the decline that the association of violence with liquor is on the

increase.

As a social historian, I'm saying that, in order to get that double

vision that Isaiah Berlin suggests when he defines leisure as "freedom from" as well as "freedom to" you may have to look at the world

of inhibited behavior and see how common was the behavior with

the kinds of attributions that are described subsequently in the

world of drink.

t)
"Four Hundred Rabbits":

An Anthropological View of Ethanol as a Disinhibitor

Mac Marshall

Sahaem reports that the Aztecs called pulque eentzonttotochtli, or "four hundred rabbits," because of its almost

infinite variety of effects on the behavior of those who

drank it (Taylor 1979, p. 34).

While the sheer occurrence of changes between one's

"sober" and one's "drunken" comportment is beyond

question, it is an equally incontestable fact that these

changes are of a most incredible diversity (Mac Andrew

and Edgerton 1969, p. 14).

Introduction

It is a shame that much of social science consists in rediscovering

the wheel. The Aztecs appreciated over four centuries ago that

consumption of beverage alcohol produced "an almost infinite variety of effects on those who drank it" and, presumably, they understood at least one of those effects to be what we call "disinhibition."

More recently, in an effort to cure the hangover of conventional

wisdom that has troubled Westerners since at least the time of

ancient Greece', Mac Andrew and Edgerton (1969, pp. 13-14) have

reiterated what the Aztecs knew: that behavioral changes following consumption of alcohol by human beings "are of a most incredible diversity."

It was necessary for Mac Andrew and Edgerton to repeat and

document this ancient lore because the conventional wisdom among

Westerners concerning the disinhibitory consequences of ethanol

as a drug has continued in spite of a mass of evidence to the con-

'Notes appear at end of paper.

186

201
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 187

trary. That a similar sort of "wisdom" affects the way we view many

other drugs has been noted by %Veil: "Observers (even highly

trained observers) tend to fall into the trap of trying. .to make the

drug a causal variable when it is not. The tendency to make drugs

causes of things we see associated with them is strong in proportion

to our emotional involvement, to our unconscious biases. Often it is

so strong that it blinds us to obvious factors that are much more

directly causative of the phenomena we observe..."(1972. pp, 8-9).2

Perhaps the most useful contribution an anthropologist can make

to an interdisciplinary conference on alcohol and disinhibition is to

try to expose the unconscious cultural biases and preconceived

notions about alcoholic beverages and their effects on behavior that

continue to be part of the conventional wisdom of Western civilization and of at least some practitioners of Western science. To do so is

to build upon the work of MacAndrew and Edgerton (1969) by

further documenting the "four hundred rabbits." Before turning to

this task, however, we must ask ourselves just what is meant by

" disinhibition,"

What Is Disinhibition?

The very notion of "disinhibition" harbors a number of assumptions about human behavior and the organization of the central

nervous system that do not appear to be entirely warranted. For

instance, it is assumed that alcohol "releases" mankind's "innate

aggressive instinct" which is held in check only by the thin mantle

of culture acquired in early childhood socialization (cf. Wilson 1977,

p. 249). But it has yet to be shown that human beings possess an

innate instinct to aggression Robert Ardrey, Desmond Morris

and company, notwithstanding and it has been demonstrated,

time and again, that aggression, and that which triggers it, is very

much a set of learned behavioral responses.

The notion that the drug ethanol "releases" behaviors that otherwise are held in check by socialization of "the human animal" is

based on ideas inherited from Freud (that the superego controls the

ego and the id) which are increasingly in disfavor among many

psychologists. The conventional wisdom's model of human behavior

seems to assume that people are filled with a seething cauldron of

negative social impulses (that everyone is secretly a mugger and a

sex fiend) and that these are repressed during the socialization

process so that normally they are controlled. Only when the pharmacological action of some drug (like ethanol) "strips away" these

inhibitions, or when the brain is damaged somehow, do a person's
188 MARSHALL

ugly and baser "instincts" emerge. There are others at this conference more qualified than I to address these psychological assumptions. I do, however, think it worth questioning not only the

assumed pharmacological effects of alcohol on behavior but also the

assumed model of human behavior and central nervous system

organization that underlies the conventional wisdom.

Finally, it must be pointed out that "disinhibition" is not necessarily the same thing from one culture to another, within one culture at different times and settings, or even from one individual to

another within a common cultural tradition. The disinhibition

against which Mac Andrew and Edgerton (1969) argue encompasses mainly acts of physical violence and overt sex, yet in some

cultures one can act "disinhibited" merely by violating avoidance

patterns, ignoring speech taboos in the presence of certain others,

or engaging in improper joking with prohibited kin. The point is

that what is viewed as "disinhibited" by members of one culture

may not be so in another. We cannot assume disinhibition to be the

same thing(s) for all people.

The presumed link between drinking and disinhibition ultimately addresses the age-old nature-nurture controversy: Is disinhibited drunken comportment a consequence of alcohol's toxic

pharmacological effects on our biological selves (nature) or is such

comportment a result of what we have learned to do when we drink

(nurture)? This is, of course, the underlying question we have

gathered to discuss at this conference, but we must avoid falling

into the trap of assuming drunken behavior to be only the result of

pharmacological action or only the result of learning. It is clearly a

bit of both and the challenge is to unravel the relative contribution

of each.3

The Rise of the Sociocultural Learning

Hypothesis in Anthropology

Although it was left to MacAndrew and Edgerton (1969) to pull

together the scattered cross-cultural literature in support of a

clearly stated argument, the ideas that lie behind the sociocultural

learning hypothesis of drunken comportment (as opposed to the

physiological-pharmacological hypothesis) had been around in

anthropology for some time.

As early as 1961, Washburne discussed the "inhibition hypothesis" based on physiology as against the "social norms hypothesis"

based on social psychology and concluded: "It seems likely that both

factors work in combination, although the idea of a change in social

03
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 189

norms [in the drinking context] has been neglected in most work"

(1961, p. xviii). At approximately the same time, Mac Andrew and

Garfinkel presented the crux of Mac Andrew's later book with

Edgerton, contrasting "the toxic-agent approach"; with "the socialsystem approach"; like Washburne, they concluded that "Neither

formulation is complete in itself' (1962, p. 266). A great leap forward was taken in 1965 with publication of Mandelbaum's survey

paper entitled simply "Alcohol and Culture." Mandelbaum summarized much of the anthropological knowledge about drunkenness and pointed the way to a number of fruitful lines of research.

Harkening back to Washburne's book, he noted that "The chemical

and physiological properties of alcohol obviously provide a necessary base for drinking behavior.... But the behavioral consequences

of drinking alcohol depend as much on a people's idea of what

alcohol does to a person as they do on the physiological processes

that take place" (Mandelbaum 1979, p. 17). Soon thereafter, Washburne published a short paper in which he argued that "Alcohol

should not be looked at purely physiologically, or as if its physiological effect had a definite primacy" (1968, p. 98). These books and

papers seem to have had relatively slight impact outside of anthropology itself; it remained for someone to come forward with a

synthesis of the anthropological evidence regarding alcohol and

drunken comportment someone who could command a wider

audience. This task was fulfilled admirably with publication of

MacAndrew and Edgerton's book in 1969. Not only has that volume

proved a benchmark in the anthropological study of alcohol and

culture but it has also exercised influence far beyond the narrow

disciplinary bounds of anthropology.

Drunken Comportment as Learned Behavior: Further Evidence in Support of

the "Four Hundred Rabbits"

Following publication of MacAndrew and Edgerton's book there

has been a substantial increase in both the quantity and the quality

of anthropological literature on alcohol and culture (Marshall

1980). This growth continues a pattern over the years of increasing

anthropological attention to the subject of alcohol use and abuse.

Nowhere in this rapidly accumulating literature do we find any

convincing evidence to contradict MacAndrew and Edgerton's

argument that drunken comportment is primarily a matter of

sociocultural !earning; instead, data from field studies around the

world have added further support to their position. Taken by itself,

(% 0 4
190 MARSHALL

however, the anthropological literature does not allow us to assess

precisely what the relative contributions of pharmacological action

and learning are to the drunken comportment puzzle.

One striking theme that emerges from the anthropological literature particularly that for Oceania and Native North America

is the matter of pseudointoxication or feigned drunkenness.' These

data come both from statements by ethnographers to the effect that

they suspected people of pretending to be physiologically inebriated when they were not and from observations on the rapidity

with which persons can "sober up" in response to some changed

circumstance after acting very drunk.

Describing a Tahitian drinker, Levy comments:

On several occasions after having looked dramatically

and unco-ordinatedly drunk he would, in response to

some development of interest "pull himself together,"

and act in a relatively co-ordinated way. For the few

drinkers who showed unco-ordinated drunken behaviour

there seemed to be a dramatic, exaggerated quality to it,

which was beyond the actual neurological dysfunction as

indicated by the amount of alcohol which they had apparently taken, and by their frequent ability to recover

quickly (1966, p. 312).

Of the culturally closely related Rarotongans of the Cook Islands,

Mackenzie states, "Several times I noticed that people who had

been drinking and were staggering stopped staggering immediately some event suddenly required attentiveness" (1974, p. 6).

Likewise, the young men of Truk in Micronesia have been described as often pretending to be drunk by staggering, whooping,

and carrying a can or bottle to publicly demonstrate their drunken

role (Marshall 1979u).

Pseudointoxication also is widely reported in the literature for

North American Indians; VanStone (1980, p. 39), in fact, uses

precisely this term in reference to the Snowdrift Chipewyans.

Among the Chippewa of Minnesota, Westermeyer describes two

different styles of drinking which he labels "white drinking" and

"Indian drinking." The former is characterized by restraint, and

the individual behaves pretty much as he does when not drinking;

the latter is marked by the early appearance of drunken behavior:

"After only one or two drinks, loud talking and staggered gait may

appear. Great hilarity, warmth, euphoria, flirtatiousness [sic] can

be noted" (Westermeyer 1972, p. 400). This subsequently progresses to depression, anger, crying, arguments and fights, suicide

gestures, sleep, stupor, or blackout. Westermeyer claims that "virtually all" Chippewa people engage in white drinking at certain
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL N,'IEW 191

times and places, e.g., among their white friends or at a white bar.

Significantly, however, "One can observe the same person drinking

in this manner at a white bar, and in the same evening observe him

drinking "Indian style" at an Indian bar. Chippewa acquaintances,

unexpectedly meeting the author in an Indian bar, have dropped

Indian drinking behavior and assumed white drinking for the

course of the conversation" (Westermeyer 1972, p. 400).

Several different researchers report the Sioux Indians to feign

drunkenness. Among the Dakota (Yankton Sioux), "at least in a

social situation, it is more important to appear intoxicated than it is

to actually get drunk. Thus a person will pretend to be drunk even

though he has imbibed only a small quantity of diluted alcohol"

(Hurt and Brown 1965, p. 229). The Pine Ridge Sioux "become

animated and convivial before they have had anything to drink" at

parties and when a bottle is opened, signaling the beginning of

party behavior, "a noticeable change in affect pervades the room

before all have had a drink" (Kemnitzer 1972, pp. 139-140). Likewise, Mohatt (1972, p. 266) discusses cases of feigned drunkenness

among the Teton Sioux.

Indians of thu North seem particularly prone to engage in pseudointoxication, W hich is not to suggest that they don't also become

truly inebriated on many occasions. The Hare are said to be able to

"turn their drunken behavior on and off at certain social cues"

unless they are exceedingly inebriated (Savishinsky 1977, p. 45),

and a similar situation is reported by Robbins (1979) for the Naskapi. Of the Aleuts, Berreman holds, "It often appears that these

people are pretending to be more intoxicated than they really are"

(1956, p. 507). Like the Tahitians and Rarotongans, Salishan

drinkers undergo "a distinct 'sobering effect' in their drunkenness.

This refers to quick transitions from drunken to sober behavior and

back again, depending upon the situation, particularly when a

necessary task must be carried out, such as starting a motor or

navigating a boat through dangerous waters" (Lemert 1980, p. 58).

Lemert also comments that younger Salish "give the impression of

feigning intoxication" and he mentions stories of Indians acting

drunk after taking soft drink from a whisky bottle given them by

whites (Lemert 1980, pp. 58, 60).6 The Tununermiut Inuit of northern Baffin Island are reported to engage in "apparent drunken

behavior [that] was often more a posturing than the consequence of

high intake of alcohol" (Matthiasson 1980, p. 86), and Hamer claims

that "Potawatomi individuals often appeared highly intoxicated

after only a few bottles of beer" (1980, p. 117). Summarizing data

from their edited collection of reports on drinking among native

peoples of the North, Hamer and Steinbring comment that "The

IJ
192 MARSHALL

various authors agree that the presence of alcohol and drinking

companions is sufficient to induce the simulation of drunken comportment" (1980, p. 292).

Finally, in a Mexican village, Dennis informs us that " 'social

drunkenness' really defines the drunk's role, and not physiological

inebriation. Amilpas drunks are often suspected of not really being

as drunk as they seem, in order to perform otherwise unacceptable

acts with impunity" (1979, p. 63).

The relevance of feigned drunkenness to the disinhibition issue

should be clear. If drinkers (and sometimes even those who have not

drunk) can evince all the classic signs of inebriation without having

consumed sufficient alcohol to produce such symptoms physiologically, then drunken behavior cannot be assumed to be caused only

by ethanol's pharmacological action on the nervous system.

Moreover, if drinkers can demonstrate a full range of culturally

appropriate drunken behaviors and then "sober up" on a moment's

notice in response to certain social cues, then the disinhibiting

effects of ethanol on human beings are further called into question.

MacAndrew and Edgerton (1969, pp. 37-60) clearly demonstrate

"the sway of time and circumstance" (or what Weil 11972, p. 29]

calls "the importance of set and setting") on drunken comportment.

How a drinker behaves after ingesting alcohol has much to do with

where he is drinking, with whom he is drinking, what the occasion is

that prompted the drinking, and why he is drinking (e.g., to "get

drunk," to relax, to be sociable, etc.; cf. Mandelbaum 1979). Weil

observes that "the combined effects of set and setting can easily

overshadow the pharmacological effects of a drug as stated in a

pharmacology text" (Weil 1972, p. 29). Here I will simply add a few

more examples of "the sway of time and circumstance" in support of

MacAndrew and Edgerton.

Bunzel's (1940) data on the Chamula were used by MacAndrew

and Edgerton, but they ignored her equally interesting material on

Chichicastenango in Guatemala. Of these latter people, Bunzel

notes that the same men behave in radically different ways according to the setting in which they are drinking: "Men drinking ceremonially retain their dignity. They may have to be assisted when

their ceremonial duties take them from place to place. But they

continue to discharge their duties apparently unimpaired" (Bunzel

1940, p. 367). On the other hand, "Secular drinking in the zarabandas and the estancos is apt to be more abandoned and disruptive"

( Bunzel 1940. p. 367), involving such things as dancing, weeping, a

great deal of erotic behavior, promiscuity, and quarrels (cf. Marshall 1979b, p. 454).

In Truk, the life cycle of drinking finds the same men behaving in

"0 7
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 193

strikingly different ways when drinking, according to their age

and to social expectations about what their appropriate behavior at

that age ought to be. Young men, out to build public reputations for

'bravery' and 'strong thought,' engage in brawls and other displays

of bravado; by their midthirties, as they leave the 'young man'

category, they give up this arresting style of drunken comportment

even though they continue to drink as much as before. As they move

into the 'mature man' age category, they are expected to demonstrate more responsibility and are publicly ridiculed if they continue to behave as 'young men' when drinking: "The same

beverages are consumed by the same persons in approximately the

same amounts at different times in their lives. The superegos of

these men do not change. Their inhibitions do not tighten up with

advancing years. What has changed is the set of public expectations

surrounding appropriate behavior for men at different stations in

life" (Marshall 1979a, p. 116).

A third example of the critical importance of set and setting in

controlling the manner of drunken comportment already has been

mentioned above for the Chippewa who engage in "white drinking"

and "Indian drinking" according to appropriate circumstances.?

Finally, Taylor offers a nice example of the importance of context

in structuring the nature of drunken comportment. He notes that in

central Mexico and Oaxaca drunken violence rarely occurred during the heavy drinking that accompanied community fiestas, harvest rites, christening of a new house, reciprocal labor, and other

group rituals that reinforced community bonds. On the other hand,

in the colonial era,

Drunken violence seems to have been much more common in unstructured situations in which alcohol did not

signify social responsibility. This was especially true in

towns that had formal taverns (as opposed to the many

peasant homes with a jug of pulque) or pulquerias. Pulqueria behavior, whether in Mexico City or a rural village, approached classic disinhibition, in which a

person's characteristic behavior changed, often dramatically (Taylor 1979, p. 66; cf. Madsen and Madsen 1979).

Clearly, when the same drug produces widely varying behavioral

outcomes in the same individuals according to set, setting, age,

status, and the like, it becomes very difficult to argue that that drug

automatically leads to disinhibited behavior, however we may

define such behavior.

In the decade since MacA ndrew and Edgerton's book appeared, a

number of scholars have specifically addressed the question of how

drunken comportment is learned. These examples are informative

`a3
194 MARSHALL

and provide still further support for the sociocultural learning

hypothesis.

One of Mohatt's young Teton Sioux informants described his

initial drinking experience this way:

I had my first bottle of beer when I was 14 years old. I

drank and drank. When I was going home I threw my hat

away, because I had seen drunks do this and others talk

about this. So I went home without a hat. A lot of people

have this idea, to act drunk (1972, p. 273).

Of this description Mohatt observes: "the only way he knew how to

act was the way he had seen others act" (Mohatt 1972, p. 273).

According to Savishinsky, Hare Indian "children are exposed to

brewing and partying from infancy, and thus learn about the realities of drinking in the same unstructured way that they become

socialized to other aspects of community life" (1977, p. 51). Through

this process,

By continued observation and experience at drinking

parties...and by learning what others are capable of, they

gain the capacity to anticipate such events, and so, eventually, to accept or tolerate them. They thereby indirectly

learn what they themselves are capable of, and can,

within personal limits, develop the ability to control and

channel their own actions as well. It is in this way that

they learn to perceive and ultimately utilize drinking as

an appropriate cultural outlet (Savishinsky 1977, p. 51).

In a section entitled "Learning to be a Drunk," Marshall discusses

in some detail how young boys observe and copy the public drunkenness of Trukese young men.

The most exciting and colorful daily events in Peniyesene

are the drunken antics of young men. These events inevitably attract a horde of small children who hang around

the perimeter of the audience. From early childhood on,

Trukese children carefully and frequently observe

drunken performances. By the time boys reach 8 or 10,

they begin to imitate the swaggering style of young men.

Boys approaching their teens become attentive to the

finest details of young male drunken comportment.

Kung fu routines are practiced diligently, war cries are

tried out, and special gaits characteristic of drunks are

affected. But imitative learnirg does not stop here. Boys

8 to 10 years old will ferret empty booze bottles out of the

thickets to sniff them and get high. Having done so, they

will stagger about with bottle in hand, occasionally uttering the Trukese war cry and falling down as drunks do.

209
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 195

The difference is that when the boys collapse they collapse in giggles. (Marshall 1979a, p. 116).

These explicit accounts of how people learn to be proper drunks

in their own cultural settings provide a solid foundation in support

of the sociocultural learning hypothesis of drunken comportment.

Closely akin to the issues of pseudointoxication, the importance of

the drinking context, and learning to be a drunk is the matter of

"time out" of drunkenness providing an excuse for behavior that

is normally disapproved. This may range from comparatively mild

things like flirtation to serious matters like homicide. Once again,

this idea finds widespread favor among North American Indians

and Pacific Islanders, although it is by no means restricted to them.

In Truk, Micronesia, taking on the public role of a drunk allows

"week-end warriors" to engage in all sorts of antisocial activities

that absolutely are not tolerated in those who are sober (Marshall

1979a). Drunks are referred to as "crazy" and are likened to animals who cannot understand what is said to them: "No matter how

obnoxious and offensive a person's behavior when drunk, no matter

what sort of mayhem a drunken berserker commits, he can always

attempt to 'plead the fifth' in order not to incriminate himself by

pointing out that, after all, he was drunk, irresponsible, and did not

know what he was doing" (Marshall 1979a, p. 54). A similar use of

real or feigned drunkenness as an excuse for"what he could not do if

he did not look as if he had been drinking" (Mackenzie 1974, p. 6) is

reported for Rarotonga and is widespread in contemporary Papua

New Guinea (Marshall, field notes).

Alcohol as a culturally acceptable excuse for behaviors not otherwise tolerated is widespread in the drinking patterns of North

American Indians and the indigenous inhabitants of Mesoamerica.

Describing the Hare Indians, Savishinsky says that "drinking

situations provide a special license for affective release. Underlying this is the fact that drunken individuals are not considered

responsible for their actions....Drinking thus defines...a 'time out'

occasion during which otherwise unacceptable behavior is

excused" (1977, p. 46). Berreman refers to drinking occasions

among the Aleut as socially sanctioned "moral holidays" during

which "unsanctioned behavior is not strongly disapproved if

effected under the influence of alcohol, so that drunkenness has

value as an opportunity for release of pent-up feelings" (1956, pp.

507, 508). Westermeyer lists one of the functions of the "Indian

drinking" style in Chippewa society to be that "It acts as a social

license to behave in ways that are unacceptable (i.e., unChippewayan) in the sober state" (1972, p. 401). Kupferer describes

Cree drunkenness as "time out" and as permitting "behavior that
196 MARSHALL

would otherwise be disapproved" (1979, p. 202). Potawatomi

"Women were often observed to make amorous advances, particularly toward white men, after imbibing a small amount of liquor....

one had the impression that the relatively small amount of alcohol

consumed was an excuse, rather than a cause, for the reduction of

sexual inhibitions" (Hamer 1980, p. 118). The Yankton Sioux share

this idea: "Drunkenness is accepted as an excuse for aggressive and

antisocial behavior by the men and for sexual license by the women"

(Hurt and Brown 1965, p. 229). Since heavy drinking was a symbol

of masculinity among the Sioux, "women were not permitted to

drink except on rare occasions when they needed an excuse to

commit adultery" (Hunt and Brown 1965, p. 229). Among the Teton

Sioux, "there are cases of feigning drunkenness as an excuse for

some act, such as assault or stealing, which formerly would have

been boasted about. With assertive behavior now not for the nation

but against it, they were ashamed and had to excuse their behavior

by claiming to be drunk and therefore not accountable for their

acts..." (Mohatt 1972, p. 266). Like these other tribes, Navajo are

reported to foster "the notion that a man is not himself when in his

cups [and] it follows that he is not responsible for his actions when

drinking" (Levy and Kunitz 1974, p. 187). These authors further

suggest "that Navajo men do not beat up their wives because they

are drunk but that they get drunk so that they may beat up their

wives" (1974, p. 188; cf. Gel les 1972, cited in Room 1980, p. 3).

Finally, Hays asserts that "Apache group drinking has always been

an institutionalized setting which provided the individual with a

release from the rules imposed on him under all other circumstances and, at the same time, an acceptable excuse for him once he

has taken advantage of this opportunity" (1970, p. 18, emphasis in

original).

The same notion of drunkenness offering a legitimate excuse for

otherwise forbidden acts is found in many parts of Mesoamerica as

well. Concerning Amilpas, a village in the Valley of Oaxaca, Dennis

writes, "Amilpenos, like people in many other societies, believe that

inebriation is the immediate cause of the drunk's behavior" (1979,

p. 62). His paper describes in rich detail "the role of the drunk" and

the sorts of things a drunk can get away with saying and doing. The

Chamula of Chiapas believe that "A person who is drunk is not

responsible and his offenses are condoned" (Bunzel 1940, p. 378).

Taylor produces evidence to suggest that the excuse value of drunkenness was not part of pre-Hispanic culture in Mexico but rather

that it was an idea borrowed from the Spaniards in the postconquest period. He notes that "admissions of drunkenness usually

were sympatheticay received by the colonial courts" and that the
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 197

Spaniards frequently accepted drunkenness "as a mitigating consideration in sentencing the offender" (Taylor 1979, p. 64). The

value of this strategem was not lost on the Indians:

The legal advantage of claiming drunkenness and the

obvious prompting of counsel suggest that some Indian

offenders who blamed alcohol were mouthing words that

they did not believe. That Indians could use alcohol to

advantage as an excuse for premeditated attacks was

clear to one judge, who remarked that Indians often

drank before they committed crimes, counting on "the

security of not being punished" (Taylor 1979, p. 65).

To summarize, then, the belief that alcohol ingestion produces

"an altered state of conscience" in which drinkers may legitimately

transgress the norms of everyday proper social conduct, and get

away with it, provides a powerful incentive for drinkers to behave

in a "disinhibited" manner. Indeed, it is imperative that drinkers

who wish to do this "advertise" that they are "drunk" and socially

irresponsible so that others will know how to interpret their words

and deeds (Dennis 1979; Gorad et al. 1971; Marshall 1979a). The

implications of such a belief for the disinhibition hypothesis are

obvious: If it is to people's social advantage to behave in a drunken

manner, and if such behavior is culturally excused, then many

drunks will behave this way regardless of whether they are physiologically inebriated. Indeed, it is often to their clear advantage not

to be too physiologically drunk, as Marshall (1979a) has shown for

the "weekend warriors" of Truk and as Wilson (1977) shows for

sexual arousal.

I suggest that the widespread belief in the excuse value of drunkenness ("time out") in Oceania, North America, and Mesoamerica

reinforces MacAndrew and Edgerton's (1969, pp. 100-164) suggestion that those peoples who lacked alcoholic beverages aboriginally,

and were introduced to them by Europeans, used European patterns of drunken comportment as a model of behavior. But from the

available evidence it seems that not only the beim riors involved in

drunkenness were copied, but also the beliefr about the drunken

state as one of mindless disinhibition. For example. Taylor observes

that by the late colonial period "Indians, especially in central Mexico, were beginning to adopt the Spanish view that alcohol could

dissolve one's natural judgment and good sense and could, alone,

cause crime" (1979, p. 65, emphasis added).

There is other evidence to support this hypothesis. Citing Thomas

Nash, "a contemporary of Shakespeare and a friend of Marlowe,"

who wrote in the late 16th century, MacAndrew and Edgerton

(1969, pp. 8-9) quote a lengthy passage in which Nash lists eight

1e . 0
198 MARSHALL

kinds of drunkards: ape drunk, lion drunk, swine drunk, sheep

drunk, maudlin drunk, martin drunk, goat drunk, and fox drunk,

each with its own special characteristics and each following on the

other. Writing almost four centuries later, Simmons (1960, p. 1020)

describes Peruvian villagers' beliefs that a drinker passes through

four stages or "bloods": blood of the turkey (when cold sober), blood

of the monkey, blood of the lion, and blood of the pig. In identical

fashion, Kearney (1970, p. 134) records for the Zapotec-mestizo

town of Ixtepeji, Oaxaca, that "According to folk belief, a person

undergoes changes in personality while drinking because of the

effects of the alcohol on the blood." These stages are: blood of the

monkey, blood of the lion, and blood of the pig.

European colonial expansion began not too long before Nash

described his eight kinds of drunkards and it is striking to find

some of the exact same kinds of drunkards fully incorporated into

the folk beliefs of Mesoamerican and Latin American societies

following 400 years of Spanish influence. Since Nash was an Englishman, and since ideas similar to his diffused to the Spanish

colonies in the New World, it would seem that these ideas were

widespread in Europe and that the colonial process had a profound

influence on colonized people's beliefs about drunkenness as well as

their behaviors. Certainly, the Japanese colonial presence in

Micronesia had an important influence on Trukese beliefs about

drunkenness as "time out" (Marshall 1979a, pp. 44-46). In sum, it

seems that the major colonial powers exported to those areas of the

globe that fell under their control not only models of drunken

behavior but also a host of beliefs about the effects of alcohol on

human beings. It may be that the widespread belief in alcohol as a

disinhibitor is nothing but an ethnocentric European folk belief

foisted on subject peoples around the world during the heyday of

colonialism.

The Problem of Possible Differences in

Biological Sensitivity to Ethanol

I would not be true to anthropology if I did not raise an issue

which troubles the sociocultural learning camp, though it by no

means negates the main tenets of this position. This is the whole

lively and at times highly emotional matter of possible differences in biological sensitivity to ethanol among human breeding

populations, ethnic groups, and the like.

Spurred on by a controversial paper by Fenna et al. (1972), a

growing number of human geneticists, biological anthropologists,
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 199

and physiologists have conducted studies over the past 7 or 8 years

in an effort to determine whether "the firewater myth" and related

ideas have any basis in biological fact. My understanding of the

literature is that the results to date remain equivocal, with no clear

pattern having emerged from the various investigations that have

been published. Those wishing a brief introduction to the pertinent

literature are referred to Hanna (1976, 1977), Heath (1974b), Wolff

(1972, 1973), Zeiner (1978), Zeiner and Paredes (1978), and Zeiner

et al. (1976, 1977).

The relevance of this ongoing debate for the issue at hand has to

do with certain assumptions that underlie Mac Andrew and Edgerton's (1969) review of the cross-cultural evidence against disinhibition; namely, they assume alcohol and its metabolites to have the

same pharmacological and biophysiological effects on all human

beings. For example, they state that "if alcohol were a 'superego

solvent' for one group of people due to its toxic action, then this same

disinhibiting effect ought to be evident in all people" (1969, p. 36,

emphasis in original). Furthermore, their effort (1969, p. 87) to

dismiss the genetic differences argument by depicting Ifaluk

drinking as atypical of other Carolinian atoll communities cannot

be sustained on closer inspection of the relevant historical and

ethnographic evidence (see, e.g., Marshall 1976, p. 115, fn. 12;

Marshall and Marshall 1975, pp. 449-450).

Ultimately, it seems to me, the sociocultural learning hypothesis

will have to be brought into accord with any general patterns that

derive from studies on ethnic differences in sensitivity to beverage

alcohol before we will be in a position to understand the relative

contributions of nature and nurture to this fascinating

conundrum.8

Conclusions

MacAndrew and Edgerton (1969) documented that drunken

comportment varied from one culture to another around the world

and within particular cultures through time. The anthropological

literature that has reached print since their book was published

reinforces this and underscores the importance of set and setting,

learning the drunk role, the excuse value of alcohol, and the effects

of such variables as age, sex, and social status on differences in

drunken comportment.

While ethanol's pharmacological effects cannot be denied, they

seem to be the least interesting aspect of the human process of

getting drunk. The anthropological material suggests that drink2 1 4
200 MARSHALL

ing booze is much like having sex, in that the following factors

figure prominently in whether the undertaking will prove "successful": presuppositions about what will happen; mood; an appropriate

physical and social setting; and the previous experiences of the

active participants.

The received wisdom at present seems to be that beverage alcohol

cannot be viewed as the cause of specific drunken behaviors, other

than the well-known sensorimotor disturbances discussed by

Mac Andrew and Edgerton (1969, pp. 1-5). Rather, the pharmacological effects of alcohol on human beings make people feel different

than when they haven't imbibed. The meanings given to this experience, i.e., how one interprets these feelings and orders his experience, are provided by the culture in which one is a participant. If

the culture holds that imbibing alcohol produces warm feelings of

community solidarity, harmony, and camaraderie, then violence

and sexual advances will have no place (e.g., Brandes 1979). If, on

the other hand, the cultural tradition suggests that the drinker will

feel aggressive and sexually aroused and, furthermore, will not be

held accountable if he acts upon these impulses, then aggression

and overt sexual advances are likely to result from drinking (e.g.,

Hamer 1980). Thus, alcohol as a drug can be viewed as an enabler or

a facilitator of certain culturally given inebriate states, but it cannot be seen as producing a specific response pattern among all

human beings who ingest it.

Notes

'To wit, "that alcohol depresses the activity of 'the higher centers of the brain,'

thereby producing a state of affairs in which neither man's reason nor his conscience

is any longer capable of performing its customary directive and inhibitory functions" (MacAndrew and Edgerton 1969, pp. 13-14).

2Weil, himself trained in medicine and pharmacology, further comments that

"investments in preconceived notions are most damaging in groups that regard

themselves to be free of such notions, such as physicians and pharmacologists" (1972,

p. 4).

'Whether this will prove possible in fact remains to be seen. Nevertheless, one can

hope that we might progress beyond the current state of affairs where the following

kinds of estimates are all we have: "Drunken behavior is patterned to such a degree

that it appears to be. iu large part, the resultant of a learning process" (Heath 19746,

p. 56, emphasis added); "This may be due, in pail, to the physiologically disinhibiting effect of alcohol. 1n measure, however, the behavior is also the result

of the cultural definition of the drinking situation itself' (Savishinsky 1977, p. 46,

emphasis added).

+F or excellent reviews of this literature see Heath (1974a, 1974h, 1976. 1978).

-.MacAndrew and Edgerton (1969, pp. 37.60) discuss this under the heading of

"now you see it now you don't."

215
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 201

BLest one be tempted to s.mile condescendingly at the Indians' gullibility, compare

Marlatt and Rohsenow (1979, cited in Room 1980, p. 2)"that the belief one is drinking

alcohol, and not the actual fact of consumption of alcohol, produces aggression and

male sexual arousal in college students." See also Wilson (1977, p. 247) who argues

"that the individual's belief system is the major determinant of the effect of alcohol

on sexual arousal" and that double-blind experiments have shown that thinking one

is consuming alcohol is sufficient to engender culturally expected drunken

behaviors.

7Trukese make a somewhat similar discrimination (see Marshall 1979a, p. 117;

Nason 1979, p. 246).

It may be that the biological sensitivity issue is a red herring here since the

strikingly different drunken behaviors of the same individual according to the sway

of time and circumstance. within a homogeneous cultural tradition, provide strong

evidence that differential reactivity to ethanol is of minor importance to external

behaviors.

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204 MARSHALL

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Presenter's Comments

ROOM: Someone this morning referred to the "lost wisdoms of

anthropology," and I'm not sure how lost they were, but they certainly are fully present at this conference.

The presenter and the commentator in the anthropological area

are, I think, very crucial participants in the discussion. There's a

way in which this conference might be viewed as a festschrift for

MacAndrew and Edgerton's boot( on Drunken Comportment(1969).

This book, published twelve years ago, has, in my view, grown in

importance in the literature as time has gone on.

Mac Marshall is the editor of a new compilation of anthropological work on drinking (1979), and he also published two years ago a

book, Weekend Warriors (1979), about drinking in Truk, which is

an island in the South Pacific. I think he may make some mention of

the behavior of Trukese in his presentation, since their behavior is

highly relevant to the area of alcohol and disinhibition.

Mac Marshall in other years might be found at the University of

Iowa. At the moment, he can be found in Boroko in Papua New

Guinea.

MARSHALL: Well, thank you, Robin. In some sense you stole

my thunder here at the beginning with your comments about

MacAndrew and Edgerton's book.

In his comments this morning, Kai Pernanen mentioned the "lost

wisdoms of anthropology," which sounded like a book title for one of

these pop anthropology books, but in fact I think it fell upon MacAndrew and Edgerton to resurrect or find the lost wisdoms of anthropology with respect to anthropological information about

disinhibition and alcohol. And the paper that I prepared for the

conference is, in a sense, not really a creative work at all but simply

a further documentation of material in the tradition they began

twelve years ago.

We talked this morning and now this afternoon at a number of

different levels of discourse, and I think it's interesting that anthropology at least likes to think of itself as perhaps the most general

discipline in the social sciences, if not in the whole scientific and/or

humanistic community generally. If you sit down and talk with

anthropologists, within a few rninutesyou find out that we all have a

kind of identity crisis; we don't quite know what we are except that

we're anthropologists and we're interested in everything.

205
206 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

We've talked about cells and synapses and membranes; we've

talked about the nervous system and the assorted other biological

systems and actions on those systems; then we've talked about

individuals, either as entities nr interacting with other individual

people; and then we've also talked about society and society in

process or history; and the anthropologist, of course, at least in the

American tradition, has to introduce the notion of culture. In fact,

the idea, or some of the ideas, of culture have already been mentioned but under different guises, sort of in drag, you might say. I'm

particularly struck by how Lang's paper and Levine's paper and

my paper, in a way, fit together. I'm struck by that because none of

us knew each other before coming here; in fact, a couple of us

haven't had a chance to talk yet, and still we all seem to converge on

some very common ground.

So, in many respects anthropology is the most general discipline

here. It's interested in biology, human biology; it's interested in

linguistics and human prehistory and human society and culture.

I'm a cultural anthropologist, and I'm not going to talk about linguistics or archeology, and I'm only going to touch on biological

anthropology in passing. That's not because I'm not interested in

biological anthropology; it's because I don't know enough about it to

do more than touch on it.

We also talked a lot today about experimental work versus the

real world, and that reminds me of a saying that one of my professors had at graduate school, which is, "what's real is hardly apparent, and what's apparent is hardly real." And to some extent, I think

the whole issue of what alcohol does to people can be summed up in

that phrase.

Anthropologists are interested in naturally occurring social

interactions. We don't engage in experimental research, at least in

the normal meaning of that term. And moreover, we're interested

in naturally occurring social situations imbedded in a cultural

tradition, in a cultural context as that social situation or social

system and culture are moving through time. So, in this sense, we

have rather strong linkages with history; we're interested in individuals as they are the components of social systems. We've also got

our links with psychology and certainly with sociology, with whom

we share a common theoretical basis. So, there are some very strong

links among anthropology and other disciplines represented here.

I think the major contribution that an anthropologist can make to

a conference like this is to present a view across cultures. We tend,

or we have tended, to talk largely today about our own society or

European societies, and we have not ventured much beyond that.
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 207

And while anthropologists are often accused of studying exotica and erotica, nonetheless, I think there is much to be gained by

pulling other social systems and other cultural traditions into our

view of what alcohol does to humanity, since most of humanity, in

fact, lives in those other traditions.

I think the other contribution anthropology can make is in helping us focus on our own presuppositions and biases about alcohol.

And by "us" I'm referring to those ofus who consider ourselves to be

students of alcohol, because we have our own conventional wisdom,

just as much as there is a popular conventional wisdom.

In the paper, I examine five major topics, which are addressed in

one way or another in Mac Andrew and Edgerton's book, and try to update the literature since 1969 by way of demonstrating that nothing in the increasing anthropological literature which has

accumulated over the last decade contradicts in any way the main

tenets of Mac Andrew and Edgerton's argument; in fact, it just

lends greater support for the cultural learning hypothesis.

The five topics which I examine in the paper are first of all what I

refer to as "pseudointoxication," or feigned drunkenness pretending, if you want to call it that; next what MacAndrew and

Edgerton called the "sway of time and circumstance," or set and

setting, as it's been referred to by at least one other person here

today; third, how drunken comportment is learned, the matter of

expectancies; fourth, "time out"; and, finally, how beliefs as well as

behaviors of people in what have become dominant colonizing societies around the world have diffused out to many Third World

societies, particularly in areas that did not have their own traditional alcoholic beverages. So, let me say a couple of things about

each of these five topics, mention briefly the matter of the biology of

alcohol looked at from an anthropological or human genetics point of view, and then make some summary remarks.

The matter of pseudointoxication or feigned drunkenness is of

interest because it is directly relevant to the disinhibition issue. If

drinkers, and sometimes even people who have not drunk anything,

can demonstrate all the classic signs of inebriation without having

consumed sufficient alcohol to produce those symptoms physiologically, then drunken behavior cannot be assumed to be caused only by ethanol's pharmacological action on the nervous system;

moreover, if drinkers can demonstrate a full range of culturally

appropriate drunken behaviors and then sober up on a moment's notice and there are numerous examples of this in the anthropological literature then the disinhibiting effects of alcohol on

human beings are further called into question.

There's a connection here between the anthropological literature

)
208 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

and the sobering-up effect mentioned in the cognitive and sensorimotor tasks section of Lang's paper, where people, when administered a certain amount of alcohol and then confronted with a task,

seem to be able to pull themselves together and concentrate on the

task. That same effect has been observed by many different

anthropologists.

This matter of the sway of time and circumstance, set and setting,

the context in which people are drinking and the people with whom

they are drinking, the reason why they're drinking whether it's

in a religious ritual or ceremonial context; whether (as is currently

the case in Papua New Guinea) to go out and get drunk is the

explicit purpose that, of course, has a great deal to do with how

people behave. We find an incredible range and variation of behaviorial outcomes in the same individual, according to set, setting,

age, as that individual moves through his own life history, social

status, and the like. It becomes very difficult, then, to argue that

alcohol automatically leads to disinhibited behavior, however we

may define such behavior.

The matter of the learning of drunken comportment, it seems to

me, is particularly interesting and there are a few examples in the

anthropological literature where people have addressed this issue.

Robin said that I was going to mention my research in Truk. This

matter of how people learn to be drunks was something that was

very, very straightforward in Truk, very clear in the community in

which I lived, named Peniyesene:

The most exciting and colorful daily events in Pen iyesene

are the drunken antics of young mei . These events inevitably attract a horde of small children who hang around

the perimeter of the audience.

These kids would be from approximately age four up to about age

twelve or thirteen.

From early childhood on, Trukese children carefully and

frequently observe drunken performances. By the time

boys reach eight or ten, they begin to imitate the swaggering style of young men.

There's this very conscious, imitative process which goes on, and

by the time those eight or ten year olds become sixteen to eighteen

years old, all of these behaviors transfer into the actual drinking

context.

The fourth of the issues raised in MacAndrew and Edgerton's

book, and which I try to bring up to 1980 in my paper, is the concept

of "time out." which we've already talked about a bit today. And I

think one way of connecting the concept of "time out" with an issue

that has come up several times this morning, the matter of moral

.0
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 209

sense or conscience, is to think in terms of an altered state of

conscience, which goes along with the altered state of consciousness. To summarize then, the notion of "time out" the belief that

alcohol produces this altered state of conscience in which drinkers

may legitimately transgress the norms of everyday proper social

conduct and get away with it provides a powerful incentive for

people to drink and behave in a disinhibited manner. And this is a

point that Alan Lang made earlier this morning. Indeed, it's

imperative that drinkers who wish to do this advertise the fact that

they're drunk: they have to give off cues that they have been drinking. This can be slurred speech whether or not they're drunk

enough to cause that staggering gait, carrying a beer can or beer

bottle about, or at a cocktail party spilling your martini on the

person you're talking with.

By advertising that you're drunk and socially irresponsible, others will know how to interpret your words and deeds. It doesn't do

you any good to be drunk and try to get away with things if other

people don't know you're drunk. You have to make that message

clear. The implications of such a belief for the disinhibition

hypothesis are obvious. If it is to people's advantage to behave in a

drunken manner, and if such behavior is culturally excused, then

many drunks will behave this way regardless of whether they are

physiologically inebriated. Indeed, it's often to their clear advantage not to be too drunk physiologically as Wilson has shown for

sexual arousal, and as my book on Weekend Warriors documents

for what we could call aggressive behavior if you're too drunk,

you get beat up; if you're not too drunk, then you'll probably win the

fight.

The fifth point has to do with the modeling effects of the drunken

behavior of (in most cases) Euroamerican society in societies that

lacked alcoholic beverages at the time of contact with the West.

This includes nearly all of the societies of North America with

the exception of one small pocket of peoples down in the Southwest

and all of the societies of the Pacific. In those places, Europeans

and Americans provided both the beverage and the models for how

one behaves after one has imbibed.

I'm interested in the fact that not only the behavioral norms

surrounding how one should act when drunk have diffused, but

apparently the set of beliefs that alcohol is a disinhibitor diffused as

well, particularly in Oceania, where colonization was largely a

Nineteenth Century phenomenon. I think many of the issues that

Harry Levine talked about just a while ago transferred out there as

well. Moreover, in the Nineteenth Century in the Pacific there was

what you might view as a war of influence between missionaries,

2:4
210 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

many of whom were from the varied Protestant groups that Joan

Silverman talked about a little earlier, and the beachcomber/

whaler community which represented the lower class foreigners

that she referred to, the saloon habitues.

In the paper, I've got some information which suggests what is

at this point speculative but nonetheless intriguing that models

of belief about alcohol also transferred directly from Europe to

Mesoamerica and Latin America. This material is taken from a

historian, Taylor, who's recently written a book on Drinking, Ham icicle and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages (1979). In that

book, he comments on how the Spanish model of disinhibition and

alcohol was taken up by the Indians in Mexico. There are other bits

and snippets in the anthropological literature indicating that this

same model was taken up by other people in Latin America. And I

make a rather grandiose conclusion from all that, which may not be

warranted, which is that the widespread belief in alcohol as a

disinhibitor at least in those areas that did not have traditional

alcoholic beverages of their own is nothing but an ethnocentric

European folk belief that was foisted on subject peoples around the

world during the heyday of colonialism. The historians probably

winced when they read that. But, nonetheless, I think there's something to be made of this borrowingof ideas about alcohol, and, to the

extent that we're interested in beliefs about disinhibition in other

societies, we have to keep in mind the historical context in which

those people were exposed to alcohol.

The matter of biological sensitivity to alcohol is really not restricted to anthropology, but, rather, involves human geneticists,

biological anthropologists, and some physiologists, including Art

Zeiner (Zeiner and Paredes 1977). These people, over about the last

seven or eight years, have been doing a lot of studies in the experimental tradition, but many of these experimental studies have been

done in field situations with different populations, trying to establish whether different breeding populations of human beings have

differential sensitivity to ethanol as a drug or to the metabolism of

ethanol in the body; and, while I've been out in Papua New Guinea

for the last year and somewhat cut off from the literature, my

understanding is that the jury is still out on this issue. There are

some studies which would seem to indicate there are ethnic differences in reactivity; there are others which contradict those results.

And so, the matter remains unresolved at this time.

The reason this is relevant to our concerns here is that we cannot

necessarily assume that the pharmacological effects of ethanol are

going to be the same on all human populations. We know there are

individual diffezences based on body fat and weight and a variety of

0.09
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 211

metabolic processes that vary among individuals. Insofar as differences among breeding populations can be shown to exist in the next

few years, then we'll have to take that into account in any final

model that we come up with to describe the relationship between

social-cultural learning and alcohol.

By way of summing it up, my view of the matter is that at present

beverage alcohol cannot be viewed as the cause of specific drunken

behaviors in societies around the world, other than the well-known

and well-documented sensorimotor disturbances that MacAndrew

and Edgerton discuss and that we've discussed earlier today.

Instead, it seems that while the pharmacological effects of alcohol

on human beings make people feel different that sounds very

much like Alan Lang than when they haven't imbibed, the

meanings given to this experience in other words, how you

interpret these feelings and order the experience are provided by

the cultural tradition in which one is a participant. If the culture

holds that imbibing alcohol produces warm feelings of solidarity,

camaraderie, harmony and so on, then aggression and sexual

advances will have no place. There's a very interesting paper by

Brandes (1979) recently documenting this to be the case in a Spanish community. If, on the other hand, the cultural tradition suggests

that the drinker will feel aggressive and sexually aroused, and

furthermore will not be held accountable if he acts on these

impulses, then these kinds of behaviors are likely to result from

drinking. And there are numerous instances of this in the anthropological literature. Thus, it seems that alcohol as a drug can be

viewed as an enabler or a facilitator of certain culturally given

inebriate states, but it cannot be seen as producing a specific

response pattern among all human beings who ingest it.

2 26
Commentary

Craig Mac Andrew

Since Marshall's paper is so consistently supportive of the general argument contained in Drunken Comportment, and since I still

subscribe to the general outlines of that argument, I find myself

with nothing whatsoever to be contentious about. Let me, then,

simply praise Marshall's neatly assembled review of the anthropological materials that have appeared in the past decade, recommend to any who have not yet read it his elegant monograph,

Weekend Warriors, and briefly address a couple of features of the

original argument which I believe deserve more extended treatment than they have received at this point in time.

The concern of Drunken Comportment was to develop a radically

social explanation of drunken changes-for-the-worse a phrase I

prefer to disinhibition-type talk because it's somehow less theoryimpregnated to develop a social learning, cognitive expectational perspective for such phenomena, as the contemporary

vernacular would now have it. In brief, we argued that in certain

cultures our own amongst them under certain conditions, the

social status of being-in-the-world-drunk affords the drinker the

negotiably sanctionable option to remove himself for a time and to a

degree from the otherwise operative demands of the accountability

nexus. This option we termed "time out."

The two points I want to touch upon concerning this option are the

following: Firs., it's a bounded option; it's relevant only within

negotiably sanctionable limits in the broadest possible rendering of

that phrase. Second, since it is an option, neither its utilization nor

its honoring are in any sense inevitable. Taken together, these two

considerations dictate that in every given instance of actual usage, the option is irremediably both socially and psychologically

situated.

It is a consequence of its social situatedness that the acceptanceor

rejection of the option's excusing character which, of course, is its

"cash value" is always and everywhere the product of a social

agreement albeit, in the typical instance, of a tacit social agreement between the parties involved. And, as is the case with all

212

227
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 213

social agreements, sometimes hitches develop and sometimes the

ensuing negotiation process comes to naught. Here, in a conversation recently overheard in a university cafeteria, is an example in

which the option failed to come off:

She: "O.K., you want to talk. What got into you last

night?"

He: "I guess I got pretty smashed."

She: "Is that the best you can do?"

He: "Hey, you're really in a great mood today."

She: (Silence)

He: "Wow! You're really something else, you know that?"

She: (Silence)

He: "Hey, really, I mean ..."

She: "If that's all you've got to say, let's forget it!"

He: "All right!"

Realize, then, that the world is a marriage and that the drinker is

not the only one with options; for example, "But you weren't that

drunk."

It's a recurrent ethnomethodological theme that we, all of us, are

continuously engaged in doing maintenance work on the social

structures within and on the basis of which we live our lives; that

were it not for these unceasing, and for the most part, unreflectively

practiced efforts on our parts, these structures soon would crumble

away. I want here simply to suggest that the sundry activities

whereby drunken "time out" is or is not accomplished and it is a

social accomplishment from start to finish provide particularly

luscious and variegated displays of such efforts. More importantly,

I want to suggest that detailed analyses of such social accomplishments and failures are a sure way to rouse ourselves, at least now

and again, from the slumber-inducing level of the programmatic,

which is the social scientists' equivalent of Newton's sleep.

My second point that the "time out" option is an option --

directly implicates the relevance to the solution, at least for certain

components of what we loosely call "the alcohol problem," of an area

of piychology which, though flourishing in Europe, is now quite out

of vogue on this continent. I refer to the area of individual differences, and particularly to the manifestation of such differences at the

level of character orientation.

My own work has centered recently on the relationship between

problem-engendering alcohol consumption and such characterological differences, and is now finally to the point, I believe, where

their tie-in with the nature of exhibited drunken changes-for-theworse is about ready to be made. I mention this because as far as at

least some of the "four hundred rabbits" are concerned, I'm hopeful
214 MAcANDREW: COMMENTARY

that such a tie-in will allow us to reclaim an important hunk of

variance which now resides in the error category.

Finally, let me say a quick word about social policy. The policy

implications of the argument contained in Drunken Comportment

are perhaps most succinctly stated, albeit indirectly, in that book's

final line. The line reads as follows: "Since societies, like individuals, get the sorts of drunken comportment that they allow, they

deserve what they get." It appears that the evidence both from

anthropology and from experimental psychology that has accumulated over the past decade has not diluted, but, rather, has appreciably strengthened the empirical warrant for this summary

proposition. However, I see no evidence among policymakers of the

necessary strength of purpose to put the policy implications which

are resident in this proposition into effect. Rather, it would seem

that at the level of policy we continue the forlorn attempt to change

things without really altering them. That this should be so is itself, I

submit, a ripe topic for research and reflection. But, all things in

the fullness of time.

2 2J
Discussion

LELAND: I wanted to comment on Mac's notions about anthropology's contributions to studies of this kind. Despite Craig MacAndrew's protestations, I'm claiming him as an anthropologist. The

recognition we're giving here to his demonstration of the differences among cultures as the main basis for the inference that drinking

behavior is shaped more by learning than by physiology is a welldeserved tribute to him. But it seems to me, on the other hand, that

this may be about the only contribution that anthropology can make

to this study. I just want to throw this idea to Mac. Maybe this

exhausts our discipline's possible contributions.

In your paper, you've accumulated additional evidence confirming Craig's previous evidence, but it seems to me if the conference is

going to be anything more than a kind of exquisite "overkill," and a

MacAndrew festschrift, that we have to go beyond this demonstration that disinhibition must be less nature and more nurture, and

explore more carefully how it happens and why it happens.

And here I get into trouble with the point about diffusion.

MacAndrew and Edgerton proposed that drunken comportment

among Native Americans was learned from the frontiersmen, who

introduced it, and you were saying a similar thing only on a much

broader scale that Europe brought conceptions of drunken comportment to the Third World and left this bomb behind. But, I've

never been thoroughly satisfied with that explanation. For one

thing, it begs the question a bit because it then demands an explanation for how those who brought the conception got it themselves.

But, mainly and here I get to Robin's point earlier it fails to

account for the fact that this behavior has continued long after the

original models and whatever conditions created them have disappeared. So, it seems that we still have a lot of work to do, but I'm not

too sure that anthropology is going to be the one that does it. I just

wondered what you thought about that.

MARSHALL: I think anthropology has never been at the forefront of alcohol studies for a variety of reasons, and I don't think

that's going to change. On the other hand, I think those of us in

anthropology who are interested in alcohol studies have something

more to offer than what has already been offered. I think a lot of the

215

230
216 DISCUSSION

experimental work, some of the ideas that have been tested out in

our own society need to be checked out in other places too before we

start making claims that this is the relationship between alcohol

and human beings.

LELAND: Yes.

MARSHALL: And to give you but one example that we were

toying around with at lunch, it was mentioned this morning in

Alan's paper that there are differences between males and females

with respect to sexual disinhibition, or whatever you want to call it,

that show up in the experimental studies. There are also, of course,

differences between males and females in regular social and cultural settings. And there are a number of societies in Papua New

Guinea, where I'm living now, where females are the sexual predators, if you will, instead of males. It would be most intriguing to run

that design on such peoples to see whether there was a reversal of

response to expectations about what alcohol is going to do to them;

hi other words, whether the women would get sexually aroused

more than the men. But in an instance like that, I think it would be

very difficult for an experimental psychologist with no crosscultural experience whatsoever to go plunk in somewhere and try to

do this in a short time.

LELAND: Right.

MARSHALL: The answer to this may be team research in

wh kh the anthropologist, using field research skills and soon, links

up with other people who have the experimental skills that we lack.

Then, I think, we do have a contribution to make, even if it's more as

cultural mediator than anything else. I think there is definitely a

place for anthropology in the future of all of this, but probably not

center stage.

ROOM: One other dimension of variation that struck me very

much from Weekend Warriors if I could simplify a bit, and if I

understand it right was that the same young men who were

running amok in their twenties, drinking on the street corner in

front of Mac's house, in their thirties were pillars of the community,

had gotten government jobs, and were drinking in a relatively

sober fashion in town. The notion that there's an age specificity as

well as a sex specificity about disinhibitory effects of alcohol is, I

think, quite evocative for American society. It's something that I

would certainly see as having been suggested out of the anthropological literature.

Another person who's fished in the waters of Oceania is Margaret

MacKenzie, who had a comment.

MARGARET MACKENZIE: My comment was if we stick

only to what seems to be a very ethnocentric focus that is on
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 217

disinhibition which seems to be the synonym for a Freudian word

like "control," that we're bound to say that these are Nineteenth

Century models. Certainly, at least in some societies, disinhibition

is a minor part of what the image of alcohol and drinking is about,

and there are meanings that are quite different. And I think it is

much too limiting to see anthropology as restricted only to following

out commitments to an American ethnocentric view concerning

inhibition and disinhibition based on our historical individualism.

In fact what we're interested in is what drinking and alcohol mean

to people, what are the sorts of contexts in which those meanings

change not merely specific changes to do with age and sex, but

certainly including them and the various differences according

to the society and the social setting. So I disagree that the role for

anthropology is limited.

LEVINE: I wanted to answer Joy's question as well. I think if we

try to talk only about disinhibition, then after a certain point there's

not much that almost anybody has to say. We need to talk instead

about the real topic, which is something like alcohol-related behavior and experience which has been called "disinhibited" but which

can be called lots of other things among them drunken comportment, or drunken and feigned drunken behavior, and alcoholrelated "out-of-bounds" behavior. I think that's the real topic of this

conference. I suspect that that's 'what Robin had in mind, or at least

what he should have had in mind for this conference. I think that the

answer to your question is: anthropology has a great deal to say

about what it means to be drunk, about people's understanding of

what "drunk" is, about the various ways in which that is interpreted, experienced, handled even about policy implications,

social control, individual responsibility,treatment, and punishment all that's the stuff that I understand anthropology can deal

with. And I think that anthropology in fact has a bright future in

alcohol research, if it avoids biological and chemical reductionism

and does real social analysis.

ROIZEN: Oftentimes great monuments in a field serve the function of declaring that field's jurisdiction over that particular phenomenal territory. So, perhaps we could imagine the anthropological

works being discussed here as staking out a territorial claim, and

saying, "Look, this obviously varies so Much from person to person;

this is anthropology, this isn't pharmacology." And, in a sense, I get

the same feeling Joy was expressing, that after you've said that, so

what? It marks it out. It may be a heroic document in the discipline,

but it would be at the same time a big flop to someone who is outside

that discipline, who then wants to know, "Well, yes; then what does

that discipline have to tell us about it?"
218 DISCUSSION

If it is an anthropological phenomenon, in what sense do we learn

about the structure of society or culture or the character of drinking

behavior by this means? In other words, in what sense does anthropology not only lay the territorial claim but start bringing out the

gold from this territory? And I think that that's a more important

goal in a way than the goal of trying to figure out just exactly how

much room at the table we should be allotting each of the representatives of the different disciplines.

MARSHALL: Well, to some extent, this has been the emphasis

of anthropological research in alcohol studies well, Horton (1943)

has technically a sociologist, but he used an anthropological methodology certainly beginning with his work and beginning with

Bunzel's work in 1940 up until the present. There has been this

concern to connect the use of alcohol and the way people behave

after they've been drinking and so on with various and sundry

characteristics of the social system, of the cultural belief system of

people and so forth. So, that is an ongoing interest.

ROIZEN: Of course, Horton would take us right back to psychology.

MARSHALL: Well, yes, but hopefully we've come somewhere

beyond that at this point.

DORIE KLEIN: I share some of the dissatisfactions that have

been voiced. Whatever the pharmacological basis of arousal

through alcohol, the specific behavioral consequences are indeed

socially determined. But apart from establishing that and the

diversity of the cultures, that still leaves us at the descriptive level,

and in terms of the analytical level I feel very impatient to talk

about how people learn these behavioral responses and why, and to

look at some of the structural factors. As a criminologist, the situation seems to me analogous to differential association models of

criminal behavior which is a very elegant way of saying that

people learn it from others. That doesn't get us very far even

though, of course, it's hard to dispute that that's true.

ROOM: Ed Lemert, another Oceanic fisher.

LEMERT: Recently I had to write a paper on drinking of American Indians, so I was compelled to give quite a bit of thought to

MacAndrew and Edgerton's work. If you read their book carefully,

I think you'll find quite a few provocative ideas there. I'll mention

one or two which seem to have received a lot of attention.

One of them, of course, is that drunken behavior is not the result

of physiological processes or factors or causes. Well, I don't have

that much trouble with that, although I don't think it's a very new

idea. I think Ruth Bunzel (1940) made that point pretty well quite a

few years ago. Criminologists long have taken the position that

233
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 219

crime cannot be regarded as being caused by drunkenness even

though a high percentage of criminals have a high blood alcohol

content when they commit their offenses.

The other two ideas which I think bear close examination are the

notions of "time out" and of the "suspension of accountability." I

won't try to generalize about these concepts, but rather talk about

them in relation to a couple of primitive groups with which I'm

familiar.

I have some trouble with the "time out" concept in light of the

historical material in regard to drinking in Rarotonga and in

Tahiti. In the case of Tahiti, you can make a pretty good case that

there was a period when the natives were drinking spirituous

liquors in which some kind of "time out" pattern prevailed. But,

later, after a rather short period of time this changed, and there was

a tendency of the Tahitians to confine drunkenness and prostitution

to a few selected port towns where the sailors came in. If you look at

the history of drinking by the Tahitians in the interior of the island,

it became a kind of a "bush beer" drinking of home brew of a rather

low alcoholic content. Control was very much in evidence due to the

illegality of such drinking and fear of native police.

In the case of Rarotonga, again, there's a period when they had

very large home brew parties in which both men and women drank,

but within a fairly short period of time this changed and women

were excluded from the drinking. And, again, they developed a

pattern of male drinking of home brew out in the bush, in small

groups with fairly good control over intoxicated behavior and the

expulsion of the deviants.

Use of the "time out" concept may have some descriptive value,

but I don't think it tells you very much about how drinking patterns

change. Why did the Tahitians change their pattern? Why did the

pattern change in Rarotonga? A number of Rarotongans, the old

ones I interviewed, said the reason they changed from allowing

women to drink in the group was that there was too much adultery,

illegitimate children and so forth. They didn't like it. So, one man in

one particular village took the lead and changed the whole pattern.

Now, if I may move a couple thousand miles over to the Northwest

coast, to the Salish Indians, with whom I'm also somewhat familiar,

I'd like to raise a question about the idea of "suspension of accountability." I'm wondering whether it tells the whole story to say that

disinhibition is simply a learned pattern of behavior, or that individuals are culturally indoctrinated so that they do not hold other

individuals accountable for their drunken aggressions and

unsought sexual advances. I question whether this doesn't ignore

the processes of social control, whether one of the reasons why many

3 .1
220 DISCUSSION

Indian groups haven't done much about drunken aggression is that

they are unable to exercise social control; their social structure is

such that it does not make it possible. For me it is very questionable

whether this means that internally and in a sociopsychological

sense there is a suspension of accountability. Again; I'll just stick to

the Salish Indians, and if I may be a little pedantic here, I'll just

read from this paper that I smuggled in:

I found that the Salish Indians with whose drinking I

became most familiar had long memories ofwrongs done

them by others, drunk or sober: an eye lost in a drunken

brawl; a baby knocked out of its crib bya drunken father

and burned on contact with the stove; a boy blinded by

denatured alcohol given him by older men; a mother

believed to have been pushed overboard from a boat at

night by drunken companions and lost in tidal rapids. It

was when they were themselves intoxicated that the Salish were most likely to confront those who had aggressed

against them and to seek their revenge.

In other words, what I'm suggesting is that some of these aggressions that they may not have reacted to in the immediate situation

were not forgotten, and in subsequent drunken interludes, at least

among the Salish, there was a kind of extended or hyphenated

accountability operating.

MACANDREW: Let me speak for a moment to at leastsome of

what you said. I would hold that there is nothing wrong with

generalization ("theorizing") so long as you allow loopholes to cover

the real world, and I thought that we had made such allowances. We

did have a chapter titled "Now you see it, now you don't" which

incorporated your Rarotonga example. And, as far as the Salish

data go, there was a chapter on the "Within Limits" clause, which I

think talked at least reasonably well to that.

EHLERS: I wanted to play the devil's advocate and say that I

disagree with using this idea of drunken comportment as a catchall

for the idea that disinhibition is totally social ritualization. I certainly believe that there's a lot of ritualization around drinking

practices, and that drunken comportment can be very highly ritualized in learned behavior, but that may be different from what

disinhibition is, and I think it gets back to the definition of what is

disinhibition. Alcohol I,as very similar properties pharmacologically to some of the :ninor tranquilizers like Valium or Librium,

which also cause disinhibition as defined psychiatrically. If you

take a person who exhibits pathological intoxication and has committed criminal acts during alcohol intoxication for which the

person is amnestic -- a person considered possibly to be an "epilep-
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 221

toid" dyscontrol type and who has never taken Valium or Librium,

you can give those drugs to the person and they will have a similar

kind of drunken reaction. There's quite a bit of data in the psychiatric literature to suggest that.

So, I think that there is a basis for the idea of disinhibition having

a pharmacological component. Now, it's a question how small that

is, and how much the actual behavior that you see is ritualized in

drunken comportment. But I think you can't dismiss the idea that

the drug itself may have some disinhibiting properties, although

how little or large these may be is not known.

MARSHALL: Absolutely. I'm in one hundred percent agreement. I tried to make that point in the paper, although I didn't say it

up at the podium. And one thing that I was hopeful we might begin

to address at the conference was, roughly, what is the proportion

between social learning and biophysiological effects in this whole

issue of how people behave. I'm not sure we're far enough along that

we can sort that out yet. Instead we all talk in these very loose terms

like "It is mostly this" or "It is somewhat that." But I think when we

fall into an either/or category with respect to it, then we're missing

the whole point.

ROOM: I am quite comfortable with your characterization.

Alcohol certainly makes you feel different when you get beyond a

couple of drinks, and then we stuff meaning into that "feeling

different." If another drug has a similar effect in making you feel

somewhat the same, then you may apply the interpretations to that

drug, or may have a pattern of learned behavior that goes along

with that feeling, even though it's another drug.

EHLERS: Right. But while you can say that the benzodiazepines or Librium and Valium look like alcohol in certain paradigms, when you look at morphine, it makes you feel very different,

but there's no culture where it has been described as having a

particularly disinhibiting effect.

ROOM: Yes.

EHLERS: Yet it has a very ritualized comportment associated

with it, particularly in the Oriental culture. So I think there's

evidence that there may be differences between classes of drugs,

that it's not just a matter of feeling different, but that there's a

specific quality of feeling different for a particular drug. And is

that disinhibition?

MACKENZIE: I was the one who said that disinhibition was

the idea that should be centrally focused on, and I should clarify

what I meant by that. I think that as a social scientist or as a

member of any form of Euroamerican discipline we tend to ask

questions about inhibition What is inhibition or control or self230%
222 DISCUSSION

control? because our concept is that the individual is the basic

unit of society to be studied. Our concept of the individual is as a

person who, to be fully a person, in order to be rational or competent, fully functioning, has to be inhibited or controlled in some

way. Other societies don't always have this focus. The basic unit

may be the relationship, and the individual may not be the focus at

all. When you start to ask questions about drinking and how people

behave when they've been drinking in another society, you probably

will find that there are some meanings you can get when you keep

asking questions about disinhibition: "Yes, drinking is having fun,"

or "going out at night," that sort of thing. But these meanings may

be very peripheral to them. In those societies, what matters to them

about effects of alcohol may have much more to do with serious talk,

which is a rather common example. It may have much more to do

with environment and time of men talking together than it has to do

with the meaning of disinhibition or being irresponsible, whereas

the latter are the meanings that matter to us. That's the sense in

which I say it's an ethnocentric focus: those questions and answers

tend to dominate our reports, but if you try to get an authentic view

of other people's priorities and meanings and activities, that may

not be what you get.

WINICK: It seems to me the discussion of the extent to which

there's a substantial physiological dimension versus the sociocultural dimension has an echo in the debate over the nature of narcotic

addiction. Over forty years ago, Lindesmith (1938) proposed that in

order to be a narcotic addict one has to interiorize the norms of

being a "dope fiend" and to know what a "dope fiend" was. And that

was the accepted notion until Spragg (1940), a psychologist, proved

that she could addict chimpanzees with narcotics, chimpanzees

who didn't know what a dope fiend was. The debate on cultural

versus physiological factors in addiction continued for some time

(Winick 1979).

The next phase of the debate was also analogous to some of the

discussion here. It was argued that the young narcotic addicts who

were studied in the 1950's were essentially all responding the same

way to the substance. It turned out that in Chicago the seventeenand eighteen-year old black narcotic addicts studied by Finestone

(1957) were alive, alert, "cool cats" on the go. At the very same time,

a similar ethnic and age group studied in New York by Chein (1964)

were semi-comatose and sleepy and not "cool cats" at all. Even

within the same subgroup, the same substance taken by comparable subgroups may have very different kinds of visible effects.

The debate over the addicted chimpanzees ended in favor of the

cultural contribution, more or less. But the analysis of the contribu-
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 223

tions of culture turned out to be not at all as simple as one would

have wished.

LANG: Just a quick question about the pseudointoxication you

referred to at some length: to what extent do you regard that just based on your observations to be a volitional decision on the part

of the person to gain access to a different set of norms or rules? Was

this a planned consequence of intoxication or were other underlying

motives associated with it?

MARSHALL: I'll just talk about my own research experiences.

In Truk; it is definitely volitional. When young men drink, a cup is

passed around and everyone takes a slug of whatever it is, whether

it's straight gin or home brew or whatever, Whatever people are

drinking, it's passed around in a circle and each person drinks in

turn. Several times when I went drinking with people, one of the

drinkers would hold back from the drinking circle. This person

would sit out and then come in and maybe have one drink, and then,

"Wham!", that person would attack someone else or go back down to

the village and raise hell. And it struck me that whatwas necessary

was the excuse, "I have been seen drinking; I am now drunk." The

Trukese definition of being drunk is one drink. I mean, at that point

this gets into their own categories of the notion of drunkenness. You

are then considered drunk; you're considered crazy; the same word

that's applied to someone who's what we would call, I suppose,

"mentally ill" is applied to drunks. People are viewed as utterly

bereft of their senses at one level so that you cannot predict anything that they're going to do; they're dangerous. And so by opting

into that through having had one drink, one can take advantage of

the situation for all sorts of personal social purposes. Now, not

everyone who drinks does that. But this is one option that's taken

advantage of.

In Chimbu, in the highlands of Papua New Guinea where I've

been doing some research this past year, a very similar kind of

thing seems to operate. There's a lot of traditional warfare still

going on in the Papua New Guinea highlands. And the trigger fora

lot of warfare the actual cause of tribal fights or clan fights, really is usually that somebody's driving down the road and has an auto accident, and one of the guys that s in the back end of the

pickup truck or whatever and who's thrown out and killed is a

member of a clan other than the clan of the driver. During the

negotiations for compensation, some of the young bucks will have

some drinks but not really get drunk, and will come and say bad

things to the elders of the other clan who are negotiating, which

then triggers things. So the alcohol is not really the cause of the

disagreement between the clans, but it acts as a kind of excuse or

238
224 DISCUSSION

trigger to go ahead and pick a fight in a situation where you've been

spoiling for one for a while anyway.

LANG: It seems to be it's a bit less ritualized in this society.

Many of the alleged effects of drinking on violence, for example,

might well be more a matter of conditioning in either the classical

or the operant sense, in that people have a certain learning history

which says that when you're drinking, you can be aggressive or

violent, and if people will tolerate that, you can do it with relative

impunity. They may begin drinking for some other reason, but a

situation arises in which they can avail themselves of this excuse.

And it becomes a kind of an automatic process.

I think it's important for us to consider the extent to which these

things are understood by the drinker as the directreasons that he's

drinking in the first place, as against the extent to which the real

connection between drinking and violence via the pharmacologic

action of drink or something else is a kind of a conditioned

phenomenon based on experience, occurring without intention or

volition on his part. Much in the same way that if I were to cut open a

lemon and begin sucking on it, you might begin salivating. Well,

that saliva in your mouth would be very real, but it wouldn't be

caused by the lemon being there.

ROOM: The counter argument to that would be the "Now you

see it, now you don't" notion. This is really getting into tomorrow's

material, but Tom Burns' piece on getting rowdy with the boys

(1980) would strongly suggest that among young men in South

Boston sometimes drinking acts one way and then they get in a

situation where suddenly it isn't acting that way.

MACANDREW: That's right. In passing, a specification of an

underlying physiological basis for psychological theories of drunkenness has, I believe, two not unreasonable avenues open to it. First,

there's Eysenck's (1967) theory as to the relevance of the reticular

activating system to the bipolar psychological dimension of

introversion-extroversion and the extroverting consequence of

alcohol consumption. Second, and in important ways derivative of

Eysenck's (1967) formulation of the more general problem, Jeffrey

Gray (1976) has come up with a very sophisticated system, a system

that underlies the behavioral inhibition system and that he has

called the "septohippocam pal stop system." The hippocampal theta

rhythm definitely seems to be influenced by the presence of alcohol

in the body in ways that a person of a physiological bent should find

very delectable indeed. Needless to say, I don't find either formulation entirely convincing.

ROIZEN: I'm wondering again about this question that Herb

Fingarette raised earlier, about how can we have cultures in which

2 3
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 225

the alcohol is both an excuse and not an excuse? How can we have a

culture that believes in both in vino veritas and also that the alcohol

sometimes causes me to do it? I'm aware of only one place a little

monograph published by a woman named Joan May out of Salisbury, Rhodesia (1973) where there are data on a community in

which alcohol is not regarded as an excuse for violent behavior.

MARSHALL: Well, I don't have the references in my head, but

I think there are probably other examples of societies besides the

Shona that would fall into the particular cell you put them into.

When you consider the number of societies that there are in the

world and the small proportion of those that have been studied by

social scientists, you also have to realize that we have by no means

exhausted the range of variation. And when you further consider

the kinds of things raised by the historians, which is that these

attitudes are constantly in flux through time which I think is the

point that Ed Lemert was making as well that what exists in one

decade may not exist in the next with respect to disinhibition or

excuse value or whether or not you're held accountable for your

behaviors, then it seems to me that it's sufficient to show a connection if we find that there's at least one example in the ethnographic

record. I know I've encountered other instances. I'm sorry I don't

have the references in my head. They very well may even be in

Drunken Comportment. But I know they exist.

ROIZEN: Just to add another thing, I remember once Harry

and I in the middle of the night were working in the office, and there

was this argument over what does it mean about a culture to be able

to say in vino veritas and "I'm sorry I did it; I was drunk." And one

possible solution is, of course, that the contradiction can be resolved

by saying cultures subsist in a tacit understanding that the truth is

not the basis of social relations, which is to say, veritas is not the

desired condition of a cultural situation, so that you can resolve that

contradiction by saying, "Don't bother me with the truth," essentially. Harry didn't like that answer, as I recall, and proposed

alternatively that the cultures don't believe than an individual is

necessarily one person, which is an interesting idea that goes back a

little bit to something that Margaret MacKenzie was saying.

Maybe these are overly pristine and idealist efforts to resolve the

question of disinhibition. I just wonder, because it seems so fundamental an issue, if there are other insights we can get from their

anthropological experience.

MACKENZIE: Well, there are some other cultures that definitely don't believe an individual is one person. An individual is

really a collection of roles, and it's been written up by an anthropologist called Bradd Shore, who describes in a rather direct transla-
226 DISCUSSION

tion that the individual is like the facets of a ring that has many

sides, and people change their names from context to context;

however, they would always have the same name in a similar

context.

The immediate example I can think of because I made an error

is that one night I was at a dance where the headmaster of a local

junior high school was there, drunk, and his wife was definitely not

in sight; and he was behaving in a fairly flirtatious manner with

me. I was due to see him the next morning to get his school children

to write essays on the idea of "mother," and I said, "Will I be seeing

you tomorrow morning?" And he said, "Don't talk to me about that

here. I'm not that person here." He used his title name as the

headmaster. "I'm somebody quite different, and you can't discuss

that here." And, really, he was not the same person, and it also

happened that he was very drunk, and, certainly, by the next

morning he would be sober.

I've seen it happen in Rarotonga that should something happen

when somebody's drunk that would demand a change of context,

they would switch right back into the context demanded, and

accordingly the name would change by which they would be

addressed and by which they would refer to themselves.

I think it's perfectly true that we don't always regard ourselves as

the same individual in every context, either, but certainly there are

societies that are very explicit about that.

MARLATT: One of the questions that conies to mind in reviewing the anthropological evidence and the "time out" hypothesis is

that the extent to which different groups make use of alcohol as a

vehicle for having "time out" should vary as a function of other ways

of having "time out" in that society, or with the number of controls

over behaviors that we associate with intoxication and certainly

societies differ with regard to the extent to which they have those

controls. I'm just asking whether that kind of cross-culture comparison has been made, and, if so, what does it show.

MACANDREW: Unfortunately, the relation isn't clean at all.

Some of the most pervasively repressive societies provide only minimal or nonexistent "time out" availabilities. On the other hand, in

some societies members' transgressions are widespread during

sobriety and become absolutely rampant under conditions of publicly recognized drunkenness. The world just isn't tidy in this

regard.

ROOM: . . . To further confuse us.

MARLATT: We were talking a few minutes ago about whether

there are no pharmacological effects at all, or what is the interaction between the twc, and one thing that was brought up in Steve

241
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 227

Woods' paper keeps coming back to mind the biphasic nature of

the reactions to alcohol; that there is, in fact, an initial increase in

arousal that's later followed by a more depressive effect. That

increase in arousal looks to me to be the disinhibition phase, or at

least it seems to me that there's a parallel there, because the person

is feeling a kind of initial rush in energy, and that energizes lots of

different behaviors. It makes a person feel high; McClelland's work

(1972) shows that heavy drinkers experience increased perceptions

of control and personal power during that phase. I'm just wondering whether that does provide a basis for the disinhibition phenomena and some linkage to a pharmacological effect. We also know

that the arousal is probably very easily conditioned; in some of the

work in the balanced placebo design, when people are expecting

alcohol and not receiving it, they may be in fact having a conditioned arousal high state because it was all associated with the

arousal response in the past, and whether that does maybe provide

some linkage to the pharmacological effect.

MARSHALL: What kind of time period are we talking about in

that initial arousal phase before things begin to taper off?

WOODS: I can't answer that specifically. Maybe Dr. Mansfield

can. But my understanding, at least as far as concerns the effects of

ethanol on some physiological systems, is that as long as the levels of

alcohol are rising in the blood you get one effect, and once they're

stable and/or decreasing you get a different effect. So, it becomes

somewhat dose-dependent and somewhat dependent upon the

interval over which you're drinking. I expect that the arousal state

is a function of time during which the levels are still rising in the

blood.

FINGARETTE: If there's a general rise in the level of activation at the lower stage, and if I'm a decent, law-abiding citizen, why

wouldn't it be just as plausible to suppose that I would simply

commit more law-abiding, decent acts more intensively or enthusiastically? Flow do we jump that gap from "activation" to

"activation-to-do-what-violates a norm"?

WOODS: It's not easy. I'm impressed with all that I've heard

today, and I think that the idea that alcohol somehow sanctions

extra degrees of freedom in your behavior, coupled with perhaps an

increased arousal, is a very intriguing idea it's easy to account for

it that way. I think that there may be people who, when they have a

drink, become more law-abiding. I don't know.

FINGARETTE: Then what you're really doing is building in

the sociocultural belief background as the specific shaper of the

conduct, the arousal only activates whatever the person is inclined

to do with that set, in that setting, and so on.

2,4 2
228 DISCUSSION

WOODS: That's right.

FINGARETTE: So, it would be misleading to think that the

mere fact of a higher level of activation would somehow give any

kind of specific causal understanding of the nonconforming

behavior.

WOODS: I agree.

MARSHALL: Might we not agree that this heightened level of

activation or this arousal phase is what we were calling "feeling

different"?

WOODS: Sure.

MARSHALL: And then what you're saying, again, is you've got

to figure out what to do with those different feelings, how to interpret them.

WOODS: Right.

LANG: It's clear that while there may be some commonality

among people, different individuals drink for different purposes at

different times maybe to enhance their sociability, for example.

MARSHALL: And the same individual drinks for different

purposes.

LANG: That's right.

MACKENZIE: Rather than a synthesis across cultures, I want

to try a synthesis across substances, considering a substance to

which no pharmacological properties are attributed. You know I'm

studying fatness, and these days I'm studying eating as part of

fatness, though it's not all of it. And I have got a hypothesis about

when people go on eating binges; I think that when people give

accounts of the conditions under which they go on binges that is

people who are in the upper middle class in our society there is an

association between the extent to which they think they ought to be

controlled and the circumstances in which they become disinhibited. And I think that's really important because nobody attributes any pharmacological properties to the food, although, of

course, there are some images about blood sugar, but far more is

involved than high-sugar foods.

ROOM: Could you give us a concrete example of what you're

talking about?

MACKENZIE: When people tell me, "I had a binge last night,"

they say I had a binge because such-and-such. The most recent

anecdote is a woman who is going to an energy physician who's in

the Holistic Health Center in Berkeley, and this particular energy

physician requires that you go on one of his diets in which you

systematically eliminate a whole lot of foods and then reintroduce

foods one by one. And for quite a long period of time you're on a

restricted diet that's determined by hypotheses of allergies.

; - 243
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 229

There is a leader in Tacontas who gave a talk last week in which

she gave an account of the first binge she'd been on in ten years. She

started dieting ten years ago. And she went on a binge when the

energy therapist told her that she would have to go on this restricted

diet. She said, "I found myself eating six still half-frozen cream

cakes from the Co-op." This anecdote accords with every other

binge report that I've ever heard, that binging is associated with

dieting. The fat-consciousness movement is actually stopping people from dieting; they may get weight stability, but it's associated

with the images of what control they ought to have.

WOODS: With regard to the point that there can be a

disinhibition-like behavior with regards to binge eating, we were

talking about arousal and disinhihition. I think it's interesting that

several research groups have now shown thatone of the most potent

ways to increase arousal hormones is to eat, particularly when

you've been dieting. It's sort of counter-intuitive, but in fact, eating

is a very stressful situation in terms of arousal and stress hormones.

It would be perfectly consistent.

MARLATT: We've been studying relapses across a variety of

different behavior problems, including overeating and alcoholism

and cigarette smoking and compulsive gambling, where in all cases

the person's either trying to abstain or just putting tight controls

over their behavior, like the dieter. And it seems that binging, or

behaviors that seem to be associated with loss of control or the

person's perception of loss of control are somehow relevant to this

whole question of disinhibition; that is, to the extent to which the

person feels that they have control, all is well. But if they have one

slip or mistake and they perceive that the cause of that is lack of

control lack of willpower or lack of some sort of internal process

to be able to re-exert self-control their behavior seems to go to the other end of the extreme, something that we call "oscillation of

control."

So I think that a lot of the see-saw kinds of behaviors that you find

where a person's in control, out of control, in control, out of control

are in some part based on their perception of control and what

alcohol and other drugs do to that control. Ifwe think that one drink

knocks out our control center the little superego in the head gets

intoxicated and can't control our behavior any more then, almost

as a self-fulfilling prophesy, the behavior goes out of control.

There's a lot of secondary gain through that, of course, too, but it

seems to me the whole paradox of control, self-control and loss of

control is something that underlies or parallels the discussion that

we've been having on disinhibition.

ROOM: I take it that historical folk would not disagree with that

; 4
230 DISCUSSION

statement. The invention of the notion of addiction is part of the

same historical shift, if I understand your work, Harry, that also

produced disinhibition.

LEVINE: Yes.

LEMERT: I'm wondering if we don't need to investigate more

the comparative effects of different kinds of intoxicating substances. In Tonga, for example, when I was there in the early '60s,

they were drinking both kava and home brew. And in one hundred

percent of the cases I must have asked at least two hundred

informants they agreed that when you get drunk on kava, it

extinguishes the sexual desire. Not so in the case of getting drunk

with alcohol. There's a very sharp distinction here. Now, are we

dealing entirely here with the learned interpretation of these physiological things maybe we all ought to drink kava sometime and

try some of this out? We ought to have some more experimental

work. Tongans told me time after time, "When drunk on kava, you

don't want women like you do when you're drunk on home brew."

Possibly we could test this idea.

SILVERMAN: Was that desirable or undesirable?

LEMERT: The wives of the ones that got drunk on kava didn't

like it.

MARSHALL: There are a couple of experts on the subject lurking in the back of the room. Monty, did you want to say anything in

response to that?

MONTY LINDSTROM: Well, I haven't really looked that

much into kava, but it seems that kava comportment has also been

learned, and in fact, the connection between kava and disinterest in

sex also may be a learned behavior. I'm not sure.

LANG: One explanation for the differences between kava and

home brew, in addition to a possible difference based on learning, is

that these substances contain things other than alcohol congeners. that may in themselves have independent effects, and that issue

has not been raised here to any great extent.

LEMERT: There's a whole question of toxic congeners that

needs to be considered in this issue, particularly in regard to primitive drinking.

MAI)ELON POWERS: I'd just like to add one remark. In the

'I Os. when marijuana was still a felony in the eyes of law and a sin in

the eyes of parents. a friend who was versed in such things cautioned me that if ever I should do th is, I should also drink a couple of

beers to remind myself of what it was like and what a drunken

experience was like so that if I screwed up in some way, it could

be excused as "Oh, well, I've been drinking." and no one would

245
AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL VIEW 231

know. So you have two different kinds of behaviors associated, but

one of them was acceptable and one was not.

ROOM: . . . notes from another tribe.

LEVINE: I'd like to just use a moment or two to throw out a

question and a bit of data on this topic. This summer I discovered

that according to the Dictionary of American Slang, there were

more slang synonyms for "drunk" than for any other word in the

English language. Then I discovered a few other collections of

terms for "drunk," including one that Benjamin Franklin compiled

in 1737 which included 228 terms; the most recent Dictionary of

American Slang has 353 terms, and there were a number of other

sources. I collected all these and put them together (Levine 1981)

simply as a way of having them all in one place so as to ask: "What

are all these words talking about?"

One striking thing about the words is how many suggest some

kind of power, force or violence often used to describe "good times."

For example: "Crashed, clobbered, bombed, busted, swacked,

boxed, carted, buried, canned, gassed, plastered, shellacked, wiped

out, tanked, ossified, looped, packaged, paralyzed, shot, damaged,

whipped, battered and screwed." All are commonly used words to

describe being drunk. And they're often used not simply for a bad

time but in anticipation of a good time or in remembrance of a good

time: "Boy, I had a great time I was really smashed Saturday

night," and so on.

I would like to ask what exactly is good about being drunk? What

is good about being "stoned" or "smashed"? Why would someone

look forward to being "bombed," or recall with pleasure when they

or some part of themselves was "clobbered" or "buried"? Why do

people keep finding new terms to describe the experience, terms

which use other powerful or violent or forceful metaphors? In the

appendix to the Dictionary of American Slang there's a bunch of

new words: "Bagged, bombed, crashed, kicked in the guts, plowed,

shitfaced, tore down, tore up, twisted, and wiped out."

All I have to offer in the way of interpretation is that it's a way of

talking about the breaking down of ordinary consciousness that

what is being "smashed" is our ordinary, everyday way of experiencing and feeling things, and that is hard to do and we experience it as a real destruction of something. It is a movement, I

think, into a different realm, into a different kind of experience.

But this is just a beginning interpretation.

My last bit of data is this little "show-and-tell" thing that I saw in

the airport and couldn't resist buying for this conference. It's a very

dented white mug that says, "I got smashed in New York City." Its

a representation in some way of the experience of being drunk.

246
232 DISCUSSION

don't know exactly what it's saying, and what it's showing I don't

know, but I hoped somebody would be able to interpret it.

MARSHALL: Are those one's cells or one's neurons or what

have you?

ROOM: Well, I'm glad we got to the end of this eventful week.

LUM: Just to pick up on Harry Levine's cup and link it with Ed's

comment that is, being smashed and the image of the smashed

cup what's being smashed are norms and cakes of custom over

which most people have no personal control. So that perhaps what we're demonstrating when we get smashed is a sense of personal

efficacy in light of our inability to transform norms and values and

so on that might be oppressive.

ROOM: I think that what's emerging from this line of discussion

is really a new interpretation of McClelland's (1972) kind of perception, that the need for power has to be interpreted at a cultural as

well as individual level.

WINICK: Much of the same kinds of terminology used to describe drinking are also slang terms for sex and gambling activity, and all three of these, obviously, share a certain number of commonalities in terms of social acceptance, a certain cycle of activity and

being viewed ambivalently by the society.

FINGARETTE: It seems to me that one thing that perhaps needs to be kept in mind and it's connected with the question of

what is the concept of disinhibition is that sometimes we are

talking here about loss of control, and other times we're talking

about specific kinds of behavior which are purportedly caused by

alcohol, such as being more aggressive or more active sexually. It

seems to me, for example, that in Alan Lang's paper most of the

evidence has to do not with the general loss of control concept but

with specific kinds of behavior. With the anthropological evidence,

I'm not yet clear as to which it bears on, whether we're dealing with

the concept of loss of control in some form, or, rather, with a specific

form of behavior such as being aggressive, being rash, or whatever.

I think that those are by no means identical and the distinction

needs to be kept clearly in mind as we think about this.

247
DAY 2: PERSPECTIVES ON

DISINHIBITION IN

AMERICAN SOCIETY

2,18
Introduction

Robin Room

Welcome back. Yesterday, we spent the day with papers reviewing the available evidence concerning the nature of the link

between alcohol and disinhibition, The papers yesterday were

reviewing evidence which was not brand new for this conference,

although, in fact, Harry was presenting new evidence that has been

lying around in working paper form for two or three years.

Today we turn to territory which is more developmental. We turn

away from an organization in terms of disciplines and towards an

organization in terms of what windows we have to look into American society and see what we can say about the disinhibition/alcohol

link in that society. And as you read in the prospectus for the

meeting, we actually ended up with five open windows, and were in

a bit of a quandary about what to do with that. So, we are considering jointly two of the windows, which are the fact that there is a

substantial literature in sociology around accounts of behavior and

another substantial literature in psychology around the attribution

of behavior. Both of these literatures have been growing by leaps

and bounds in recent years, but neither of them, to our knowledge,

has really seriously tackled the question of alcohol as an account or

as an attribution of behavior. So we asked people from the accounts

literature to make a presentation, and someone who might be described as being an attribution scholar to make the commentary.

The first paper this morning derives from our history of having

done research on drinking patterns and drinking problems in the

general population for a number of years. We went through the

available data and asked ourselves: in all the questions we've asked

over the years, what is there that is relevant to a conference on

alcohol and disinhibition? Ron Roizen, who is making the presentation, has long had an interest in this area and took the occasion to do

an analysis of the set of questions which he's now going to tell us

about.

Ron has been with the Social Research Group for eight or nine

years, had a previous incarnation as a sociologist of space and

architecture, and has been involved in a number of analyses of

234

249
INTRODUCTION 235

drinking studies, including a study of the literature of the outcomes

of treatment and what the meaning of that literature is; and a study

of spontaneous remission in general populations: how often do people get better from having had alcohol problems with disinhibition.

230
Loosening Up: General- Population Views of the Effects of Alcohol*

Ron Roizen

Introduction

This paper examines alcohol's mood-altering or psychotropic

effects as they are seen through the medium of survey research data

specifically, through questionnaire data drawn from a national

sample of adult males in the United States. As it happens, the

subject of alcohol's effects has not provided a central focus of study

for survey researchers interested in drinking behavior. Perhaps

this lack of interest derives from a generally felt sense that alcohol's

psychotropic effects are too well known already in everyone's commonsense knowledge to require further description. Or, perhaps

the study of such effects, to be interesting or useful, would seem to

demand the close controls of an experimental situation, rather than

the relatively crude instruments of survey research. This is not to

say, however, that survey-research data on alcohol's mood-altering

effects have not been collected; they have. But for the most part such

data have been gathered because the matter of alcohol's psychotropic effects sometimes crosscut other survey research focuses.

For example, ever since their modern beginnings in the mid-1940s,

survey studies of drinking have questioned respondents about their

"reasons for drinking" using interrogatives about whether the

drinker drank in order to relax, to quiet down anxieties and tensions, to let go, or to forget cares and worries, and so on (Riley and

Marden 1948). Here, then, the survey researcher employs alcohol's

putative psychotropic effects as potential motivations for drinking.

Sometimes similar items on psychotropic motivations for drinking have been called upon to wear a quite different conceptual hat,

Preparation of this paper was supported by National Alcohol Research Center

Grant AA03524 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to the

Social Research Group, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley.

236

251
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 237

performing as indicators of one variety of drinking-related problems. In fact, there is a longstanding tradition in U.S. alcohological studies which holds that it is not necessarily one's drinking behavior per se but rather one's intentions about drinking that best define

the frontier between normal and problem drinking. The proper use of alcohol, to cite Haggard and Jellinek's (1942) powdery phrase, should be confined to that of a condiment for sociability and, at most, a source of the substance's milder physiological and psychological effects. This same tradition was carried on in Cahalan's

(1970) use of "escape drinking" as one of his operationalizations of

problem drinking; escape drinking conjoined together both indications of a heavy drinking pattern and escapist motivations for drinking.

Alcohol's psychotropic effects crop up in survey measures of drinking problems in another way, too. Respondents have been

asked if they experienced feelings of belligerence or happened to get into fights after (and presumably because of) drinking. This

sort of question, then, tacitly attributes the untoward mood-effect and its behavioral consequences to alcohol, without at the same

time (as in the measures discussed above) making the assumption

that the drinker intended to alter his state of mind in this way or bring about the events that followed in the drinking's train. Yet another sort of data on effects can be found in survey inquiries into "global" estimates of alcohol's powers, which is a brand of

inquiry more closely akin to public opinion research on drinking. As it happens, it is a relatively easy matter to show from these sorts of data that there is a widely held presumption in the United States

that alcohol can make havoc with the proper personal management of human behavior. In a recent survey of the adult population of a

neighboring county, for example, 62 percent of the sample reported

they tended to agree that "drink can often bring out the worst in

people."

But however much these sorts of global estimates may suggest

that American public opinion has embraced the notion that alcohol

often can disinhibit or disrupt the drinker's behavior, it is well to

remember that the respondent to these questions often has somebod y else's, and not his own, drinking in mind. Perhaps this is

illustrated in the same sample I just mentioned: Although almost

two-thirds of the population thought alcohol often brought out the worst in people, only about one in eight respondents reported being

ashamed of something he himself did while drinking in the past

year.

In the main, then, alcohol's effects have entered into survey studies of drinking behavior mostly as tacit elements in the description
238 ROIZEN

and analysis of other things: as motivational explanations of drinking behavior, as indicators of at least a couple of sorts of drinking

problems, or as measures of public attitudes toward alcohol. Speaking for the Social Research Group experience, to my knowledge we

did not introduce an item specifically addressing alcohol's effects

until 1973, and even then the item was .i1Groduced for a special

reason rather than as a means for investigating alcohol's effects per

se, as we will see.

The 1973 Series of Effects Questions

The series that appeared in our 1973 questionnaire was as follows:

What effect does alcohol have on you?

(CIRCLE ONE CODE FOR EACH)

a. It makes me

Always Usually Sometimes Never

sleepy

b. It makes me

talkative

c. It makes me sad

or depressed

1

1

1

2

2

2

3

3

3

4

4

4

d. I get aggressive 1 2 3 4

e. I get romantic

f. It makes me feel

sick

1

1

2

2

3

3

4

4

g. I get friendly

h. It makes me

unpleasantly dizzy

i. It makes it hard for

me to think straight

(i.e., irrational)

j. I get argumentative

1

1

1

1

2

2

2

2

3

3

3

3

4

4

4

4

k. I find it tastes bad 1 2 3 4

1. I get mean 1 2 3 4

Let me say a word now about how this series came to be included

in our survey. As you can see, a dozen different would-be effects

were inquired about. In fact, there was no carefully worked-out

conceptual structure lying beneath this particular series of 12

effects. As it happened, the series grew out of a chance comment

Lee Robins made in 1972, when she was consultant to our survey

studies. She said that she occasionally met people who drank very

little or did not drink at all because one or two drinks put them

straight to sleep, made them unpleasantly dizzy, or made them sick

253
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 239

to the stomach. This sort of reaction to alcohol, then, obviously

might act as a sort of protection against heavy drinking. Robins'

idea seemed plausible enough, and the series above was written to

test it. In particular, we tilted the series toward measuring alcohol's

powers to make one sleepy, dizzy, sad or depressed, sick-feeling,

irrational, and, finally, alcohol's potential to taste bad to the

respondent. This last reaction, of course, was not in the same sense

an effect of alcohol at all, but since our minds were firmly fixed on

Robins' suggestion, an item on unpalatability fit in quite well. The

remaining items on alcohol's mood effects, as I recall, were just

thrown in for cover.

I should also say a word about the sample from which these data

were drawn. To date, six surveys based on the U.S. national population have been conducted by the Social Research Group, and each is

referred to around the group by the nickname N1, N2, N3... N6, in

order of the survey's sequence in time. The first (N1) was accomplished in late 1964 and early 1965, the most recent was done in 1979.

The data I will be examining in this paper were drawn from the N4

survey. The N4 survey, though, did not involve a freshly drawn

national sample but rather was a followup study of respondents to

an earlier study, N3, conducted in 1969. Both the N3 survey and the

N4 followup survey, as mentioned, were done only on men. Also,

because this was a followup study, as a whole the N4 sample's range of ages was a little higher than usual: in 1969 respondents were

drawn from the adult population aged 21-59; by 1973, ofcourse, the

group had progressed to ages 25-63. Another consequence was the

inevitable damage done by two waves of nonresponse. In 1969,

about 75 percent of all invitations to the sample produced completed interviews. Only persons who had completed interviews in

1969 were invited again in 1973, and in 1973 the response rate was

again about 75 percent. Therefore, when it is used as a means for

describing the population's distributions on, say, attitudes toward drinking or actual drinking practices, the N4 survey covers only

about 50 percent of the original population given invitations. That

original sampling universe is also pretty old, 4years out of date by

1973, and more than a decade out of date by 1981. This analysis,

then, must be regarded as a pilot venture.

Reported Frequencies of These Effects

Nevertheless, the findings are interesting. Let us begin with the

"marginals" which is to say, the raw frequencies of responses to

these various effects questions.

2 54
240 ROIZEN

Table 1 shows the proportions of the sample of current drinkers

(N=605) reporting that they experienced each of these 12 effects at

least sometimes (that is to say, the total proportion checking

responses sometimes, usually, or always for an effect item).1

Table 1. Frequencies of Positive Reports of Effects

(Base: 605 Current Drinkers

who responded to at least one of the effects questions)

Effect

Frequencies of Reported Effects1

"Never"

"At Least "At Least

Sometimes"2 Usually" "Always"

Percent

Friendly 21 79 43 10

Talkative 21 79 40 9

Sleepy 20 80 30 8

Romantic 30 70 25 7

Sick 48 52 7 3

Irrational 52 48 8 3

Aggressive 62 38 8 1

Dizzy 66 34 4 1

Argumentative 66 34 2 1

Sad 82 18 2 1

Mean 85 15 2 1

Tastes bad 5? 44 9 3

'This table reports the frequencies of four levels of response to the

effects questions: the never column simply shows the frequency of

never responses; the at least sometimes column reports the combined

frequency of sometimes, usually, and always responses; the at least

usually column reports the combined frequency of usually and always

responses; and, finally, the always column shows the frequencies of

respondents choosing the always response.

2Only the "never" and "at least sometimes" columns of this table,

reading across, will total 100 percent, give or take the consequences of

rounding, because of cumulated responses.

The table suggests that there are roughly three classes of effects

according to the frequency of response: (1) commonly reported

effects (friendly, talkative, sleepy, and romantic), (2) less commonly reported effects (sick, irrational, tastes bad, aggressive, dizzy, and argumentative), and (3) uncommonly reported

effects (sad and mean).

The first group of effects, the commonly reported, seem rather

more posi ive, pleasant, and socially desirable than the others. It

would seem then that alcohol is widely thought to contribute the

beneficial side of loosening up, but as the psychotropic effects grow

'Notes appear at end of paper.

-255
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 241

darker and darker toward becoming sad or mean because of

drinking, say the proportion of the sample attributing this effect to alcohol drops off dramatically. All of the more or less

physiological-reaction items in this series (sick,tastes bad, dizzy)

fell into the less common group though, frankly, I was at first surprised a little at how frequent these reports were. It should be kept in mind that these frequencies report only that a respondent "ever" experienced a particular effect that report may concern in

the limiting case only a single event, or just enough such experience

to make the respondent feel shy about indicating such an effect

"never" happened to him.

The importance of this point is brought home by looking at the

likelihood that respondents said they experienced a particular effect more than sometimes, that is to say, the proportion checking

the usually or always responses. When we look at this at least usually distribution (usually and alwaysresponses combined) we can see that the reported rates of positive responses are considerably lower than the at least sometimes rates. Among the most frequently reported effects (friendly, talkative, sleepy, romantic) an average of only 35 percent reported each effect at least

usually (down from an average of 77 percent who reported these

effects at least sometimes). In the less common group (sick, irrational, tastes bad, aggressive, dizzy, argumentative) an average of only 6 percent reported each effect at least usually. And finally

in the uncommon group (sad and mean), an average of only 2 percent reported these effects at least usually.

It is also striking he..4., infrequently respondents employed the always response. Even for effects that roughly three-quarters of

the sample reported experiencing at least sometimes, only 10

percent or fewer reported experiencing that effect every time they drank. In this observation would seem a nice demonstration that

alcohol is not linked to its various effects in lockstep fashion in

popular opinion but is instead regarded very much as a matter of

the particularities of the drinking event. That most of us might

agree that alcohol may help us to feel friendly does not, then, imply

about common opinion that alcohol always or even usually will have

this effect. In the case of the more negative consequences of drinking (say, becoming aggressive, argumentative, or mean), the proportion indicating the always response drops to almost vanishing smallness. From this fact, too, we might draw the inference that

as the effect in question is more and more a disagreeable one, then

more and more the unleashing of that effect will be seen as pro- duced situationally2 rather than produced directly as a result of

alcohol's ingestion.

256
242 ROIZEN

Drinking Behavior, Age, and Experiencing

Alcohol's Effects

Buckley and Milkes (1978) looked at the bivariate relationships

between these same effects reports and a number of demographic

and behavioral variables. I shall draw attention to two demographic variables: actual drinking behavior and age.

Drinking Behavior. Table 2 shows the relationship between the

effects responses and the quantities of alcohol respondents reported

drinking: The hi-max column shows the effects responses of

respondents who occasionally drink as many as five drinks or more

per sitting; the low-max column refers to drinkers who drink four

drinks or fewer. This table is notable on a couple of accounts. First

of all, notice that in general hi -mix drinkers are more likely,

rather than less likely, to report some of the negative bodily alcohol

effects that, according to Robins' original suggestion, might protect

lighter drinkers from greater consumption. Thus, though negative

Table 2. Frequencies of Positive Reports of Effects

by Quantity of Consumption

(Base: 605 Current Drinkers

who responded to at least one of the effects questions)

Effect

Frequencies of Reported Effects'

"Low- "HighMaximum"2 Maximum"2

Drinkers Drinkers

(N=273) (332)

Percent

Friendly 65 91

Talkative 61 94

Sleepy 69 89

Romantic 54 84

Sick 40 61

Irrational 31 62

Aggressive 21 51

Dizzy 29 38

Argumentative 17 47

Sad 10 25

Mean 6 23

Tastes had 45 43

'At the at least sometimes level.

'Respondent reports never drinking as many as five drinks at a

sitting.

'Respondent reports drinking five or more drinks per sitting at least

sometimes.

257
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 243

bodily effects may afford some drinkers protection from heavier

alcohol consumption, in general reports of these sorts of effects are

the province of heavier drinkers, very likely those who drink

enough actually to experierce them now and then.3

Age. Age (table 3) was also fairly strongly associated with these

effects reports, with younger respondents reporting such effects

much more frequently than older respondents. As it happens,

though, younger age also is associated with heavier drinking, and so

we might suspect that this relationship between age and effects is

merely another manifestation of the relationship between quantity

of drinking and effects. On checking, age and quantity of drinking

did show independent influences on these alcohol effects reports:

Controlling for quantity of drinking, younger respondent, reported

more effects than older respondents did; and controlling for age,

heavier drinking respondents reported more effects than lighter

drinking ones.

And because both variables made independent contributions to

the alcohol effects reports, their combined effect is greater than the

independent contributions of either. In table 4, I have shown the

spread of response distributions across the outer borders of the

age-consumption variables. As you can see, except for the response

Table 3. Frequencies of Effects! by Age Groups

(Base: 605 Current Drinkers

who responded to at least one of the effects questions)

Effect

Age Groups

Youngest,

25-34

(N=250)

Young- OlderMiddle, Middle,

35-44 45-54

(156) (142)

Older,

554

(57)

Percent

Friendly 86 78 73 63

Talkative 85 79 76 58

Sleepy 88 8() 75 58

Romantic 80 72 60 49

Sick 73 46 42 44

Irrational 57 43 44 36

Aggressive 42 40 31 28

Dizzy 36 31 35 26

Argumentative 40 27 30 35

Sad 24 13 16 12

Mean 19 11 16 11

Tastes bad 46 42 41 40

'At the at least sometimes level,

25
244 ROIZEN

that alcohol often tastes bad, age and consumption conspire to

produce a good deal of the variation in effects responses.

The Concentration of Effects

Table 5 shows the distribution of the total number of effects

reported at least sometimes by currently drinking respondents

(N=605). It is a very flat distribution, with only a modest peak value

at 6, and a standard deviation of about 3 points. Thus, one falls

within the two-thirds of the sample closest to the mean by himself

scoring between 3 and 9 points inclusively. It would seem that

Table 4. Frequencies of Effects1 by Quantity of

Consumption by Age Groups

(Base: 605 Current Drinkers

who responded to at least one of the effects questions)

Age/Consumption Subgroups2

Effect

Youngest

25-34

YoungMiddle

35.44

OlderMiddle

45-54

Older

55+

Lo- HiMax MaxLo- HiMax MaxLo- HiMax MaxLo- HiMax Max

(88) (162) (67) (89) (81) (61) (37) (20)3

Percent

Friendly 74 93 63 90 58 93 60 70

Talkative 67 95 57 96 63 93 49 75

Sleepy 80 92 73 84 67 87 43 85

Romantic 66 87 57 84 44 80 38 70

Sick 53 68 37 52 30 57 38 55

Irrational 44 64 22 58 26 67 27 55

Aggressive 21 54 28 48 19 48 16 50

Dizzy 37 38 24 33 27 48 12 30

Argumentative 21 50 12 38 15 49 22 60

Sad 13 30 6 18 10 25 11 15

Mean 8 25 3 17 9 25 3 25

Tastes bad 52 43 46 39 36 48 43 35

'Reported at the at least sometimes level.

2"Lo-Max" refers to respondents reporting they never drink al! many

as five drinks at a sitting. "Ili-Max" respondents dri 1k five or more

drinks per sitting at least sometimes.

'Note that the N is small here, and. therefore, `> rates should be

interpreted with caution.

25i
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 245

notions of alcohol's effects are very little subject to a central

tendency or peaked around a particular sum-of-effects consensus

among U.S. males.

We can take an interesting look at the total number of effects

scores in table 6. Here 1 have shown the patterns of response to the

12 effects items for three subgroups: those with low sum scores on

the effects (total scores of 0-4), those with medium sum scores

(5-7), and those with high scores (8-12). The results suggest something of a tiered or Guttman-like relationship among the alcohol

effects: Low-scoring respondents, for example, hardly ever

reported sadness, aggressiveness, dizziness, argumentativeness, or

meanness as a result of drinking, preferring instead to report the

more favorable effects of sleepiness, talkativeness, and friendliness. Among medium scoring respondents, these three favorable

effects become nearly universal while sadness and meanness were

reported by only very small fractions. Only among high scoring

respondents did reports of the more negative effects become more

common, though still far from universal.

Table 5. Distribution of Total Scores on Effectsl

(Base: 605 Current Drinkers

who responded to at least one of the effects questions)

Total Proportion of

Score the Sample

(Percent)

Low Scorers

0 5

1 5

2 5

3 8

4 9

Medium Scorers

5 12

6 13

7 13

High Scorers

8 9

9 8

10 5

11 6

12 3

Total 101

At the at least sometimes level.

260
246 ROIZEN

Looking for Structure

Table 7 reports the zero-order product-moment correlations of

the twelve effects items. As one can see, the correlations are all

positive, ranging from a low of .103 (for the tastes bad-talkative pair) to highs in the 500s (friendly-talkative, .588; meanargumentative, .537; friendly-romantic, .535; and

argumentative-aggressive, .516).

It is noteworthy that even among seemingly opposing mood

effects the best example of which being the friendly-mean pair

correlations nevertheless do not become negative. This finding

seems to give the lie to the old notion that some of us get mean when

we get drunk, and others get happy, and one is either one sort of

drunk or the other. Based on these correlation statistics, itseems a

"happy" drunk is at least as likely as an "unhappy" one also to be a

mean drunk now and then (though, in fact,'we will have to revise

this assertion a bit in a moment).

Factor analysis provides a convenient way to summarize a

matrix of correlation statistics. Table 8 reports the varimax factor

pattern. Notice that if we assign each variable to the factor on

which it got the highest loading (boldface numbers), then three neat

factors of four variables apiece are produced: The first factor collects together a set of more pleasant and perhaps more socially

desirable effects (friendly, talkative, and romantic) along with

sleepy; the second factor is comprised of the darker mood effects

(mean, argumentative, aggressive, and sad); and finally the

third factor is comprised of negative bodily effects (dizzy, sick,

irrational, and tastes bad).

Perhaps the clearest sense of the relation between the first two

mood factors can be gotten by examining table 9, which presents a

cross tabulation of two variables called gregariousness and nastiness. To explain, these are summary variables each constructed

from three effects items as follows: Any respondent who checked

that he ever felt friendly, talkative, or romantic was scored positive on gregariousness; any respondent who checked that he ever

felt mean, aggressive, or argumentative was scored positive on

nastiness, I have corner-percentaged the cross-tabulation.

Table 9 shows an intriguing pattern: We see that the great majority of drinkers (87 percent) reported at least one or more of the more

gregarious effects of alcohol. On the other hand, by comparison

only 47 percent reported at least one of the nasty effects, as we have

termed them. Another 12 percent reported none of these effects at

261
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 247

Table 6. Frequencies of Positive Reports of Effects

Among Low, Medium, and High Total-Scorers on

Effects Overall

(Base: 605 Current Drinkers

who responded to at least one of the effects questions)

Frequencies of Reported Effects'

Effect

Low

Overall

Scorers

(0.4)

(11=194)

Medium

Overall

Scorers

(5.7)

(228)

High

Overall

Scorers

(8.12)

(183)

Percent

Friendly 45 92 99

Talkative 45 92 98

Sleepy 49 91 98

Romantic 31 83 96

Sick 18 53 86

Irrational 9 47 91

Aggressive 5 34 77

Dizzy 6 28 71

Argumentative 2 26 77

Sad 0 11 46

Mean 0 7 42

Tastes bad 19 41 73

'At the at least sometimes level.

Table 7. Zero-order Correlations for the Twelve

Effects Among Current Drinkers (N=605)

(Collapsed to Dichotomous Form, "At Least Sometimes" and "Never") ...111II

Effect 1 2 3 5 6 7 9 10 11

1. Sleepy

2, Talkative 415

3. Sad 205 192

4. Aggressive 229 319 226

5. Romantic 403 460 194 372

6. Sick 280 243 242 214 201

7. Friendly 378 588 190 300 L.35 215

8. Dizzy 228 215 235 131 166 390 222

9. Irrational 304 306 274 334 332 380 344 368

10. Argumentative 226 325 382 516 280 254 289 226 406

11. Tastes bad 191 103 192 185 170 243 157 291 234 154

12. Mean 155 174 409 402 155 217 150 214 254 537 149

262
248 ROIZEN

all. But nasty and gregarious effects, far from being substitutes

for each other, appear to be associated in a necessary-condition

logical relation: Only respondents positive on gregariousness also

reported being positive on nastiness, too. And if one reports himself

negative on gregariousness, then most probably he will report

negatively on nastiness, too. Nasty respondents, then, are almost

always gregarious, whereas gregarious respondents may or may

not report being nasty.

In order to take a closer look at the pattern of relations among the

more favorable and the less favorable effects, I "took apart" the

Table 8. Varimax Factor Pattern Among 12 Effects

(Collapsed to Dichotomies, N=605)

Effect

Factor

I

Factor

II

Factor

III

1. Friendly 803 114 122

2. Talkative 778 160 094

3. Sleepy 606 057 305

4. Romantic 761 168 080

5. Sick 172 159 683

6. Irrational 350 326 497

7. Aggressive 366 653 008

8. Dizzy 110 098 761

9. Argumentative 240 792 123

10. Sad 050 576 311

11. Mean -005 818 139

12. Tastes bad 060 080 624

Proportion of Total Communality Accounted for by Factor:

.213 .189 .161

Initial Criterion = 11.541

Table 9. Gregariousness by Nastiness

(Among Current Drinkers, who responded to at least one

of the effects questions; Corner Percentaging)

Gregariousness

Positive

Negative

Totals

Nastiness

Positive Negative Totals

Percent

47 40 87

12 12

47 52 99

(N=605)

*Less than one-half percent.

26,3
GENERAL POPULATION VIEWS 249

gregarious variable, dividing it again into its three constituent

parts, friendly, talkative, and romantic. The nastiness variable

was left intact, because of its lower frequency in the population. So,

let us now consider the interrelations of four variables: friendly,

talkative, romantic, and nasty. There are 16 possible combinations of these variables, running from eases who reported positively

on all four to cases who reported negatively on all four. Because we

know the frequency of occurrence of each of these effects in our

sample, it is an easy matter to compute the probability of occurrence of each of the combinations of effects: Each combination's

probability of occurrence is simply the product of the individual

probabilities of the effects that make it up. It is also an easy matter

to compare these expected probabilities with the actual proportions

of respondents found in each combinatorial group. This comparison

is presented in table 10.

Let us take a look at it. According to the marginal frequencies for

these four variables (and assuming no systematic relationship

among the effects variables) we ought to expect the most frequent

pattern to be Fr, T, R, -N (which is to say, positive on friendly,

talkative, and romantic, and negative on nasty). Next most frequent should be Fr, T, R, N (or positive on all four effects).

Table 10. Expected Probabilities and Observed

Frequencies of Combinations of Four

Mood Effects - Friendly, Talkative,

Romantic, and Nasty

(Current Drinkers. Nr-605)

Mood Effects

Expected

Frequency

Observed

Frequency Ratio 0/E

1. Fr. Tk. Em, -Na' .230 .215 .9:3

2. Fr, Tk, Rm. Na .207 .393 1.90

:3. Fr. Tk, -Rm. -Na .098 .074 .76

4. Fr. Tk. -Rm. Na .088 .038 .43

5. Fr, -Tk. Rm. -Na .062 .036 .58

ti. Fr, -Tk, Rm, Na .056 .010 .18

7. Fr. -Tk. -Rm, -Na .026 .018 .69

8. Fr, -Tk, -Rm. Na .024 .005 .21

9. -Fr, Tk. Rm, -Na MO .120 .33

10. -Fr, Tk. Rm. Na .055 .012 .22

11. -Fr. Tk, -Rm, -Na .026 .026 1.00

12. -Fr, Tk, -Rm. Na .023 .010 .4:3

1:3. -Fr. -Tk, Rm. -Na .016 .015 .94

14. -Fr, -Tk, Rm. Na .U15 .002 .13

15. -Fr, -Tk, -Rm. -Na .007 .122 17.43

16. -Fr, -Th. -Rm. Na .006 .003 .50

lFr=friendly, Tk=talkative. Rm,-romantic. Na=nasty

264
250 ROIZEN

Together, both these patterns should account for 44 percent of the

sample. As you can see, though, the actual proportion of the sample

falling in the second pattern Fr, T, R, N is much higher than

the expected frequency. As a result, roughly 60 percent of the

sample distributes itself into the first two groups: 21.5 percent

experience all positive effects but not nasty and 39.3 percent expe- rience all four effects.

Glancing down the "observed" column, the next most frequent

category of response is no effects (-Fr, -T, -R, -N). This concentration of respondents is all the more surprising because, on purely

statistical grounds, we ought to expect less than 1 percent of the

sample to be found in this group.'

The remaining thirteen combinations of effects accounted for

only 27 percent of the sample. This pattern of natural clumping

among the response possibilities, then, led me to construct a typology in which the following four groups were separated out.

A Typology of Effects Reported

Percent

Allers Respondents reporting positive- 39

ly on all four effects

Never Nasties Respondents reporting one or 40

more favorable effects but not

nasty

Sometimes Nasties Respondents reporting positive- 8

ly on nasty, without being

alters.

Noners Respondents reporting nega- 12

tively on all four effects

This typology has the advantage of reflecting the fact that

respondents who reported being nasty almost invariably reported

such effects "after" having reported some, and often all, of the

positive effects friendly, romantic, and talkative. What then is

associated with membership in one or another of these typology

categories?

Typology of Effects

In table 11, I have collected together three sorts of measures:

consumption patterns, measures of dryness-wetness of the

drinker's environment and attitudes, and measures of the respondent's tolerance of deviance. Even a quick look at this collection

suggests that Alters drink the most, come from the wettest environ-
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 251

Table 11. Typology of Effects by Several Variables

Percentage

-Point

DifferSome- ence:

times Never AllersAllers Nasties Nasties Noners Noners

(238) (48) (245) (74)

Consumption Patterns Percent

Percent Never "High or Tight" in Past Year 11 27 39 92 -81

Percent High Maxium Quantity (5+

drinks, ever) 77 63 47 6 71

Tangible Consequences (High) 31 35 10 0 31

Social Consequences (High) 23 29 7 0 23

Dry-Wet Environment/ Attitudes

Drinking Norms Percent in

"Dryest" Quartile) 13 17 21 53 40 Drinker Self-Description (Percent Nondrinker or Very Light Drinker) 30 43 46 78 48

Tolerance of Deviance

(Percent regarding each of the

following as "very bad") If a man gets drunk every week

or so 48 81 63 89 -41 If a family man goes out drinking with his men friends a couple of

times a week 23 26 32 58 -35

A man who drives his car home

after he's had six beers 20 28 37 53 -33 If a man drinks a lot 44 60 58 75 -31 If a man fools around with other

women after he's married 54 78 61 80 -26 A person getting into fights 44 63 57 64 -20 If a man risks his neck at a

dangerous sport 21 38 29 41 -20 Driving over the speed limit 21 36 25 40 -19 If a person gets insulting and

sarcastic when he's been

drinking 61 79 72 78 -17 A man having sex relations with

several women when he is single 99 17 14 24 -15 If a person often misses work on Monday because of a hangover 68 77 70 82 14 If a man spends money buying drinks rather than things the

family could use 86 89 89 92 -6 If a person doesn't work steadily when he could 53 66 54 60 -4

266
252 ROIZEN

ments, and are in general most tolerant of deviance. Noners, on the

other hand, drink the least, show the driest of attitudes and environment, and are the least tolerant of deviance.

Let me draw attention to illustrative findings: Notice, first, that

92 percent of the Noners reported "never" getting "h igh or tight" in

the past year; only 11 percent of the Allers made the same report. Noners appear to be free of drinking-related problems as these are

measured by our "tangible consequences" and "social consequen- ces" scales, whereas the rates of such problems among Allers (and Sometimes Nasties) are relatively high. More than half of Noners

fell into the driest quartile of the drinker subsample in terms of reported drinking norms, whereas among Allers only 13 percent fell into that quartile. Measures of tolerance of deviance consistently show Allers more tolerant than Noners though in varying degrees depending on the behavior. Notice, though, that both

groups seem equally to ill-regard defaults in family responsibilities because of drinking and failure to work steadily, whether or not drinking is involved.

Conclusion

What, then, might we conclude from all this? Let me first of all

review the central findings.

1. Positive and sociable effects are more commonly reported

than negative or antisocial effects.

2. By and large, reports of effects are a "sometimes" thing. Respondents avoid the "always" response, and the largest proportion of responders falls into the lowest or "sometimes" response. 3. Being young and being a high quantity drinker go along with higher levels of reported effects. Youth also is associated with

higher consumption, but the two variables have independent asso- ciations with effects reports and do not explain each other away. 4. The total number of effects reported is a variable that pro- duces a very flat distribution; there is not a great deal of central

tendency or consensus on this dimension.

5. Effects range from being mildly-positively to strongly- positively correlated with each other and are not alternatives or

substitutes for one another.

6, The "gregarious" and "nasty" effects of alcohol form a

Guttman-like pattern of association; Some respondents reported

neither "gregariousness" nor "nastiness"; some reported "gregariousness" but not "nastiness"; and, lastly, some respondents

reported both. But one does not find respondents who reported

"nastiness" but not "gregariousness."

267
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 253

7. This pattern of association suggested a typology of effects that

separated out Noners, NeveNasties, Allers, and Sometimes Nasties. By and large, we saw that Noners restrict their own

drinking to light consumption and also evidence attitudes and

norms much dryer than the other groups.

On the whole the findings of this analysis may seem more or less

unexceptional. I think it was Lazarsfeld who once observed that

survey research findings have a way of seeming commonplace once

they have been reported. Perhaps we have a duty, then, to try to

keep a sense of mystery alive about these findings, to try to see them

not as commonplace but as extraordinary and as rich in explanatory possibilities. Stepping back from the seven points that summarize our findings, what do we see?

It seems, first of all, that survey research data provide an interesting vantagepoint for the study of alcohol's effects, one generating

data and impressions rather different from those of pharmacology

or anthropology. We saw first that there may be an important

distinction to be drawn between what respondents see as alcohol's

effects in general and alcohol's effects on oneself. Moreover these

two sets of beliefs may actually have a sort of inverse relationship

with each other. Respondents who harbor the most negative general attitudes toward alcohol seem also to limit their drinking to

such an extent that they experience few or none of alcohol's moodaltering effects, or at the most only alcohol's pleasant and more

sociable effects. Thus, it may well be that those with the strongest

commitment to the notion that alcohol can cause havoc with one's

moods are themselves those with the least actual experience or

inclination to experience those effects.

These data alert us, I think, to the reflexive quality of human

behavior that is so often missed in quantitative social science

research. In the laboratory, alcohol's effects are studied by administering varying doses of alcohol to experimental subjects. But in the

world outside the laboratory door it seems that the amount of

alcohol consumed may be precisely the "variable" the drinker controls for himself. Wary attitudes toward alcohol seem to go together

with more restrictive consumption practices. On the other hand,

those who view alcohol as generally more benign tend not to restrict

consumption so much, and in the end expose themselves to more

varied psychotropic effects.

Perhaps we can also detect beneath these findings the dim structures of two quite different cultural logics for the control of drinking behavior. The first, call it a "dry logic," invests alcohol with

powerful and dangerous effects and directs its control efforts,

26 is.;
254 ROIZEN

therefore, at the actual drinking practices of the population; the

second logic, a "wetter" one, invests alcohol with milder powers.

Here, drinkers now and then seem to encounter alcohol's untoward

effects, but only infrequently. More often alcohol's more positive

effects prevail, and, more importantly, responsibility for behavior

while under alcohol's influence may stay with the drinker in this

system.

Whatever else these data suggest, they certainly call for a good

deal of caution in the way we speak about U.S. beliefs about alcohol's psychotropic powers. Beyond the fact that our beliefs about

alcohol's effects on ourselves may be different from our beliefs

about its effects on others, we have also seen that alcohol's effects

are regarded as "sometimes" things by the great majority of

respondents. Even those beliefs researchers may feel comfortable

attributing to their subjects do not imply for the subject, at least

that alcohol is always expected to behave that way. We have seen

a good deal of diversity in reports of alcohol's effects, too. This

suggests to me that experimental researchers may want in the

future to inventory the specific beliefs and experiences of their

experimental subjects. In other words, that one is a member of

American culture does not determine precisely the set of beliefs or

experiences one may have in relation to alcohol. Anthropologists

might take note of this fact, too, for it suggests that in the United

States, at least, though there is a general pattern to our results, one

cannot describe this culture in terms of a fixed and uniform set of

beliefs. Nevertheless, reports on alcohol's effects are associated

with the respondents' attitudes on alcohol and actual drinking

practices. Certainly these various strands suggest the merit in

building into upcoming survey research studies a more careful look

at alcohol's mood-altering effects.

Notes

'A little more description of the subsample upon which this analysis was conducted is necessary. All respondents (that is to say. both drinkers and nondrinkers)

wi.re asked this series of questions about alcohol's effects, on the theory that even

lifelong abstainers may have had enough experience with alcohol to provide meaningful answers. Thus, the analyds was begun on the full N4 sample. the N equalling

723 case'. As it happened. though, this full-sample group yielded quite high nonresponse rates to the effects questions. A closer look at the data revealed that among the

723 respondents some .13 (6 percent of the sample) had skipped the entire series of

questions. Moreover. 39 of these 43 skippers turned out to be abstainers. For this

reason, 1 decided to exclude abstainers front the analysis. There were 111 nondrinkers i sample, plus another five cases whose drinking practices were

unknown. ''he 0 two subgroups excluded. 609 eases remained. Within this trrou p (as

269
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 255

I mentioned), four currently drinking respondents skipped the series. They were

excluded as well, leaving 605 "current drinkers who did not skip this series of

questions" for this analysis.

Another analytical decision remained, however: Among the 605 respondents

remaining in the analysis group. 572 (about 95 percent of the 605) answered every

one of the effects questions: the remaining 33 respondents left at least one (but not all)

of the individual items blank. In order to retain these 33 eases for the analysis. I

equated a skipped-over item as equivalent to a "never" response. Thus, if a respondent answered any of the effects items but left one or more items blank, the blanks

were converted to "never" responses.

4I mean to include in the notion of "situation" such things as the quantity of alcohol

consumed, the nature of the drinking occasion, the time of day, day of the week,

co-present parties, and so on. The concept, then, should not be restricted to, say, the

presence or absence of a provocative event as this text may tend otherwise to

suggest.

'Then again, it could be argued that the essence of Robins' suggestion is that some

drinkers always or at least nearly always experience unpleasant bodily effects when

they drink thus avoiding drinking because it never brings favorable effects.

Perhaps a truer test of Robins' suggestion, then, is to examine the subgroup of

respondents who did report that they always or usually experienced these unpleasant effects, looking to see whether nondrinkers or very light drinkers might be

overrepresented therein. As it turned out, examined in this way, Robins' hypothesis

did gather some support.

Abstainers and "infrequent" drinkers (drinks less frequently than once a month)

constituted 23 percent of those respondents answering the series of effects questions.

Table A, below, shows the proportions of abstainers/infrequent drinkers found

among those reporting each unpleasant effect always and at least usually.

We can see in the table that abstainers and infrequent drinkers are indeed

overrepresented among respondents reporting alcohol regularly makes them sick,

dizzy, irrational, and "tastes bad," although this group seems relatively underreTable A. The frequency of abstainers and infrequent drinkers

among respondents who reported a given effect "always" or "at

least usually"

Respondents

Reporting:

The Proportion of

Abstainers and Infrequent

Drinkers Found Among Them:

(Percent)

sleepy "always" (base=49)

sick "always" (24)

dizzy "always" (8)

sad "always" (4)

irrational "always" (20)

tastes bad "always" (32)

sleepy "at least usually" (192)

sick "at least usually" (53)

dizzy "at least usually" (30)

sad "at least usually" (10)

irrational "at least usually" (58)

tastes bad "at least usually" (77)

14

58

88

0

45

72

15

43

47

10

31

270
256 ROIZEN

presented among respondents reporting alcohol regularly makes them sleepy or sad. Thus, it seems that among respondents who report that alcohol regularly makes

them sick, dizzy, or irrational, or among respondents for whom alcohol regularly

tastes bad, these effects may indeed act to deter drinking among a proportion. Based

on these data, though, it seems that alcohol's powers regularly to make one sleepy or sad do not suggest the same consequence on drinking behavior.

'Taken together, respondents reporting all four of the effects variables (call them

oilers) and respondents reporting none of the effects (call them noners) should have accounted for 21.4 percent of the sample but, in fact, these two categories accounted for 51.5 percent of the sample, almost two-and-a-halftimes the expected

rate. Interpreted substantively, this finding suggests that there are indeed fairly

strong associations among the various effects. One member of the conference

audience suggested to me at a coffeebreak that perhaps these unexpected concentrations of allers and noners simply were the result of a "response set" in other

words, perhaps many respondents more or less ignored the series of questions, answering them with a single stroke of the pencil, so to speak.

In the case of allers we can check for the presence of a response set in two ways: First, remember that one was regarded as positive on each of the effects by checking any one of three responses (sometimes, usually, or always). Thus, if in fact a

response set were at work in these data, then we ought to find thatmany of the allers will have reported exactly the same responses to all six of the items incorporated in

the typology. On examination, though, it turned out that among the 238 allers only

12 (or 5 percent) responded thus.

Second, remember too, that the six items making up this analysis were drawn

from a series of 12 items. Thus, it is possible also to see how many respondents who

were positive on the four variables making up the scale (these variables, in turn, made up of six items) in fact gave exactly the same responses to all 12 items in the

series. Answer: only three cases (or 1.3 percent of the alters). For the alters group as a whole, then, it seems that it was not a response set that produced their disproportionately great representation in the sample.

A bit more troublesome is the response set question when we turn our attentions to

the noners. First of all, reporting the absence of an effect involved only one answer

category, "never." Therefore, we know that noners employed the never response

the same response for all six items used in the typology. We can, however, look at

noners' responses to the six items not in the typology. But in order to do that, it is necessary first that we reconsider the way missing data were handled in this

analysis (see note 1, above).

Respondents with missing data on one or more, but not all, of the effects items had

their responses recoded to "never" responses, on the theory that passing over a given

item was equivalent to saying one never had this particular response. For a part of

the noners group, then, it is possible that an apparent response set was created by

the way the data were recoded. In all, 33 (or 5 percent of the 605 cases used in this

analysis) reported some missing data on the effects series. A total of 74 respondents

(or 12 percent) were classified as noners. Of this subgroup, ten respondents (13.5 percent of the noners) reported missing data on one or more of the items in the full

effects series (that is. over all twelve of the items). Thus, at least 64 respondents (86 percent of noners) did not become noners by virtue of any missing data.

Leaving aside the ten cases of respondents with missing data, it is interesting to

look at the responses to the six effects items not in the typology among the 64 noners with no missing data. Here, 29 respondents (39 percent of noners) answered "never"

to the six items not used in the typology. meaning that they gave the" never" response

to all twelve items. The remaining 35 cases gave at least a sometimes response to one of the six items not used in the typology.

271
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 257

Perhaps these results are not too disheartening. The friendly, talkative, and

romantic items employed in the typology were the effects most commonly reported

in our sample, and therefore it is not altogether surprising that a respondent who

reported "never" to these effects would go on to report "never" to the less frequently

reported effects in the series, It can also be argued that the 35 respondents for whom

the response set hypothesis can be safely rejected constitute 5.8 percent of the full

sample of 605 cases this is by itself more than eight times the expected proportion

of the sample to fall in this noners category. Finally, there is no way to know with

certainty that those who reported all 12 effects with the "never" response were not,

after all, telling us how it is with them. (I'm grateful to the gentleman in the audience

for suggesting that the response set hypothesis should be examined.)

References

Buckley, S., and Milkes, J, Contingencies of Perceived Effects of Drinking in a

National Sample of Men. Working Paper F77. Berkeley: University of California, Social Research Group, February, 1978.

Cahalan, D. Problem Dinkers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1970.

Haggard, H.W., and Jellinek, E.M. Alcohol Explored. Garden City, NY: Doubleday,

1942.

Riley, J.W.. Jr., and Marden. C.F. The motivational patterns of drinking, Quarterly

Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 9: 353.362, 1948.

48'
Presenter's Comments

ROIZEN: I had a sense yesterday that there was a set of issues

larger than we can possibly get our minds around being discussed,

and we were seeing little chunks being dropped as we went along, in

hope that a larger mind than mine, anyway, would be able to hold it

together and make sense of it all. This presentation today concerns

another piece of the elephant, which is what we can see from

survey-research data on effects of alcohol. And I'm frankly not sure

whether the survey research piece of the elephant is merely notable

or instructive, or whether it actually has some significant lessons to

tell us.

Survey research is a crude instrument. One of the things that

happens when you go out and merely ask people what effect alcohol

has on them which is pretty much exactly what we asked them

is you don't know whether it's belief or biology that's doing the

work; you don't know whether it's their belief in the psychotropic

effects or whether it's the psychotropic effects themselves being

reported.

It's also true that any science throws away a great deal of information. And survey research seems to throw away all sorts of

interesting bits of information about people's lives. It seems to have

a kind of stigmatized status, and it's probably well-deserved, since

somehow one's age and sex and various things that go along with the

survey researcher's kit of questions don't seem to be the most interesting things to learn about somebody.

Another dilemma of survey research is that, although it's fascinating before you see it, after you've seen the findings, they frequently seem very unexceptional; they always seem to be the way

you would have expected them to come out anyway. It's a curious

thing when you're doing this kind of research; you have to keep in

mind that it might have come out another way, and if you made a

note of your expectations before you actually looked at the data, it

does indeed come out differently from your expectations. So it's a

good idea to keep alive a sense of surprise when looking at survey

data.

To reflect on my paper a bit, you can see from table 1 that the

25

273
GENERAL- POPULATION VI [.WS 259

"friendly, talkative, sleepy, romantic" positive mood-altering

effects are the most commonly reported. And as you get to the more

unpleasant effects the bodily effects items in the middle, and

then "sad" and "mean" at the bottom the response frequency

drops off quite dramatically.

To follow my own prescription, I'll try to make this not quite as

unexceptional as it may seem. You can look at that and say, "Well,

alcohol's not really that bad a thing. After all, people's responses are

pretty much in the positive end of the psychotropic effects, and the

ones that create all the social concern are experienced by a quite

small group of the population, perhaps even a group that could be

isolated and persuaded that drinking is not such a hot idea, or

perhaps a group that already is not drinking very much." One

certainly gets a sense that when one is reporting on one's own

drinking behavior, the darker side of alcohol is much less frequently mentioned than the positive side.

We looked at a lot of demographic tables, and I was struck

yesterday with how many people had mentioned that they thought

maybe race or maybe social class or maybe a region of the country

or you name it might have an effect on these. perceptions of effects,

and actually, many such variables had milder effects in this kind of

reporting than we had expected. Age does have quite a substantial

impact, with young people much more frequently reporting these

effects over older people, but many demographic variables had only

mild impact (Buckley and Milkes 1978).

As mentioned in my paper, I made a four-way typology among

the "Noners," the "Allers," the "Never Nasties" and "others." Actually, it emerged that it was the "Noners" who had the lowest drinking practices, who came from the driest environment, and who had

the most strongly negative attitudes towards drinking behavior.

So, in a sense, one's global attitude toward alcohol seemed the

opposite of one's personal experience with alcohol; one's personal

experience of minimal emotional effects with alcohol would seem to

go together with very light drinking. I won't make any guesses

about the possible time-order.

But the comment made by Alan Lang yesterday might deserve a

caution as a result of this finding. Try to imagine in what kind of

world these findings could fit together; namely, that the lightest

drinkers report the lightest experiences of the effects. Remember

that Robins in the very beginning expected exactly the opposite

relationship, that it would be the light drinkers who would report

the heavy negative effects from alcohol.

Maybe it's the case that there's a kind of exchange going on when

an A BSCAM Congressman stands up and says that he didn't mean

274
260 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

it, he was drinking. Maybe what's going on is a kind of validation of

the dry drinking norms of a large part of the community that will

both not drink very much (in order not to experience bad effects)

and believes at the same time that those effects are there; what the

exchange consists of is a validation of light drinking norms traded

for an arzeptable, honor-worthy account of the deviance that the

heavier drinker has presented. There may be two logics of the social

control of alcohol present at once, and they have the potential of an

exchange arising between the two.

Let me just close by saying how this relates to Lang's comment.

When we were doing our casualty study in 1977, as Robin mentioned, there was a great fight over the relationship between murder--as it happenedand drinking behavior. One camp thought that,

if we think that alcohol disinhibits and creates aggression, we can

say to the world, "Be careful around a drinking person" or "Be

careful in violent situations where there's a lot of alcohol. The

alcohol can create the violence." But, on the other hand, if we believe

that it's a cultural definition of alcohol that is actually doing the

work in the relationship between consumption and the outcome of

behavior, then the pronouncement from our study group did little

more than further bless with academic legitimacy the very thing

that was creating the relationship in the first place between the

drinking and the murderous outcome. So, there was a real

dilemma, Now, if you take the second position that we should say

there's the potential of a good deal of cultural contribution to this

the obvious solution might be, "Look, this is an ascription that

society chooses to make; it's not true in other cultures but it's true in

some." And that would seem to me the most obvious policy recommendation, as Alan Lang was suggesting.

Looking at this data suggests to me that there may be a disadvantage to that type of suggestion. And that is that if we were to

imagine that light drinking behavior goes along with a high belief

in these effects, then perhaps to remove the cultural belief in the

effects were it possible for us to do that, which I doubt on other

grounds might break down that dry logic and break apart the

cohesion of the world. We may be eroding a belief system that serves

to keep many light drinkers light drinkers.

These data are, I think, very suggestive. And I personally would

like to see how the historian, h a the anthropologist, how a person

who looks at experimental work responds to this what meaning

this kind of data has with respect to their territories. Thank you.

273
Commentary

Joy Leland

ROOM: Well, Ron is going to get his wish, at least from an

anthropologist. Joy Leland, who has worked a great deal in the field of American Indian drinking and has a strong quantitative bent along with her qualitative side, is going to comment.

LELAND: Well, first I'm going to mull over some of the findings Ron reported which interested me the most, and eventually I'll get.

around to some remarks about the potential role of general population studies in our efforts to understand disinhibition.

I am sure we were all struck by the fact he reported that more

people by far say that positive effects are experienced than negative

ones, from which he concluded that the majority of us do not per- ceive alcohol as a deadly substance for ourselves. The preponder- ance of reported positive effects over negative ones is even greater

among the respondents who report the highest frequency of effects,

the "Usually" and "Always" categories. Positive effects of alcohol

are not only reported by more people but are reported to occur more

frequently than the negative ones. And among the effects reported

to occur "Usually" the most frequent one is "friendly"; "mean" is

rarely reported at the "Usually" level, and even at the "Sometimes"

level, it is reported only by a few people. We were also probably

struck by the fact that the total number of effects reported by single

individuals seemed very low, and that the mix of effects is highly variable but distinctly patterned. Ron's data show that most people

report very few effects from 1 to 4 and these are preponder- ately positive. Fewer people report more effects from 5 to 7

and these, too, lean heavily towards the positive effects, with the

addition of a few negative ones. And there are very few people who

report many effects from 8 to 12 and these, again, include the positive core, with the addition of a fuller range of the negative

effects.

So, we are immediately struck by the discrepancy between the

rareness of the "mean-sad" reports and the frequency of such

behaviors in association with drinking in case reports and other

;?;1
262 LELAND: COMMENTARY

investigations, and in our own informal observation of ourselves

and our companions. More than anything else, these data seem to

add more evidence that self-reports tend to be tinted by the

respondents' rose-colored glasses. And the preponderance of

reported positive effects is all the more noteworthy since only four

of the twelve choices offered are interpreted by Roizen as being

positive: "friendly, romantic," with "talkative" and "sleepy" less

obviously so to me, but, anyway, relatively speaking, positive. The

basis for this positive/negative dichotomy and how items are classified therein is unspecified it may tell us more about Ron's values

than those which are out there in the heads of the populace but he

is, after all, a native, and his folk "taxonomy" probably does fit most

of ours. The negative effects are about evenly divided between a set

consisting of negative physical effects "sick, dizzy, tastes bad, and hard to think straight" and a second set which seems more

clearly related overall to our focus here on disinhibition: "aggres- sive, argumentative, mean," and, less obviously so: "sad,

depressed."

We immediately note that many possible positive effects have not

been included in the choices. Among bodily effects, for example, we

particularly note the absence of "warmth," which figures prominently in Sharon Wilsnack's (1974) inference that young female

social drinkers report alcohol makes them feel more womanly.

Other candidates might have been "tastes good, relaxes, alert,

strong." Other possible positive effects with less direct physical

manifestations include "kind, gentle, thoughtful, attractive, tolerant, amusing, expressive, articulate, less apprehensive, happy, lovable" and the remainder of Wilsnack's womanly set: "loving" not

necessarily the equivalent of Ron's "romantic" "open, affection- ate, feminine, sexy, and pretty."

This list underscores the desirability of investigating the alcohol

effects reported by females as well as males, as Ron acknowledged;

however, much as we might like to have had some information

about these and other additional possible positive effects, even if

only for males, their omission from the choices makes the prepon- derance of reports of positive effects only the more noteworthy. On

the other hand, this extension of the list obviously does not begin to

exhaust the possibilities either: we could expand the negative side

as well. And this rakes the question of what would be excluded

vhf,ri we talk about items which might fit under the general heading of disinhibited. particularly if we consider this across cultures:

and in light of that we begin to wonder whether such a broau and

amorphous concept can really hold much promise for illuminating

drinking behavior.

27'i
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 263

But before we leave the subject of the particular effects respondents were offered, it is interesting to relate each more closely to our

focus on disinhibition, The twelve items can be arranged according

to their apparent relationship to activity; that is, whether they

represent arousal or inhibition of activity, regardless of whether

negative or positive, in accordance with the biphasic model of

alcohol effects presented, I'll give you my own folk taxonomy.

Under "arousal," I have perhaps in ascending order of intensity

"friendly, talkative, romantic, argumentative, aggressive and

mean." Then, under the "inhibition" column: "sad - depressed, hard

to think straight, sleepy, dizzy, sick"; and I didn't know where to put

"tastes bad."

Ron's paper talks about a Guttman effect, but it doesn't quite

follow my folk "taxonomy" of what might represent a level of

arousal, Obviously, Ron didn't deliberately classify alcohol effects

on this activity dimension in his factor analysis; however, in his

factor analysis where he drops the negative bodily effects, he is, in

fact, restricting his consideration to the items which seem to represent arousal of activity. His "Gregarious" scale is based on

"friendly, romantic, talkative"; his "Nasty" scale on the "argumentative, aggressive" axis, which is exactly my arousal column.

As mentioned earlier, there was a striking progression of

reported effects from none through positive to positive plus a few

negative to positive plus many or all of the negative effects,

Drinkers become gregarious before they become nasty, they say.

Thus, Ron's progression from positive to negative could be viewed

alternatively as representing a progression through intensity of

arousal, From this point of view, we would like to know if this

progression continued through these two levels of activation to

increasing levels of inhibition as well. And from that point of view

we are sad that he dropped what I regard as the "inhibition" items

from that part of the analysis.

I was interested in Woods and Mansfield's warning that biphasic

action does not directly support the disinhibition hypothesis, and I

discussed the matter a little bit with Woods after his talk. Their

distinction between these terms, apparently, is based on that

between alcohol creating an effect versus alcohol releasing one

already lurking there. Yet this, too that it's arousal, not disinhibition really is an assumption. And according to the evidence

presented here so far, it remains an assumption; we haven't figured

out a way to test this, and really this is the heart of the matter if

we're going to stick to the concept of disinhibition. Ron's

intercorrelation paradoxes that people who are mean are just as

apt to be friendly certainly seem to support the arousal versus the

disinhibition interpretation.

27s
264 LELAND: COMMENTARY

The results of the analysis of the effects reported according to

drinking intensity verge on the banal. People who drink the least

experience the fewest effects, and hence given the reported

progression the fewest ill effects; people who drink the most

experience the most effects, and hence, the most ill effects. However, when attitudes toward drinking are added to drinking intensity, the findings become more interesting and seem to go beyond

platitudes. People who experience the fewest ill effects are those

who like and approve of alcohol the least. People who experience the

most ill effects like and approve of alcohol the most.

Ron's paradox is that negative effects are not an inhibitor to

drinking. One thing this brings to mind is the logical bind that

students of a "flushing response" got themselves into when they

made the opposite assumption: that negative effects would inhibit

drinking. They found that some populations they were dealing with Orientals which experienced the unpleasant flushing

effects of alcohol were those which experienced low rates of heavy

drinking and problems, from which they inferred that unpleasant

effects might be protective. However, they had to face the fact that

Indians, who are accepted to be closely related to Orientals, also

experienced the unpleasant flusning effects, but, far from being

repelled by alcohol as a result, are commonly thought to find it

uncommonly attractive. The strenuous rationalization gymnastics

that they went through did not successfully extricate them from

that dilemma.

Now, there are two ways of looking at the finding that negative effects do not inhibit drinking. First, the respondents may be irrational or at least masochistic. We considered that. possibility yesterday, and, certainly, we can't rule it out. And, in fact, lately we have

seen evidence reported that it may be the negative effects of alcohol

which are the reinforcing ones. I'm talking about Nancy Mello's

review in the 1980 Research Advances.

Alternatively, the respondents like the things they are familiar

with, whether these appear to be objectively pleasant or not. Now,

anthropology delights in supporting this proposition by documenting that substances regarded with disgust in one -ulture are prized

as delicacies in another. My own casual observations of children

suggest to me that kids must be introduced to the foods you want

them to eat before they are old enough to distinguish very well or at least before they're old enough to forcefully express their preferences. After that. it's too late, at least for a long while. Anything

unfamiliar is OUT.

So people's preferences for the things they know goes far beyond
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 265

psychoactive substances. It is, after all, the basis for ethnocentrism

in general and for racism in particular. A thing that is unfamiliar is

dangerous and distasteful. This human propensity has no doubt

been adaptive over the ages. Substances not already institutionalized into a culture's diet, for example, are likely to have been

excluded for a good reason, such as having taken off Great

Grandma. Probably it is indeed better to be safe than sorry by

avoiding the unfamiliar, or at least treating it with great caution.

There is more to lose by assuming something to be benign than by

assuming it to be dangerous.

On the other hand, we have now reached the point on this planet

where we may be reaping more disadvantages than advantages

from this formerly protective attitude as our recent experience

in Iran certainly seems to underscore. Nevertheless, it is probably

fair to assume that humans continue to find the familiar attractive

and the unfamiliar unattractive. From the perspective of human

preference for things familiar, Ron's finding that people who are

most familiar with alcohol like it the best regardless of any negative

effects, while those who are least familiar with it, including its

negative effects, like it least no longer strikes us as particularly

paradoxical. Note also that human preference for things familiar

could be interpreted as support for a very mechanistic view of

addiction: if you swallow enough alcohol, you will want to swallow

more regardless of any ill effects.

I agree with Ron's suggestion that students of alcohol should

specify whose drinking is in question when opinions and behaviors

are solicited and summarized. And with exactly that problem in

mind, I've just finished a set of 170 two-hour interviews with female

Indian respondents which included , drallel sets of questions about

alcohol behavior, beliefs, and coping for three different persons:

first of all, she goes through the whole set for herself, then for her

spouse or other male significant other friend, brother, father

and then again for one other person whose drinking has caused her

the most trouble over the years. Most of this last category turned out

to be males, but some turned out to be females: mothers, sisters,

friends. Although the formal analysis is not completed, eyeballing

suggests that respondents hold norms and attitudes for their own

drinking that are very different from the norms and attitudes they

hold for the drinking of others, in terms of viewing effects as

positive versus negative, relative permissiveness of standards, etc.

although in the case of these females, they seem to be much more

strict with themselves than they are with their male significant

others. So, I have a feeling that out of that is going to come something that will be of interest in terms of your observations that

2 s 0
266 LELAND: COMMENTARY

reporting for yourself is qui,:e a different matter from reporting for

other people. We'll have the same people reportingon all three, and

it should be fun to see what comes out of it.

In line with this, there's a growing effortamong many anthropol- ogists to go beyond reporting global norms synthesized by the

all-seeing God-like anthropologist, without indicating as a basis for

these generalizations the range of variability or its distribution

across subgroups of the population. Despite any fragile or missing

statistical foundation, I think anthropological approaches have

been very successful at unearthing dimensions and relationships

and providing the important perspective of context, including per- sonal interaction, and generally putting meat on the bones of pictures of societies. Most importantly, anthropology is good at

discovering what to look for. It probably is most useful, in my view,

as pilot work to shape more intensive subsequent studies to establish relative prevalences by means of general population surveys.

And this leads me back to the general population studies: Can

they pick up where anthropology leaves off? It seems clear that

Ron's one questionnaire item, which was not even designed to investigate disinhibition in the first place, or even the other scattered

items from general population studies, more directly focused on disinhibition. cited in other papers such as Lang's, have barely

scratched the surface for investigating disinhibition by this approach.

It's my own thought that future attempts might try approaching

the pertinent issues more directly. It would be interesting and

refreshing to see what would happen if you simply ask people, for

example, "Do you drink to get away with things you don't believe

would be tolerated otherwise?" Or, shifting to the control side of

what we talked about yesterday, ask them if they believe they can't

control their behavior after drinking; or, alternatively, if they

believe that after drinking they simply don't control it. An anthropologist might be helpful in formulating these questions and

related ones optimally for a particular target group. Asking people why they behave as they do, as Ron pointed out, is loaded with

well-known pitfalls, but it would certainly be worth a try; and when

you consider the pitfalls involved in all the other approaches, we all

have to struggle with those, so why not give it a whirl?

Now, regardless of whether we decide as a result that people

really believe alcohol disinhibits them, or that alternatively they believe it has a high probability of succeeding as an excuse for

behavior they couldn't otherwise pull off, it remains astonishing

') 1/4) 4
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 267

how such ideas, which, as Ron points out, exist side by side, can

become so very widespread as these. I think a Machiavelli who

wanted to promote such a set of ideas would not be able to succeed

nearly as well, thank Heaven, or we would be brainwashed

zombies, every one. Certainly, the advertisers aspire to do it, but

they have fallen far short of such a record of success.

The following statement by Linton and Lum (this volume) seems

to me to hold great promise for bridging the gpp between, for

example, saying that Indians learned their drunken comportment

from the frontiersmen, and the subsequent institutionalization and

perpetuation of that pattern over the intervening centuries. To

jump ahead on our agenda, they say:

The more we adopt a deterministic connection between

drink and bad outcomes, the more usable drinking

becomes as a sign of weak commitment to the order, the

more easily drinking can be used to display deliberate

lack of concern for cultural priorities.

And expanding on Linton and Lum's discussion of drinking as a

symbol, I see alcohol used by Indians, again for an example, to

symbolize their separateness not only in a negative sense, as not

belonging in the majority social order, but in a positive sense that

they belong to an alternative order called "Indian."

To leap even further ahead, and anticipate Levinson's paper, I'm

just going to mention my lack of enthusiasm for anomie explanations of Indian drinking, stemming mainly from my conviction that

its central assumption that subgroups, such as native Americans, are eager to become like white men is unwarranted. I think

Nancy Lurie (1974) has hit the nail on this head better than anybody

else. She says:

It is pertinent to ask in the case of Indian drinking

whether we know which success goals are being thwarted....As Indian people struggle for a workable cultural

and social pluralism, adapting contemporary American

economic necessities and some of the amenities to their

own systems of values, their strivings seem to be frequently misunderstood. Although at the present time

Indian spokesmen are gaining wider hearing, their

insistence that they want to be Indians still tends either

to be dismissed by "practical" whites as being as unrealistic as trying to bring back the buffalo or encouraged by

"sympathetic" whites as envisioning an actual return to

the kind of Indian life depv!ted in museums. When

Indian people begin to bringoff what they evidently have

in mind, improvement of their material welfare on their

28
268 LELAND: COMMENTARY

own terms, their success is interpreted as fulfilling the

highly individualistic aspirations of middle class white

society and as a stepping stone to total absorption into it.

Now, I see the same limitation applying to the views that Linton

and Lum are going to talk about: the assumption that everybody in

this country shares the same goals. This does not mean that I don't

believe the social order is a central influence on drinking behavior.

But that, in itself, is a rather discouraging prospect when you think

of the implications for prevention and treatment. Hard as it is to

alter individual and even group behavior, surely it is even harder to

alter the social order.

2133
Discussion

ROOM: I wanted to sound one note of caution, and that is that

when we're talking about these results it's very easy to fall into

looking at the points on the graph as a progression it's very easy to

say first they get the good effects and then they move on to having

the bad effects as well. We should keep in mind that we're dealing

here with cross-sectional data; it may very well be, for instance, that

people who were experiencing only the good effects tried the bad

effects and didn't like them. We should not see the response of

different individuals cross-sectionally as necessarily implying any

kind of progress in one direction or the other.

MARK MOORE: I was intrigued by the explanation of why the

occurrence of bad effects didn't discourage drinking. But, there's a

more economical explanation as well, economical in the sense both

that it's easy to state and that it's based completely on economics.

The idea is: sure, there are some bad effects, but everybody when

drinking gets good effects and bad effects; and the quantity of good

effects summed over time in drinking are much bigger, as we know

from the quantitative data, than the bad effects; and so, even though

there are bad effects, it's a good bargain to keep drinking. That

would be a simple account of why the mere existence of a couple of

bad effects wouldn't necessarily dissuade people from drinking.

ROOM: One thing that's worth emphasizing in the general population data is the very stark contrast between what people report

of their own effects and what they say when they're asked about the

effects of alcohol on society in general. If you ask people, as Don

Cahalan and his colleagues did (1969), would you say overall there's

more good about drinking or more bad about drinking, you get a

very high preponderance of people saying drinking is more bad

than good. They're obviously not answering specifically to their

own effects if we can judge that against Ron's paper.

ROIZEN: Let me just add one little point that I forgot to mention, which is that, if you try to connect this kind of data with the

other kinds of data available in the works of people around the

table, one interesting disjunction between survey data and experimental data is that the experimentalist in doing his work controls

the amount of alcohol being drunk, but amount of consumption is

269

2Si
270 DISCUSSION

something the survey researcher is doing nothing about except

reporting. The perception of these effects may loop back and create

a kind of overarching cultural set of go-togethers or causal connections. The perception of effect does seem to loop back strongly to

control drinking behavior. So the experimental situation suddenly

takes on a new "unreality," if you will. It may still be quite valid for

what it does, but the survey data deals with this loop that exists, and

to take it into consideration in policy may mean that the protection

of the norms that are involved in light drinking may be an important consideration.

LANG: Could you clarify that a little? I was having trouble with

what you were saying about the counter indications, that one

shouldn't inform people about the effects or lack of effects of drinking directly on behavior.

ROIZEN: I don't think I'm saying it very well. Let me try this:

permitting the account that drinking is responsible for bad consequences is in a way reinforcing a set of dry drinking norms in the

society that do, indeed, go along with a lot of very light drinking on

the part of a lot of people who in turn, then, have very few effects. So

the diffusion of the idea that there is no account available in drinking has the potential to disrupt the logic of a dry culture's arrangements for the social control of drinking behavior.

LANG: But deviant drinking is really a statistical matter;

there's nothing wrong with drinking per se, It's the consequences

that are of interest to us. So, if the implication of this policy statement I suggested is simply to say that people can drink more, so

what?

ROIZEN: Let me say I feel so "iffy" about this conclusion anyway that I'd just as soon drop it and move along. 1 was curious to try

to find the paradoxes in this data and see if there are any connections that you can make because of those paradoxes, but I don't want

to stick more of a neck out drawing conclusions than I've already

done.

ROOM: Well, I have a suspicion that Mark Moore is about to

offer his neck instead.

MOORE: This will come up tomorrow when we discuss Jim

Mosher's paper, because of the peculiarity that he observes in the

way that drinking and disinhibition is treated in the law, namely,

that there are prohibitions governing drinking that are quite

harsh; so that it looks as if we're treating drinking as bad in itself.

And yet when we see drinking in the context of acts, we're inclined

not to attribute any importance to it. What this difference may

mean is that we're holding drunk people accountable for willfully

putting themselves in a situation where they will be irresponsible.

28,0
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 271

Drunkenness is an important deviant act in our society, to some

extent partly because it's going to produce bad effects, and partly

because it's a willful denial of authorship of one's actions and

responsibility. But we can get into that at greater length tomorrow.

I was also going to comment that it seems to me that there was an

opportunity in this data that could be exploited, and I wonder

whether it could be. I am assuming that associated with this data is

some evidence on the frequency with which these people experience

certain kinds of problems as well.

One of the central questions of this meeting seems to me to be, to

what extent do attitudes and expectations about drinking actually

affect the behavior that results, including the occurrence of problems but also the occurrence of benefits as well? It would be possible

with Ron's data to have a very simple model that said: What's the

probability of certain kinds of problems emerging? to have that

be the dependent variable with two independent variables, pernaps, in a regression model, which would be quantity consumed and

attitudes towards drinking measured in some particular way. We

could get a separate estimate of the coefficient on attitudes plus

consumption shaping the probability of certain kinds of conduct.

Then we can test the hypothesis. If you think it makes you aggressive and mean; do you end up fighting more often? It seems like a

fairly straightforward test.

ROIZEN: It's already been done, really. The high alcohol problems group was surprisingly concentrated in the "Allers," and so

there is definitely a statistical connection. I'm not sure whether

there's an admission involved. The finding raises a number of

problems.

It was mentioned in the paper that we also have measured effects

in the past as motivations; that is that we drink to loosen up and so

forth. But the motivational statements are really quite different

from the statements of effects; that is to say, to state that you have an

effect is quite a different matter from saying that you drink in order

to achieve that effect. So using motivational statements that involve

effects as surrogates for effects measured in survey analysis

wouldn't seem to be a terrific idea.

There is a great deal of subtlety and complexity in this data, given

that the item itself is such a crude statement.

DAVID LEVINSON: Concerning what people expect to get out

of drinking, it seems to me, after ten years of talking to people about

drinking and watching them drink, there are two kinds of alcohol,

or at least two kinds of alcohol/disinhibition behavior: one we might

call instrumental, and one we might call expressive.

In instrumental uses, people drink very little but with a clear

286
272 DISCUSSION

purpose in mind. I think back a coupled years, of a woman who was

telling me how she wanted to go out drinking with her boss who was

married. So, she had two glasses of wine, and that would permit her

to do it. And it was fine after she had the two glasses of wine. That

was her explanation. That sort of drinking is instrumental drinking. They don't drink very much. There's a clear goal in mind. And

it's usually not what would be considered a deviant act.

Expressive alcohol/disinhibition drinking is something else,

where there might be a general goal for example in Tom Burns'

stuff that I'll talk about this afternoon to feel like a man. In this

variety, there's a lot more drinking that goes on for longer periods of

time, and it tends to get out of control.

EHLERS: Well, in terms of looking at the self-report data versus outside-looking-in data, I think the idea was mentioned that

respondents rationalize their own behavior in self-report data.

What about the idea of drinking as kind of outlaw behavior, that on

certain levels it's something that's a "no-no," and it's something that

you want to get away with, almost in a childlike way? That would

explain the discrepancy between what someone thinks you ought to

do versus what you yourself think happens or think it's okay for you

to do.

ROIZEN: Let me just say that when you do survey research

analysis for a while, one of the things that's very striking is how

many one-liners fail to explain much of the variance. And in a way,

the notion of sorting people into two types which was used here as

something of a device to explore the data a bit further is almost

always just a device for showing how little we really know about the

whole of the population and the whole of the variance you're trying

to understand. So that survey analysis is a very humbling activity,

and it means that you end up convincing yourself you really don't

know very much about what's going on. It's not much of an answer,

but it's the best I've got.

MARSHALL: I want to make three comments about Joy's commentary. I was struck when you gave your folk taxonomy based

upon Ron's data: I was struck by how that mirrored or mimicked

the taxonomy (mentioned in my paper) that's widespread in Latin

America going from monkey drunk to lion drunk to pig drunk

and I wondered whether it represented some old European folk

wisdom about biphasic drinking.

The second thing I wanted to mention had to do with the negative

versus the positive effects of drinking. and how the negative might

be seen as reinforcing our drinking behavior. I think that may vary

according to context and situation, and it certainly varies crossculturally. There was a very interesting paper given at the 1979

287
GENERAL-PoPuLATioN viEws 273

American Anthropological Association meetings by Michael Dove,

who's working with a group of people called Kantu in Borneo.

Drinking there is explicitly a competitive act, in which I invite you

to come to my long house for the express purpose of aggressing

against you with alcohol. And as the guest you must drink everything I offer you. I just keep plying you with rice wine, and you get

more and more drunk, and then you get sick, and as soon as you get

sick and have gotten rid of that wine, then I give you more wine.

There's this very aggressive element to it, which has all got to do

with the competitive exchange which has superseded warfare

among longhouse groups. You get back at me later by inviting me

over. So, the drinking itself is a very negative experience for the

drinker, and yet the system is self-perpetuating because of all of

these other considerations. I think we have to be careful when we're

talking about positive or negative reinforcers in drinking and keep

in mind the cultural context and all these other variables.

My final comment is on Joy's notion that humans prefer things

that they know. I would agree with that with respect to food. I'm not

so sure it applies to drugs, though. I think in the case of drugs

there's a great curiosity and a great deal of wondering about the

unknown. In a way, that's folk wisdom, but I've also seen it played

out in Papua New Guinea right now, where there are still many

groups of people in the country who have not yet experienced

alcohol and are just now coming into contact with it; the desire and

curiosity to experience alcohol is a very powerful motivator.

LELAND: Is it sex-linked?

MARSHALL: I don't know. There is also betel-nut chewing,

which has spread from coastal Papua New Guinea now up into the

highlands; that is, highlanders who come down to work on coastal

plantations have taken it back. So, the way drug substances are

adopted I think may be different from food. I'm concerned that we

not treat them in quite the same way.

LANG: Along the lines of what you're saying, Mac, one of the

attractive things about drugs regardless of the rationality is

they increase the range of behavior available, they increase the

options. Those options can be positively or negatively valued by the

individual. But in general the freedom that's associated with drug

use is reinforcing even if sometimes it has untoward consequences.

You find that people who have lots of drinking experience naturally

have a wider range of expectations about what might happen. And

that can be simply because they've been drunk more of the time in

their lives, so that more events could have happened to them while

they were drinking independently of whether the drinking had

anything to do with that.

28
274 DISCUSSION

LEVINE: One thing that's striking about the effects is the arbitrariness of dividing things intt. good and bad. Consider something

like running, where people run five, eight, ten, twelve miles and

then experience all kinds of aches and pains while they're doing it,

or as a result, but it's not necessarily interpreted as bad even though

it hurts. Or the experience of doing heavy physical labor and afterwards saying, "Oh, my aching bones." But it's also feeling very good

in some ways. So, you know, there are lots of ways of understanding

different kinds of bodily experiences which in one context might be

understood as being bad, unpleasant, negative, but which in different contexts can also have all kinds of other positive meanings and

understandings. Thus, "feeling different" sometimes feels good

even if it feels bad. One thing about drinking is that it brings a lot of

different kinds of feelings, and the diversity is interpreted as good

even if some of the effects, in other contexts would be judged as bad.

LUM: When you talked about paradoxes, the ambivalences that

people harbor with regard to drink that is to say that I have a

need on the one hand but I have different expectations and perceptions about what happens to others when they drink alcohol I was

thinking about some kind of research endeavor involving people

going to alcohol treatment clinics where they ingest stuff that

makes them vomit when they drink but what we know is that

they drink anyway. One could do an ethnographic study of that,

very much like an important work that Liebow (1967) did in

Washington, D.C. He didn't study alcoholism; he studied black

men. But the analogy, it seems to me, is very clear. One of the things

I liked about Liebow's ethnography was that the black men want

families. So Liebow said: Why do they leave them when they want

them? They're just like white folks: they want families, but they

leave them. He gives us a beautiful understanding of why they

leave: because the children and wife are symbols of their failure, of

their inability to make it because of inadequate income and economic and political/social circumstances. They leave home because

the home is a symbol for their own failure. It's a reminder, and it's

very painful.

Thus one of the ways to start to get at that paradox is to link

together ethnographic research and survey research. You get yourself, perhaps, into a setting in which you have people drinking in

spite of the fact they're going to throw up and get violently sick.

Follow them around, talk to them, see their circumstances, go back

to their apartments with them; then we're into meaning and not just

mere attitude. The problem of survey research, it seems to me, is

that it hovers at the level of attitudes but provides no context. What

we do as researchers is to create the context for the data itself, and
GENERAL-POPULATION VIEWS 275

therein lies the problem. It's done all the time, but it leaves you

thirsty.

DENISE HERD: Maybe I'm going to quench a little of your

thirst with another anthropological example. Ron's paradox was a

reality in the ethnographic work I did with blacks. What I saw was

a Catholic and Protestant subgroup difference, the Protestant

blacks were much more likely both to drink very little and to report

negative feelings not necessarily bad effects, but bad attitudes:

ambivalence. Although the Catholic women were very heavy

drinkers and reported worse effects lashing out and so forth

they seemed to have a lot less ambivalence about drinking. The

interesting thing was that the Catholics and other non-Protestant

blacks were the "time outers." While attending a Mardi Gras or

West Indian dance, you would see a lot more "time out" behavior

than occurs in Afro-American parties, which tend to be highly

structured and ritualized. The Protestants were also the people that

would substitute the bad effects of alcohol with the good effects of

marijuana; although they drink very lightly they smoke to get high

and avoid bad effects from over-drinking.

29 0
Accounting for Failure

N. K. Linton and Dennis W. Lum

Introduction

We all recognize the frequency with which "disinhibition theory"

is invoked as an explanatory scheme in instances of questionable or

untoward conduct. These attempts to use the theory as either a

commonsense everyday account or a more lofty scientific explanation are, in our judgment, a confounding of resource and topic.*

Recent attempts to validate the disinhibition paradigm, particularly the more empirical and positivistic ones, unwittingly conspire

in their refusal to clarify the root suppositions of the theory itself.

This unreflexive invocation of disinhibition theory and its linkages

to violent behavior is the kind of footwork that deserves retracking.

This paper, then, with its historical emphasis, is a departure from

that bulk of literature dealing with drink and comportment in that

we treat sociocultural understandings as a topic for discussion

rather than as a resource upon which to rely. Our aim is not t9

improve, refine, or embellish scientific explanation but to display

disinhibition theory as a relatively small part of an emerging social

order much broader and deeper than the theory itself. It is our

contention that the conceptual underpinnings of disinhibition theory are intimately linked to the political and social upheaval of the

19th century, to the shifting criteria for social membership, and,

ultimately, to the development of an ideology of failure.

To begin with, it is both remarkable and noteworthy that Americans, prior to the early part of the 19th century, were not preoccupied with accounting for or explaining crime. violence, poverty,

and other exceptions to the social order (Rothman 1971). Yet in

Jacksonian America, the "era of reform," the Nation seemed to

make an enormous collective effort to account for all manner of

deviance (Hindus 1980) and, from the 1820s on into the century,

'Further discussion of this issue is taken up in Aaron Cicourel's "Interpretive

Procedures and Normative Rules in the Negotiation of Status and Role," in Cognitive

Sociology.

276

221
ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 277

drink stood at the center of these accounting efforts if we include

"explanations" in the general category of accounts (Lyman and

Scott 1970).

Thus, we pose two closely related questions. Why did Americans

become preoccupied with accounting for deviance and social ills

and why did they so quickly utilize drink as a central feature in

those accounts? Our general answer is that drink came to aptly

"symbolize" the more basic contradictions and insecurities in the

emerging cultural hegemony of the 19th century. In schematic

form: America (a) was in the process of developing a relatively

modern class-stratification system with (b) limited cultural means

to either understand or legitimate the obvious disparities between

culture and structure. (c) The specifics of the new cultural order,

emphasizing "universalistic," abstract criteria for social membership, coupled with the fact that social position in the new order was

becoming increasingly tenuous, (d) created the peculiar cultural

niche that drink came to occupy and (e) the grounding for the

scientific study of alcohol as it related to other social mishaps,

misadventures, and downright ugliness.

As we see it, disinhibition theory is noteworthy because it tries to

connect one realm of discourse to another; e.g., chemicalneurological to "conduct." The theory is not content to remain concerned with explaining how a substance affects neurological

functioning but expands to discussions of crime, violence, and so

forth. If the theory stayed closer to home, it wouldn't be nearly so

interesting nor so closely related to our sociocultural history. But it

doesn't stay close to home, and much of the theoretical straying is

related to 19th century social life in ways we will try to clarify.

Master and Servant

The history of American law in the 18th and 19th centuries

stands as testimony to the changing context within which deviance

was seen and interpreted. The law rather swiftly shifted away from

the earlier colonial emphasis on positional obligations to a more

contemporary emphasis on abstract, universal criteria relatively

unmediated by social context. This movement within the law

expresses the broader, underlying change from a society based on

"preexisting relations" to one composed of legal strangers (Horwitz

1977).

Master-servant law is a major illustration of premodern American law and society. It is a law predicated on social relations dominated by rights and obligations defined for specific social positions.

292
278 LINTON AND LUM

As the following points out, deviance is seen within this context of

relationships and not as an abstract violation of universalistic criteria. In 1820 Nathan Dane could still say that "...one hired in my

family or other business as my apprentice, factor, bailiff, master of

my vessel, my steward, or even my wife, is my servant." The image

of the household, the positions in it, is clearly more extensive than

we grew accustomed to in a later period. A good bit of law, including that regarding criminal deviance, dealt with respective rights

and obligations within this matrix of househoii positions. For

example: "...if a parent or master be provoked to a degree of passion

by some improper behavior of a child or servant, [if] to correct him

with a moderate weapon, and unluckily kills him, it is but a misadventure; but if with an improper weapon, and the child or servant is

killed, it is murder; ...but manslaughter if only a cudgel or other

weapon not likely to kill or maim." The law had, also, to consider

other potentially deviant acts. Thus, who is responsible if a servant

commits (possible) crime on a third party, such as fraud or the

violent defense of a master? In other words, much everyday violence, chicanery, and unpleasant conduct gathered its social meaning by being seen through the prism of "preexisting relationships."

Deviance was not seen in the abstract, interpreted as improper

conduct by one human against another, but as conduct improper

given one's positional relationships. (The reforms of the "classical

jurisprudence" must be seen in this light as well as the steady

decline of "strict liability" law in the late colonial and early national

period. Also, neither Dane nor Blackstone has much to say about the

law of contract, which is the classical way to form relationships.)

Dane's treatise is one of the final statements, largely condensed

from Blackstone, of American law as it existed during the late

colonial period. The same form of law described the rights and

obligations of other positions vis-a-vis one another. Thus, law described conduct appropriate to different occupations, municipal

offices, church-community members, and the like. The point is that

conduct and misconduct were interpreted almost completely

within a context of specific, understood social positions.

The kind of social order illustrated by master-servant law doesn't

fare well in early national America. That social order, its form of

law, and its form of deviance suffer the shocks of "modernization"

and are transformed out of recognition. We shall maintain that the

contemporary account of drink as a problem grows out of the

wreckage of the old order. The idea that drink disinhibits, impugns

character, or is linked to crime and untoward behavior is a gift to us

from the 19th century and forms the basis for the inherent "reasonableness" of contemporary concern with the substance. The old

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ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 279

order, it is equally clear, held no such conception of or concern for

drink (Rorabaugh 1979).

Drink and the Old Order

It is hardly a secret that colonial Americans drank. Some say they

set high, if not world, standards for consumption. It is no longer a

secret that colonial Americans didn't regard drink as a problem.

(The early Temperance movement associated with Rush [d. 1815]

didn't become a major movement until the 1820s.) In the old order

drinking could not have been seen and interpreted apart from the

social context of stable preexisting relationships. It could not, in

brief, be abstracted from the web of persons (positions) doing the

drinking. Drinking as a practice was simply embedded in the social

order to the point that neither it nor the drinker was problematic in

any conceptual way. Likewise, the doctrine of the old order proceeded on the assumption that we are all, at least, potentially

sinners and, from this point, it makes little sense to try to articulate

derelict populations (Rothman 1971). This perspective of the old

order was nicely underscored by the egalitarian distribution of

individuals who were prosecuted in pre-Revolutionary America

(Nelson 1975). Although colonial legal controls apparently had

some very distinctive features, they were not terribly harsh. All,

regardless of position, were subservient to such controls. Laws and

rules of condu't and comportment were essentially part of the

social covenant. Rich and poor alike were sanctioned (Nelson 1975).

Violations of the legal covenant emphasized fine, reprimand, and,

in many cases, relatively mild forms of corporal abuse (Nelson

1975; Rothman 1971). Most important, punishment was administered with instrumental purpose, that is, to shore up the timbers of

fractured sociation. Punishment was of a positive character. It

sought to reinstate the estra; ged back into the social fabric, to

reimplicate the offender into defined positional obligations and

responsibilities. Thus, the offending wife would once again be a

proper wife, and a disobedient and lawless officeholder would

again seriously play out his responsibilities and obligations. In

short, punishment in the older order was designed with mis- or

nonfeasance in mind.

Whereas, drink and its consequences were mei .ated by extended

family, kin, mutual biography, and community in preRevolutionary America, the advent of the 19th century bore witness

to something quite different. The 18th century practice of drink,

not unlike the older conception of freedom, was articulated within a

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280 LINTON AND LUM

framework of kin and community, obligational conduct, and positional responsibility. In this case, social structure and belief

afforded cooperation and mutualism. Motive and conduct were, in

short, relational. In this context, membership was assured as long

as the individual was directly implicated in the social order.

If the 18th century emphasized preexisting social realtionships,

the 19th century stressed the prominence of the individual. The

order of things was moving away from the more local criteria of a

society predicated on a.web of positional rights and obligations. By

the end of the first third of the 19th century, the criteria by which

persons established membership in the social order had shifted to a

system of "general standards." The legal system reflected this concern by erecting membership criteria predicated on more universal and abstract standards (Horwitz 1977). Politically, this meant

that membership would be increasingly conceived in terms of "citizenship" rather than on different forms of participation built on

relative position in the society. Socially, if one were to agree with de

Tocqueville, membership came to revolve around the more obvious

outward manifestations of propriety and success. Put in another

way, 19th century America stood Calvin on his head. It is certain

that Calvinism was rapidly becoming less spiritual and collective in

sentiment and increasingly secular and rational in character. Nineteenth century industrialization along with philosophic utilitarianism eventually provided the impetus for the application of the

tenets of Calvinism to practical situations. The secularization of

other-worldly belief into a disciplined earthly existence was closely

compatible with the emerging mode of existence in the 19th century. The signs of secularized grace, grace shorn of specifically

spiritual meaning, became criteria for proper membership in the

social order rather than the basis for other-worldly election.

Now membership, and the lack of it, became visible to the eye, a

spectacle (Boyer 1978). The wayward serving girl is transformed

into the painted woman of city streets, and the hard-drinking

master into the city drunk. This secularization of other-worldly

belief extracts the individual from the social fabric, leaving the

person without the softening background of social relationships.

The individual in the 19th century stands starkly separated from

his 18th century counterpart, alone and preoccupied with

collecting outward signs of success. Competition with one's fellow

humans takes precedence over concern for other-worldly salvation;

social antagonism becomes more obvious as the new order gives

credibility to the concepts of the mass and class. The marginal and

the dissociated along with the more hopeful immigrant are

abandoned by the specificity of the older order, and left to the

abstraction of a newer one.

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ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 281

As more of the population became marginal and dissociated from

the earlier social order, the more insistent became the demand for a

theory of deviance (Boyer 1978). In the 19th century, it became

increasingly clear that the emerging political economy was

fashioning a modern class system and radically extending the

range in the distribution of goods and resources. It is in this context,

we contend, that the modern concern for drink was created. The

social order associated with Jacksonian America served as the

frame that makes the modern concern and understanding possible.

It must be remembered that social order in pre-Revolutionary

America was predicated on the general acceptance of positional

roles and reciprocal obligations, articulated in a framework of

moral and religious values (Williams 1966). By the time of Jackson,

it is clear that the older social controls are seriously limited. The old

order made sense when persons had ties of position to which they

might return. The new order could not fulfill the same promise. The

movement toward urban life and European immigration changed

the terms upon which Americans would deal with each other. The

uprooted consisted not only of the new arrivals from Europe but

rural Americans who, in increasing numbers, sought to make a life

in the city. These .iew people, ever more numerous, were in an

important sense stk.: ngers and as such had no position in the older

social order (Hoerder 1971., Rothman 1971). They simply could not

be dealt with inside the control mechanism of preurban America.

The immediate fear was very clearly connected to a perceived

loss of social and political control as representatives of the old order

saw their kind of society slipping away, perhaps into "anarchy"

(Williams 1966). Even Jefferson discovered that disorderly populations were something different when no longer exercising their

patriotic zeal against the British. In early national America, a

considerable part of the concern over drinking reflected this unease

over new and potentially disruptive populations. In the North, for

example, attention was paid to the public house around which it

was possible to conceptually arrange a wide array of social ills. In a

Pennsylvania case (1815) on appeal (Stewart 1815), the court -esents the theory that "tippling houses" bring together people "young

and old, male and female, black and white," who frequent it both

"by day and night," engaging in "dishonest conversation." Briefly,

public houses collect "men and women of evil name and fame."

While agitation had already started on the evils of drink, the central

imagery was the public house, and although implicitly political in

overtone, it had yet to abstract drink as a primary focus. The image

of the saloon proved to be a durable one, lasting far into the period

2 )6
282 LINTON AND LUM

when deplorable outcomes were seen as the consequence of drink

per se. Nineteenth century concern over 'the public house, then,

largely stemmed from economic and social differences, conflicts

that issued from questions of membership. This antagonism and

consequent animosity were in large measure translated into political terms, culminating in the Temperance movement and, later,

prohibition.

The 19th century was the period in which our modern conceptions of egalitarianism and the abstract individual were formed. In

hindsight, it was clear that the new order would require a new set of

ideas more compatible with the emerging economic order. Industry

would eventually rival commerce, urban life would supplant rural

existence, and a new form of ideology claiming moral hegemony

would be developed to fit the emerging class system.

Drink in a Society of Strangers

The number of people disconnected from the older order grew

rapidly in the 19th century even prior to industrialization. Americans began to talk of "masses" and "classes" with a contemporary

understanding of those terms. The significance of the new, emerging population is both obvious and significant. Its members are not

part of the web of "preexisting social relationships" within which

membership and deviance were defined in the old order. In the

legal sense, they were strangers and much of modern law was

created to regulate relations among them. For example, the law of

tort, negligence, and employment grew in response to the newly

created predicament. This newer form of relationship became dominant as the older communities were transformed and their version

of social life scaled away. As brief legal illustrations: What were we

to do if two carriages collide and there is no preexisting relationship

between the drivers? What are we to do with the modern form of

employment ushered in by the great canal projects, a form of

relationship that simply was not "household" or governable in

terms of master-servant? The answer is: We create a new kind of

standard that is general, applying to persons qua persons, which

disregards the positions these persons occupy in the social order.

The older order expected, indeed demanded, differences among

people. Such differences were built into the pattern of preexisting

relationships and were supported by socially subsidized accoutrements of position to ensure that appearance would be maintained.

For example, a colonial community might support a craftsman by

limiting the number of possible competitors in the craft or provide

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ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 283

government sinecures to the "better sorts" allowing them to outwardly display their social position (Hoerder 1977).

The new order found differences problematic, requiring explanation. The principal reason for this, we think, is found in the

shiftover to a more "egalitarian," universalistic, and achievementoriented set of values. America became a land of opportunity, with

great emphasis placed on the possibility for individual achievement

and social mobility. Jacksonian social commentators, in fact,

regarded this sort of belief, coupled with the impossibility of the

dream's ever working out on the large scale, as a prime causative

mover in producing insanity (Rothman 1971). Americans became

concerned with "appearances" of position, since the obvious and

overt were the signs of membership that were both universalistic

and egalitarian (in the sense of being open to all). Appearances no

longer followed in the train of social position. The new standards

are public in being for all to succeed or fail at, and in requiring no

special license or position to observe. Proper comportment, demeanor, and the trappings of economic success are such standards

in our society. Americans no longer live with an easy assurance of

the relationships between membership and its outward signs.

Such universalistic, egalitarian standards must, as Robert Merton would have said, confront structural conditions. Both the old

and the new orders were, after all, stratified societies. Few Americans were actually successful in the new order but all Americans

are held to a universal standard of success. Interpreting failure to

maintain the public standards of the new order became a national

preoccupation that has endured to the present day. We have created

criteria that apply to all but can be met by only a few, meaning that

Americans en masse must "explain" and come to terms with failure

to meet the terms of proper membership. Failure becomes the topic

in American social commentary, including attempts to "account"

for it, personally rationalize it, explain it, and provide proposals for

doing something about it, etc.

Failure, itself, takes on a different dimension when we mean

failure to meet universalistic criteria. The standards apply to all

(within limits) and they also apply to all of the person. Failure is no

longer distributed, contained, and mediated within the localized,

positive obligations of position. Now the entire person can be contaminated by specific failures. In polar-type we have the "total

failure" and a way of construing deviance that shows little patience

with shades of gray a cultural grid that moves toward evaluation

in all-or-nothing, either/or terms. Americans are able, from this

point, to begin creating stereotypes of the drunk, the criminal, and

the mad. It is also, if contemporary characterizations are true, a

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284 LINTON AND LUM

system that makes it very difficult to move from the status of

deviant back within the circle respectable membership.

Drink Amongst Strangers

Since we are pursuing the general view that everyday understanding of deviance is mediated by social context and, seeing

"relations among strangers" as the most significant context

ushered in by the 19th century, we will try to interpret the 19th

century concern with drink. First, drink becomes an explanation of

failure on both the macro and micro levels. It was used to explain

the failure of large subpopulations to attain proper membership.

As an illustration, the Irish would be proper Americans if they

wouldn't drink so much. The Irish were an intransigent population,

particularly in resisting the discipline of the emerging industrial

order. Their unruliness, lack of compliance, demanded explanation

which was provided in terms of drink. This form of explanation is

durable, figuring into discussions of other populations that don't

quite make it into mainstream life. It is even possible to use it on

statistical categories such as "the poor."

In more intimate, micro scale, drink was used also to explain

individual failure, a theme that was popular in the penny press,

pamphlets, and eventually film. Drink has provided a much needed

explanation (and imagery) for a social order that requires something to fill the gap between expectations and performance.

It is obvious that, while drink wasn't the only topic in the "era of

reform, " it was a major and enduring one. This is partly because

drink is a very flexible symbol, adaptable to a variety of uses. For

example, with an emerging social order that makes an individual's

social position more tenuous than ever, drink can stand for one's

fragile connection to social position. In the midst of serene enjoyment of membership, drink can disrupt complacency and show that

loss of attachment is just a drink or two away. Drink can show wives

and employers how feeble our commitments are, how easily the

promises of a lifetime are broken. Drink has been one of the primary symbols expressing the tension between the apparent stability of possession-position and the instability that lies just under the

appearance. This symbolic use arose as the new society arose, a

society that emphasized positional mobility and change. If the 19th

century is the temporal birthplace of the con games, a symbol is

required to show the social conditions which ground con games. A

host of possibilities rest beneath the most settled appearance and,

for the respectable, these possibilities are mostly unpleasant.

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ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 285

Drink can be.used also as a sign of loose attachment to the social

order in another way. To the extent that we accept the view that

drinking causes untoward events, drinking is a demonstration of

our willingness to risk such consequences. It becomes an almost

deliberate flirting with calamity and a display of weak commitment to the order's membership rules. The irony is: The more we

adopt a deterministic connection between drink and bad outcomes,

the more usable drinking becomes as a sign of weak commitment to

the order, the more easily drinking can be used to display deliberate

lack of concern for cultural priorities.

Last, drink can act as icon. It can be an integral point on a social

roadmap with the power to meaningfully connect a host of social ills

into one coherent package. One way, for example, to connect one ill

to another (say, loss of job and loss of family) is to put drink in the

center. Instead of being left with discrete, disconnected evils, we

use drink to generate a coherent connection between them. A critique of the naivete of 19th century social criticism has pointed to its

simple-minded, monocausal reasoning with drink's causing virtually every social ill in the society (Hindus 1980). This critique

might be misguided if drink wasn't actually being used as a scientific cause but as an iconic way to represent the unity of social ills.

Our discussion of the uses of drink as symbol and icon is too brief

but leads to the point we are reaching for. The meaning of drink, its

"uses" in discourse, is built upon the tensions and contradictions

emerging in the social and cultural life of 19th century America. It

plays upon the public appearance of stable position in a society

rapidly losing real stability of position; on the tension between the

promise and reality of social structure and culture and, ultimately,

on the new urgency to find account for failure. Drink can be used in

a variety of commonsense ways. It can be seen as negating "conventionality" if we play the addiction demon rum theme, as negating

"theoreticity" if we play on drink's capacity to cloud men's minds

(Blum 1970). These are options, different ways of placing emphasis,

and, eventually, guiding scientific research. In either event,

though, the moves in the game depend on their being a game in the

first place, a board upon which to play, and some background rules

making moves sensible as moves. The newly emerged cultural

fc rms and the tensions generated by these forms provide the play

in. board.

Conclusion

The historical backdrop against which disinhibition theory is an

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286 LINTON AND I.UM

outgrowth provides us with a kind of etiological baseline for explicating the suppositions of modern approaches to drink. Generally,

disinhibition theory has been seen as an account, part of a vocabulary that relieves the drinker of his or her responsibility in instances of questionable conduct. The ordinary practice of

employing disinhibition as an excuse is an attempt to transform the

irrational and unexpected into something rational and accounted

for. Its efficacy hinges on what everyone knows. Asa matter of fact,

most of us find the disinhibition account to be "reasonable," at least

at one level. Thus, for example, a friend might proffer the notion of

"one too many" as an excuse for his or her bizarre actions the

previous evening, an account which in most cases we honor by

replying with a legitimating laugh. Yet the laugh which expresses

a reciprocity of perspectives between friends is, at another level,

fragile and precarious. To be sure, the acceptance of disinhibition

as an ordinary account, like all linguistic accounts, is mediated by

"the character of the social circle in which it is introduced" (Lyman

and Scott 1970). Accounts in the form of excuses are of a different

order when they occur between kin and friends and, conversely,

when it is a performance between strangers, particularly between

unequal ones. In short, accounts are an artifact of everyday life and

an omnipresent feature of ordinary discourse. As easily as they are

announced, they are as likely to be denied as honored.

Disinhibition theory often argues that drink functions as a

release mechanism that provides freedom for persons to engage in

conduct they would eschew without alcohol (Pernanen 1976). This

pharmacological premise is the perspectival equivalent to social

control theories so popular in sociology, which argue that freedom

from cultural restraints, however arrived at, allows persons the

license to engage in deviance. The connective tissue in both instances is not of the sort X then Y, but X, then the increased

possibility of Y, since there is no compelling impetus for everyone so

released to actually engage in the conduct in question. Social control theories of this sort leave us with probabilistic statements in

principle rather than as a reflection of the imperfect state of the

researchers' craft.

Additionally, major differences between pharmacological conceptions of deviance and sociological ones are, at the same time, the

major difficulty. Principally, the customary conduct that is underscored in contemporary studies of alcohol reflects the same cultural

categories used in everyday parlance to describe an everyday social

world. It is, it seems to us, quite understandable and reasonable to

maintain, scientifically, that X amount of drink leads to a modification of motor response (given a,b,c,...). It is quite another to scientifically argue that X amount of drink leads to crime, since we are in

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ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 287

the process of attempting to relate items from two quite distinct

realms of discourse. In the present instance, crime is not a motor

response measurable by any physiochemical device but distinctly a

social judgment.

If some of the suppositions of disinhibition theory are often used

as a resource routinely employed in conversational rounds, to what

extent do we want to unreflectively use "conventional wisdom" as

capital for some version of a causal model? To be sure, much of what

passes for scientific understanding is often predicated on conventional wisdom. The problem is, however, that causal models, like

the disinhibition paradigm, direct and shape future actions. In

other words, they create a framework of possible moves (e.g., Room

1980). The historically rooted assumptions that characterize disinhibition point to a host of interests that we have alluded to earlier.

These interests can be viewed as vocabulary of collective motives, a

kind of conceptual roadmap from which specific actions are possible. Given the seriousness with which we view violent crime, to

reconstitute the ways we presently respond would require not only

a quite different conception of what the problem is, but also clarification of our model of the deviant actor.

The efficacy of the disinhibition paradigm is unquestioned. It has

proved to be an effective instrume in dealing with a narrow range

of untoward conduct within a thin line of reasoning about the

nature of social problems in general and deviancy in particular.

Disinhibition theory is largely effective because it focuses on the

individual as the problem. It shifts the ground of responsibility

from a larger historic sociopolitical context to a bureaucratically

manageable activity. Current usage of disinhibition theory is compatible with both the conceptual frame within which we view questioned conduct of a serious sort and the consequent institutional

arrangement that presumably deals with it. Disinhibition theory,

then, might be characterized as a psychology of the deviant individual, and the bureaucratically organized human service agency, its

institutional parallel. In this context, drink is the social icon around

which more serious and untoward conduct can be rationalized and,

in the end, attributed to the deviant individual.

In summary, it has been our argument that disinhibition theory

is rooted in the sociopolitical upheaval of the 19th century, that it is

the outcome of struggles over issues of American membership and

nonmembership, success and failure. It was in the most general

sense a political conflict. The decision to continue to employ

disinhibition theory as a way of understanding unfortunate events,

in our opinion, hinges on affirming or denying the legitimacy of

those earlier historical interests that informed disinhibition theory

in the first place.

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288 LINTON AND LUM

References

Blum, A. The sociology of mental illness. In: Douglas, J., ed. Deviance and Respectabilitu. New York: Basic Books, 1970.

Boyer, P. Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard

Univ. Press, 1978.

Cicourel, A. Cognitive Sociology, New York: Free Press, 1974.

Haskins, G. Law and Authority in Early Massachusetts, Hamden, Conn.: Shoe

String Press, 1960.

Hindus, M. Prison and Plantation, Univ. North Carolina Press, 1980.

Hoerder, D. Crowd Action in Revolutionary Massachusetts, New York: Academic

Press, 1977.

Horwitz, M. The Transformation of American Law, Cambridge, Mass; Harvard

Univ. Press, 1977.

Lyman, S., and Scott, M. The Sociology of the Absurd, New York: Appleton, 1970.

Nelson, W. Americanization of the Common Law, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ.

Press, 1975.

Pernanen, K. Alcohol and crimes of violence. In: Kissin, B., and Begleiter, H., eds.

The Biology of Alcoholism. Vol. 4, Social Aspects of Alcoholism. New York,

Plenum, 1976.

Room, R. "Alcohol as an Instrument of Intimate Domination." Paper presented at

the Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting, New York, 1980.

Rorabaugh, E. The Alcoholic Republic, Fair Lawn, N.J.: Oxford Univ. Press, 1979.

Rothman, D. The Discovery of the Asylum, Boston: Little, Brown, 1971.

Stewart v. Commonwealth, 1 Serg. & R., 1815.

Williams, W. A. Contours of American History, Chicago: Quadrangle, 1966.

303
Presenters' Comments

LINTON: This paper started off being an "accounts" version of

life. It could be grandiosely put as an accounts theory, I suppose,

except there isn't an accounts theory. There is probably an implicit

theory that's behind accounts, as presented by Scott and Lyman

(1968) and others, but it's not in sociology or psychology, it's in

language philosophy. There's a real tension in that kind of philosophy. On the one hand, there's an empiricism that gets reflected

I'm anticipating tomorrow in papers on dominance in domestic

circumstance and that sort of thing. And then there's the much

more hardnosed conceptual side, which really hasn't been talked

about here at all, presented by folks like Alan Blum.

I think what Harry was after in his paper, and surely what I'm

after, is something more like the latter, conceptual side; that is to

say, I'm not terribly interested either in ethnography or historical

empiricism. I think what I'm after, with all this fooling around with

historical material, is characterization of the paradigm within

which the disinhibition theory makes sense or can be seen as sensible. And, playing with the historical material, I, too, am impressed

with the shocking kind of change that happened in about thirty

years in the New Republic.

This is the kind of thing that fascinates me: "One hired in my

family or other business as my apprentice, factor, bailiff, master of

my vessel, my steward or even my wife is my servant." And then the

law: "if the parent or master be provoked to a degree of passion by

some improper behavior of a child or servant. [if] to correct him

with a moderate weapon, and unluckily kill hi'n, it is but a misadventure; but if with an improper weapon. and the child or servant is

killed, it is murder, . . . but manslaughter if only a cudgel or other

weapon not likely to kill or maim."

I have trouble getting into the frame of mind that makes that

immediately understandable. I suspect that that is like understanding social relations in Samoa. This is what I call socially embedded

deviance, where you have to see the act reflected through social

position, where it is not abstract. If, as a parent or as a master, I kill

you with the wrong weapon or you happen to be the wrong person

for me to kill, the law reacts to that; it does not react to some

universal abstraction: maiming, killing, violence, carnage or

whatever.

2M9

3 04
290 PRESENTERS' COMMENTS

What happens, it appears to me, is that within fifteen or twenty

years after this was written as part of a legal text, our imagery of

deviance generally changes. The new master paradigm was set by

about 1840-50. Generally, talking about deviance and talking about

the use of alcohol and related deviant acts, we've been operating

within a paradigm put together, say, by 1850. We switch over from

talking about kinds of positional deviance to a relatively abstract,

universal, and Jacksonian ideology: very democratic. It's not so

much that we get into an account of deviance in Lyman's sense of it,

as a justification or an excuse explanation is not quite the same

thing as an account but we get into a national preoccupation with

explaining how it is that so many rotten things happen in the world.

We have an ideological hegemony that is extremely egalitarian

coupled with a social stratification system that even commentators

of the time recognized was expanding the tails were spreading

out. Departures from the terms of that ideological hegemony have

to be explained somehow or another, and, following laissez-faire

reasoning, we decided that we would account for them in terms that

didn't reflect on the social structure. We began to individualize

deviance. We began to explain failure and departures from acceptable kinds of conduct in very individual-level terms. If you're going

to explain deviance in the new order Watergate and the rest of it

aside you don't want to talk about the root causes of deviance as

somehow the misuse of position. Explanations of deviance have to

be seen to be relatively accessible to all. I think that's where drinking fits in. We all can, if we drink.

It becomes a democratic accouiii, or explanation of deviance in a

society that is emphasizing an egalitarian ideology. The emphasis

in talking about deviance at all moves toward a discussion of public

displays of misconduct. Pursuant to drinking, public drunkenness

becomes one of the most highly prosecuted offenses in the first part

of the Nineteenth Century.

In any event, that is the sort of structural interpretation that I'm

after, and I think Harry was after, too. And the modern form of

deviance, it appears to me, surrounds failure: failure to live up to

certain kinds of abstract standards. Not the failures of being a bad

wife, but failure to meet the public standards of decorum and

demeanor. We set up standards that, as a matter of fact, hardly

anyone can meet. Erving Goffman (1963), in one of his pieces, has

got a paragraph or two about who can be perfect, and the answer to

that question is something like white, Anglo-Saxon male, handsome, thirty-one years old, stockbroker. Anybody else is lacking

somehow or another, and all those lacks have to be accounted for

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ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 291

somehow or other. We begin in this country to use drink to explain

why it is, for example, that large immigrant populations don't seem

to "assimilate." Why is it that the Irish are so unrepentant and don't

appreciate us? Drink is used as a way to account for their intransigence, their political intractability, their resistance to industrial

discipline, their participation in draft riots; and, on the other hand,

we use it as an icon of personal failure as a way of trying to explain

why it is that many, many people can't maintain the outward

appearance of respectability in the new order.

Now, someone yesterday asked Harry a very fine question: Given

that we're playing around with a paradox put together in 1840, how

has it continued so long or has it changed? And it has, I think. In

the last several decades we have pretty well shucked the political

overtones of drink as an explanation. We've even dropped talking

about the saloon. We had a whole theory of saloons well into this

century; it's the excitation that's found in that circumstance that

drives men mad. It's entirely too stimulating an environment and

leads all men to political turmoil, crime, and things like that. What

we do is we focus more and more tightly on ethanol. We begin to

shed it of context as much as possible, and focus attention directly

on the chemical substance. And that is precisely the focus of disinhibition theory.

Otherwise, it would appear that the modern interest in alcohol is

mediated by bureaucratic agencies; that is to say, it is not so much

any more a civilian concern as it was, say, 75 or 100 years ago.

Interest in booze has been adopted and mediated by governmental

agencies. And our conceptualization of drinking as a problem is

going to be mediated by the political and social possibilities that are

available to us as public agencies, political but different from the

earlier citizen's political discourse when talking about drink. To

give credit where credit is due, I think that Lemert invented that

whole position a long time before anyone else was talking about it.

I think those are the structural changes in talking about drinking

in 1980 as compared to the year 1900. We've developed professionals. we've developed agencies, and we've conceived of the issues

through the eyes of those agencies rather than as the broad kind of

political and social concerns Gusfield (1966) talked about. We don't

want to talk any more about those damned Irish politicians and

their hard drinking ways. It's uncouth. But we're quite capable of

talking about problem drinkers, problem individuals, and sometimes maybe problem populations.

LUM: I think the accounts stuff is rich if we take it beyond

Lyman and Scott and draw from some other people who are trying

to move to an arena within which we can start to look at ordinary

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292 PRESENTERS' COMMENTS

language use, the meanings inherent in that and its linkages to

historical epochs and contexts. That's what we tried to do in our

paper. I think the disinhibition theory has presuppositions which

most papers don't deal with, and to make claims to knowledge

without taking that into account is to fly in the face of the evidence.

30'7
Commentary

Philip Tetlock

ROOM: When we were setting up the conference, in some areas

we didn't have to do much searching. Craig Mac Andrew was fairly

obviously going to be involved, if he would accept. In some areas, we

really had to do a kind of network search, where we did a lot of

calling around to find out who was the most appropriate person to

ask in a particular area that we wanted to have represented at the

conference. In the case of the attribution literature, our search

throughout the country ended up about 400 yards from our office in

the Psychology Department at Berkeley. So to comment, Philip

Tetlock.

PHILIP TETLOCK: I should make clear at the outset the perspective from which I approach the topic of this segment of the

conference. I'm neither an historian nor a sociologist, I'm a social

psychologist whose own research focuses on the accounts people

construct for a wide range of behavior, not specifically focusing on

alcohol-related behavior. Whereas Linton and Lum in their paper

examined the relationships between macrosocial changes and

changes in perceptions of alcohol in early Nineteenth Century

America, my inclination is to adopt a more individualistic or micro

level of analysis. I shall focus, therefore, primarily on psychological

and interpersonal causes and consequences of changing American

perceptions of alcohol in the Nineteenth Century. I believe that

these two approaches the micro and the macro are largely

complementary, although on occasion some contradictory

emphases do emerge.

Linton and Lum are primarily concerned with explaining why a

marked shift in attitudes occurred in early Nineteenth Century

America toward alcohol and its effects on behavior. Why did Americans embrace the notion that alcohol is responsible for a broad

range of social ills? Why did Americans cease to view alcohol as the

"Good Creature of God" and come to view it instead as a "dark force"

in their lives, capable of creating great personal and social destruction? In short, why did disinhibition theory become an integral part

293

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294 TETLOCK: COMMENTARY

of the prevailing American "vocabulary of motives" (Mills 1940). As

I understand it, the authors propose that the alcohol account for

misconduct and for failure served a critical social system maintenance function. America in the early Nineteenth Century was

undergoing massive and complex socioeconomic changes. These

included increasing urbanization, industrialization, and emphasis

on the capitalistic ideals of individual achievement and upward

mobility.

I shall focus on one quite specific aspect of Linton and Lum's

argument, the claim that alcohol provided a convenient explanation for the discrepancies that ultimately arose between the ideology of achievement and opportunity and socioeconomic reality. Put

simply, far from all Americans were actually successful in the new

emerging economic order, and it became necessary to explain why

large segments of the population were not successful, why they

failed to meet the general criteria for social success. The failure of

individuals and even large groups, such as the Irish, could be

ascribed to drink. In social psychological terms, defenders of the

social system could protect their belief in the ideology of achievement and opportunity by attributing widespread failure to the

causal powers and properties of alcohol.

Although I find plausible and provocative the general thesis that

social structural changes influenced Nineteenth Century American perceptions of alcohol, I have some reservations. I shall briefly

express some of my principal concerns. My first concern: alcohol is

obviously not the only possible explanation for failure. A complete

structural-functionalist interpretation should account for why

alternative explanations were not adequate for bridging the discrepancies between ideological expectations and reality. For example, why would it not have been adequate for defenders of the social

system to have attributed the poor economic performance of certain

individuals or groups to laziness or to lack of ability? Or would such

attributions to seemingly stable human dispositions have threatened other central ideological assumptions of the time, such as the

perfectability of human nature? Were there other psychological,

social or religious factors that predisposed widespread acceptance

of the alcohol account? I think these kinds of questions need to be

answered if we are to develop a complete structural/functionalist

interpretation of the shift in American attitudes.

A second concern: Linton and Lum maintain that there was an

urgent need to find accounts for failure in early Nineteenth

Century America. One interesting question is, for whom was the

need more urgent: for those who failed, or for those who had a

strong interest in resolving the growing inconsistencies between

3 O 9
ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 295

socioeconomic realities and ideological promises presumably the

upper and middle classes? Was the alcohol account an invention of

the ruling class, as a Marxist analysis might suggest? The elite

origins of the Temperance Movement seem consistent with this

view. Or were the unsuccessful often themselves forceful advocates

of the alcohol account? I think that many unsuccessful individuals

may have found the alcohol account attractive. By attributing their

failures to drink, people could protect thier images of themselves as

basically competent individuals. This is an example of what social

psychologists in particular, those social psychologists known as

attribution theorists call the "discounting principle," a principle

that peop,e frequently use in everyday life in explaining behavior.

According to this principle people discount the role of a given cause

in producing an effect to the degree other plausible causes for the

effect exist (Kelly 1971). In this case, individuals need not attribute

their failure to character flaws, such as laziness, or to lack of ability,

to the degree they can attribute their failure to alcohol.

A third concern: I cannot help but wonder whether changes in

patterns of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related behavior were

partly responsible for changes in the perceptions of alcohol. The

historical evidence apparently indicates that in the first 35 years of

the Nineteenth Century per capita consumption of alcohol rose

among the working classes but not among the upper middle class

and upper class. A number of possible explanations come to mind

for this pattern. One possibility is that many individuals in this

period used alcohol as a self-handicapping strategy designed to

protect their perceptions of their own self-esteem or personal

worth. By drinking, people could create a potential excuse (a salient

external cause) for failure. Recent experiments in social psychology

underscore the plausibility of this point of view. People who doubt

their ability to perform well on an experimental task appear more

willing to take performance-inhibiting substances, such as drugs or

alcohol, than do people who are confident in their ability to succeed

in the task (Jones and Berglas 1978). I find it intriguing to speculate

whether many Americans in the early Nineteenth Century doubted

their ability to succeed in the new emerging economic system and

turned to alcohol as a means of protecting their self-images as

worthwhile people.

There are, of course, other explanations. One alternative is in

terms of anomie theories of deviance. These theories predict that

people are more likely to engage in deviant forms of conduct when

they lack legitimate means of attaining culturally valued goals,

such as high status positions in society or wealth. Excessive

drinking may have provided a means for many early Nineteenth

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296 TETLOCK: COMMENTARY

Century Americans to escape unpleasant socioeconomic realities,

and served as a convenient excuse for expressing feelings of

bitterness and frustration, a badly needed "time out" from the

system.

Robbins' (1979) analysis of drinking behavior among the Naspaki

Indians in Northern Canada is especially interesting in this

connection. Robbins' findings suggest that individuals who are

unsuccessful by conventional criteria frequently compensate by

becoming aggressive drinkers and by projecting tough social

images or identities. In contrast, more successful individuals

tended to be relatively placid while they were drinking.

All this suggests a testable hypothesis. Did many early

Nineteenth Century Americans become aggressive drinkers to

compensate for their lack of social success? Was alcohol

consumption increasingly associated with violence in the

Nineteenth Century?

I'd also like to comment on the social implications of the view that

alcohol "causes" poor conduct. As Linton and Lum note in their

paper, if one accepts disinhibition theory, the act of drinking

becomes a demonstration of one's willingness to risk engaging in

deviant behavior. Drinking itself becomes an antisocial act

requiring an explanation.

From the perspective of the attribution theory in social

psychology, the key question is whether drinking is perceived as

being under volitional control. Can people decide whether or not

they will drink? And, is it reasonable to hold people responsible for

the original decision to drink? If the answer is "yes," some of the

power of alcohol as an account is seriously undercut, since one freely

chose to put oneself in the drunken (disinhibited) state. If the

answer is "no," the alcohol account becomes too powerful: it's

possible to excuse virtually any conduct on the grounds of

intoxication, raising serious problems of legal responsibility and

social control.

What emerges is a classic actor/observer disagreement

requiring the negotiation of accounts (Scott and Lyman 1968). The

actor, who is in the informal role of defendant, argues forcefully

that he or she was somehow compelled to behave in a particular

way. Other affected individuals, who are in the informal role of

prosecution, argue equally forcefully that the actor failed to

exercise proper control over his or her behavior. I think that the

curious coexistence noted by Jim Mosher of two alcohol ideologies

in the criminal law, one of disease excuse and one of moral

culpability, can be viowed as the formal institutionalization of this

account negotiation process.

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ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 297

Finally, I shall discuss one set of issuas that I as a social

psychologist find especially interesting: the degree to which and the

conditions under which alcohol is a socially effective excuse for

misconduct or failure. Note I say a socially effective excuse, not a

legally effective excuse. An account or excuse is socially effective to

the degree which it repairs damage done to the actor's social image

or identity by the behavior being explained. Thus, a student who

fails an exam might offer the account that he'd been drinking prior

to the exam. An interesting question is: are people who learn of this

student's account for failure more or less likely to view the student

as competent than people who do not learn of this account? Or to

take another example: a man beats his wife and offers the account

that he has been drinking. Are people exposed to this account more

or less likely to form a negative impression of the man than they

would have been if they'd only been given information about the

behavior? In other words, what is the persuasive impact of the

account that has been offered?

I have used the term "impression management value" to refer to

the power of an account to protect an individual's social image or

identity (Tetlock in press). An account has positive impression

management value to the degree it improves the actor's social

image; it has negative impression management value to the degree

it hurts the actor's social image. The conditions under which the

alcohol account has positive impression management value is

largely an open question. Social psychology theories suggest the

answer depends on a variety of factors. It depends on the severity of

the consequences of the behavior; it depends on the foreseeability of

the consequences of the behavior; it depends on the actor's previous

record of behavior; and, of course, it depends on the beliefs and

motives of the individuals to whom the account is offered. For

example, victims of alcohol-related behavior should in general be

less receptive to the alcohol account than less directly affected

individuals. Victims should be motivated to hold norm violators

strictly accountable.

Thresholds for accepting the alcohol account also undoubtedly

vary across cultures and across historical periods within cultures. I

think that the study of factors that influence the acceptability of the

alcohol account represents a promising area of inquiry in which

experimental, cross-cultural and historical evidence can all

fruitfully be brought to bear.

312
Discussion

SILVERMAN: I'd just like to raise two points. In terms of

alcohol imbibing in the Nineteenth Century, nobody has brought up

the idea of inadequacy of the water supply. I think there is some

correlation. I think it just wasn't safe to drink the water. That

sounds trivial, but...

Mr. Linton mentioned the basic ideology of this country from its

very beginning that this was going to be the Commonwealth, the

city upon the hill, the beacon to the world, the ideal paradise, the

seat where the millenium would take place. In fact, well into the

Nineteenth Century they expected the Second Coming, and the

Millerites thought the world was going to end on a certain day in

1844-1845. So, this was part of the ideology of the time. How could

you explain all the bad things that were going on in the society in the

light of the idea that this was a utopia, that this was a paradise? You have to have a scapegoat and an excuse, and alcohol was a

convenient one because of the widespread imbibing.

There's a very famous play and novel, Ten Nights in a Barroom,

which has the idea of Cedarville, a town in some unnamed New

England state, as an Eden, and then the Sickle and Sheath, a local

tavern, is put in there, and from that stems murder and fratricide

and patricide and all kinds of mayhem, and the flowers don't grow

any more, and weeds grow in the street, and everything is

dilapidated. Greenbluff is another book of this same type what

happened when the Irish workers came to town and the whole town

just disintegrated.

So they had this ideology, which they absorbed with their

mother's milk, that this would be a model to the world, and an Eden,

and then they looked around them and saw that it wasn't coming to

pass. Well, alcohol was a very nearby convenient excuse.

LEVINE: My reading of the history is that the idea of the

utopian city on the hill does not become generalized until after

Independence. I've just begun learning recently about other places

where there is this utopian vision for the society societies which

define themselves as having broken with the past, and where all is

possible in the future. One such society is the Soviet Union and

another one is Israel. In both places. there is the idea of creating the

New World and a new kind of human being. However, when the

298

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ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 299

discrepancy between reality and the ideology becomes rather

severe after a while, the problem becomes how to account for the

discrepancy?

Paul Roman (Roman and Gebert 1979) has recently written, on

the Soviet Union essentially, suggesting that the longer this

contradiction goes on, the more the USSR is going to become

willing especially among the upper bureaucratic levels to talk

about alcohol problems. It becomes a convenient way to explain the

continued presence of patterns that, according to the ideology,

should have been dropped long ago. In such a situation alcohol

becomes a convenient scapegoat and excuse. That is true in Israel as

well; they have very few alcohol and drug problems and yet there's a

great deal of concern about them, because they explain what's not

supposed to be there.

PATRICIA MORGAN: I would like to suggest that perhaps

utopia or the belief in a particular kind of utopia changed character

with the coming of industrialization. To add to the stewpot of what

was going on in the Jacksonian era, I would like to suggest that the

notion of equality became very important. In the Colonial period,

social structure was based on a very pervasive, common notion of

hierarchy that had been brought over from Europe, and in most

cases was based on the notion of religious order. Along with the

change from external controls to internal controls that Harry

mentioned yesterday, this new notion of equality was very

important with the coming of industrialization, and it meant that

the natural order of things no longer applied. Equality made

possible the idea that everyone was capable of achieving upward

mobility, which was a necessary belief for the whole changing

economic /demographic social structures.

Along with this came the appearance of objective controls,

controls outside of the traditional ones that were present in a

hierarchical structure, and the shift meant that there was a

necessity for the entrance of the state or government to manage

equality. And I think it is also in that period that we see the

emergence of a whole new governance of laws governing drinking

behavior and behavior in general.

WINICK: With the frequent references to the central role of

drinking, drinking hea,.ily, and drinking improperly in the

Nineteenth Century, it's possible to perhaps forget that there was at

least one other problem that by many Americans was regarded as

much more important; namely, prostitution. Between 1840 and

shortly after the turn of the century, there were five different books

called The Social Enil published. It was widely understood that the

"social evil" was prostitution. One of those books was written by

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300 DISCUSSION

E.R.A. Seligman (1903), a famous Columbia University economist

who was the first editor-in-chief of The Encyclopedia of the Social

Sciences, and a very important intellectual. There was an

alignment of intellectuals, wealthy people like the early robber

barons, many of whom also were opposed to drinking, who got

together to oppose prostitution, and who saw a strong connection

between the circumstances in which prostitution occurred, the

availability of liquor and the extent to which men who were drunk

would seek out prostitutes.

ROOM: If I could retell briefly the lecture Susanna Barrows

was giving last week, in France you had a shift from the definition

of the alcohol problem as located in the industrial worker and

alcohol as a problem of labor discipline toward a definition that saw

drinking in the 1890's as associated with women and prostitution.

Am I reading that fairly?

BARROWS: Yes, very much so. In very simple terms, there was

an evolution away from the association of drink as. basically the

scourge of the working class and, in particular, the scourge of the

revolutionary working class * so, the association there forms a

kind of triangle of assumptions with a shift by the 1900's toward

an association of drinking with sexuality and with prostitution,

seen fundamentally as an assault on the moralizing structure of the

family.

SILVERMAN: I just want to add a footnote to what we were

saying about prostitution. One of the reasons according to Brian

Harrison (1971), who wrote a book called Drink and the Victorians

that women, particularly, spent so much energy trying to wipe

out drink is because they couldn't, because of the mores of the time,

deal with the subject of prostitution; and so they focused all their

energy on something that was not a taboo topic.

ROIZEN: So drink is actually a scapegoat for prostitution.

Along with a basically materialist analysis of changes in the

Nineteenth Century and before, we can imagine that there were

also important things going on in the idea systems of our culture.

One of the most important, I think, was the rise of science in a

sense. the rise of the materialist image of the world and of the notion

that, after all, if Darwin could stick man back into the natural

universe and we could see with our own eyes that drinking made

people stumble around and so on, then, perhaps, it would also affect

their moral sensibilities. There was no reason to suspect that their

moral sensibilities should be left out of that materialistic framework.

So I'd like to suggest that there is a strong possibility of an

interesting idealist analysis of this period that would much more

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ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 301

strongly reflect the emergent value placed on and belief in sciences

as a way to knowledge. It was a pretty hip thing, after all, for some

of these churches in the Temperance era, for example, to be

running around in the early part of the Nineteenth Century saying,

"I think it's alcohol that's causing this sort of bad behavior." It's a

remarkable concession to a materialist world view, if you think

about it, and they must have felt themselves very much a part of the

modern world to be thinking in those terms around 1830, 1835.

MACANDREW: I once did a piece on the notion of alcoholism

(1969) in which I argued that "alcoholism" was introduced into the

world as a solution and that as far as origins were concerned, the

important question was: What was the problem which its

introduction was intended to solve? I think the same general kind of analysis holds for "being in the world drunk." It's definitely a

solution to something within the domain of accounting and of

accountability. The question is: What is this something? Since I

view drunkenness as very, very open in this regard, I have to argue against the notion that there was or is some single problem or discrete set of problems for which drunkenness standsas a solution;

rather, at least from very early on, and certainly today, "drunk- enness" is open to any number of diverse applications not all of

which, by the way, are excusing in nature.

ROOM: I think that comment fits very well with the very wide variety of things that are being offered in the discussion right now

and previously.

It seems to me there's a big difference between alcohol as an

account or explanation of conditions and alcohol as an explanation

of events. Several speakers have talked about the notion that alcohol

in the Nineteenth Century was seen as an explanation at a

structural level as well as an explanation of failing at a personal

level; but both of those levels are seen more in terms of conditions

than events as in the town in Ten Nights in a Barroom: the weeds are growing in the streets. It's the condition of the town in

accumulated fashion that the tavern is seen as affecting. Likewise, in the perspective of the modern alcoholism movement, alcohol's

effects are seen in terms of long-term conditions, in terms of the

effect of the alcohol cumulatively on the man, usually, on the family

structure or on his work performance. And what is meant by

alcoholism usually has a large element to it of the default of these

major social roles cumulatively over time, this being ascribed in the end to his loss of control over his drinking behavior.

There is the other side of disinhibition, which is the side of alcohol

as a disinhibitory account of behavior in a specific event, which is

the side that I think Kai Pernanen in his review article (1976) was

31t;
302 DISCUSSION

focusing on. Now obviously, events and conditic "s are connected: a

pattern of events becomes a condition. But it's also true that you

often have to offer accounts and attributions in everyday life which

concern single occasions, often to strangers that you will never see

again or to people that you don't have a pattern of interaction with.

If I step on your toe, then I will offer an excuse for stepping on your

toe that shows that I didn't mean it, even if I've never seen you

before. And I think that we need to not lose sight of the nature of

alcohol as an account for the specific event, as well as being an

explanation and account of conditions.

MARLATT: I think this is a related point. It seems that one of

the things that's becoming clear in the attributional analysis is that

we have to make a distinction between attributions of responsibility

for taking a drink in the first place, for starting to drink, and the

subsequent effects of alcohol. It's easy to absolve yourself of the

responsibility for the effects once you've taken the drug, to say the

drug took over and all these things happened as a result. But

whether you should then be held responsible for taking the initial

drink as a volitional act is often compounded with that, In terms of

problem drinkers or alcoholics, the attribution of responsibility or

lack of responsibility has moved back to the question of whether the

person is responsible for taking the first drink. In fact, if the first

drink is mediated by internal physiological craving or genetic

predisposition and so forth, the person can then, in a sense, be

absolved of the responsibility of both the first drink and the

subsequent effects.

I mention this because I was involved as a witness at a murder

trial recently where these points all came up. Very briefly, a person

started drinking very early in the morning under very neutral

circumstances and later that day was in a bar situation where

somebody provoked him to anger. He went out back of the bar with

this other person, got into an altercation, and shot the person who

had insulted him, killing him. Then the question is: What's the

degree of responsibility for that act? When he started drinking, he

didn't know that he was going to be provoked later which is

different from the case where first you get provoked, then you're

feeling angry, then you have a bunch of drinks, then you go out and

hurt somebody, then you say it's because of the drinking. And the

other point that came up was whether he was a social drinker or an

alcoholic. If he was an alcoholic, he was not responsible for drinking

in the morning, whereas, if he was a social drinker, he was. So,

attributing responsibility really starts to be very complicated.

MARSHALL: I wanted to come back to the historical discussion

on the second paper this morning, which was also connected with

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ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 303

Harry's paper yesterday. Both of those papers attempt to account

for changes in attitudes toward personal responsibility for being

drunk and attitudes toward what alcohol does to you, in terms of

specific features of American history. But one thing that we have to

take into account is the fact that the paradigm that you were talking

about is so widespread it's not limited to the U.S. of A. Why is it so

widespread? I don't think the concept of diffusion accounts for its

occurrence in as many places as it occurs, though it may account for

it in a few places. What is it about alcohol as a substance, as a

pharmacological agent that leads people in a number of different

cultural traditions to come up with a somewhat similar paradigm?

Is there something special about alcohol? Why doesn't kava provide

an excuse? Or betel? Or opium? These other drugs don't seem to.

LEVINE: One value of a very clear statement of this Nineteenth

Century position is to understand: is this really different from

something else? One of the nice things that Linton and Lum pointed

out was the continuation of the position into the Twentieth Century,

the professionalization of it in the alcoholism movement, in the

scientific literature, and also in policy concerns. I see the

temperance concerns with alcohol "as a cause of" problems

continuing into the alcoholism movement and into the current

professional literature.

However, that is only one discourse about alcohol. The other one is

an everyday one. The first kind of statement suggests alcohol causes

somebody to act wild: "Alcohol caused me to do this," or "alcohol

causes crime"; the other quite different statement says, "He did it

because he was drunk," or "I did it because I was drunk." Those are,

it seems to me, epistemologically two very different kinds of

statements. One is a rather precise kind of cause and effect

statement. But in everyday talk when people say "I did it because I

was drunk," they are saying along the lines of Drunken

Comportment "I did it because I was in a time and place in which

I'm allowed to do things I don't ordinarily do." There are really two

quite different discourses going on here, two different sets of

meanings, two different kinds of systems of explanation.

FINGARETTE: Following the same theme but from a slightly

different angle, it seems to me that it is important to distinguish two

different logical roles that the historical/sociological kind of

analysis can perform. In one way, such analysis may be aimed at

providing historical/sociological explanations, causal explanations

of how it came about that alcohol is seen as a disinhibitor or

whatever. Historical/causal explanations on the level that we are

dealing with them, it seems to me, are enormously complicated; and

while they're very interesting and very important for us to work at,

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304 DISCUSSION

personally I'm pessimistic about getting anything terribly

definitive. I think these things are so complex that we can keep

generating new forms of historical/social explanations of these

great movements, but it's important to try.

The other role has a more direct and substantive value connected

with what, I take it, Norman Linton was stressing when he spoke of

conceptual analysis. If we want to understand the concepts that we

are trying to study empirically in the psychology laboratory, and in

the neurophysiology lab, and in certain kinds of anthropological

work, if we want to get empirical data which will give us some

understanding of the effects of these components of human

existence on disinhibition or whatever, then we have to have a sense

of what the phenomenon is we are trying to relate the data to. And

one of the important ways of understanding the content of the

concept is to go back to historical/sociological analysis, which gives

us many clues about the ideological and philosophical roots of our

present ideas. It's a way of getting to understand our present

concepts: by going back to the roots where we're a little more

distant from it and can see more clearly. Then we get insight into

what we mean now or in Unton's terms what would establish

now that I am a drunkard. What is the content of the concept

"drunkard"? What is the meaning of the concept "disinhibited"? Then, as we get a better understanding of the concept, we

understand better which of the empirical data that's collected bears

on the concept, and which although it looked like maybe it (lid

doesn't. And we begin to connect up the scientific relationships

much better.

LEMERT: I've been sitting here speculating as to what Joe

Gusfield would say if he were here. I think the structural analysis of

needs for accounts is certainly valid as far as it goes, but I'm struck

by the idea that the problem is that the ethnic grcups are marginal,

and the need for accounts goes beyond the fact that they were not

drawn into the system. If you look at Gusfield-type analysis (1966)

and an older analysis by Alfred Me Clung Lee (1944) of the

Prohibition Movement, it wasn't so much the fact that these groups

were not assimilating as it was that they actually became a threat in

different ways; it was the specific nature of their drunken

comportment which became a threat to the values of the power

groups; namely the Irish drank as if they had a right to get drunk

and beat each other up, the Germans drank as if they had a right to

pound their beer steins on the table and sing German songs that

Americans couldn't understand, the blacks had a right to drink in

the cellars of New Orleans and plot against their hated masters. I

think from Gusfield's point of view you have to look more to

31 (4)
ACCOUNTING FOR FAILURE 305

collective movements as elements in the structural strains and

tensions which Linton and McClung Lee described very well.

ROOM: Gusfield, unfortunately, is in India at the moment. But

Harry, when he started doing his work on the Temperance

Movement, to some extent sat in the same chair, reading large amounts of Nineteenth Century material. And, Harry, my understanding of what you came to was that Gusfield was right

with respect to a particular historical period around the very end of

the century. Gusfield had done his original dissertation on the

Women's Christian Temperance Union, which was one of the lead

organizations in that period. This is where he had picked up the

nativist, anti-foreign tone of the Temperance Movement, but if you

look earlier at the Temperance Movement, that tone was not nearly

so evident.

LEVINE: Yes, I think that.

ROOM: And, in fact, temperance novels in the earlier period

were very much oriented around middle class folk and that there

was a very large part of the Temperance Movement, partly hidden

to us, which was the fraternal associations that were self-help, middle class groups.

LEVINE: Well, I'm not sure how immediately relevantsome of

this is. I love talking about the history stuff, but I'm also anxious for

us to talk about disinhibition, drunken comportment, out-of-bounds

behavior, deviance and so on.

My sense is the Temperance Movement was concerned with

explaining the behavior of proper middle class Americans as much

as it was concerned with explaining the behavior of aliens and

immigrants, and I think that that continues in AA and in the

NIAAA today. The total American discourse about alcohol has

been a whole lot about "us," at least as much as it's been about

"them."

MACANDREW: Another way to think about drunkenness

within an accounts framework is to take it as problematic how it is

that "drunkenness" is recognized and, in fact, we can and do

recognize it, all of us, at a glance. Indeed, this capability is a good

index of the competence of our societal membership. It turns out

that by the age of six or seven, kids have pretty good notions of what

it is to be drunk, and they are also pretty good at recognizing

drunkenness when they see it. One potentially powerful way, then,

to examine the nature of the array of puzzles for which drunkenness

stands as a solution is to examine "from up close" how it is that in

this respect too kids come to know what everybody knows.

320
Alcohol Use and Aggression in American Subcultures

David Levinson

Introduction

This paper has two main purposes. Its first is to describe patterns

of alcohol-related aggression in subcultural groups in the United

States. Special attention is given to recent research on alcoholrelated aggression in the South, ethnic groups, and among youth.

The paper's second purpose is to list and discuss a number of

hypotheses about drinking behavior that may help us explain

subcultural patterns of alcohol-related aggression.

Four factors suggest that subcultural patterns of alcohol-related

aggression represent a topic of interest within the general alcoholdisinhibition framework. First, Mac Andrew and Edgerton (1969)

demonstrated that alcohol use does not lead to aggressive behavior

in all cultures. Rather, Mac Andrew and Edgerton showed that

aggressive behavior accompanies alcohol use in some cultures but

not in others, and individuals may be aggressive in some but not in

other drinking settings. Mac Andrew and Edgerton's basic

contention that alcohol use and aggressive behavior are not

always linked has been confirmed by subsequent holocultural

research. Schaefer (1973) examined ethnographic reports about

drinking behavior for a probability sample of 60 small-scale and

folk societies. He found that men get drunk either occasionally or

often in 46 of these 69 societies. But, he found men involved in

drunken brawls in only 24 of the societies. So, in a worldwide sense,

it seems that alcohol-related aggressive behavior as measured by

male involvement in drunken brawls is about as likely to be

present as it is to be absent.

Second, national surveys of adult drinking patterns indicate

important subcultural differences in the relationship between

alcohol use and associated aggressive behavior. Findings reported

by Cahalan and Room (1974) point to regional, age, and social class

differences which merit further study.

306

-s
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 307

Third, review articles published in recent years suggest a strong

relationship between alcohol use and violent crime (Aarens et al.

1977; John 1977-78; Pernanen 1976; Tinklenberg 1973). Pernanen,

especially, has commented on the potential causal role of

sociocultural factors in the shaping of subcultural patterns of

alcohol-related aggression.

Fourth, social scientists have shown a longstanding interest in

describing and explaining cross- and subcultural drinking

patterns. This tradition extends back to the Glad and Bales studies

of the 1940s, but, until recently, focused primarily on the drinking

behavior of Irish, Italian, and Jewish men.

In this paper I address a number of issues concerning subcultural

patterns of alcohol-related aggression suggested by these four

bodies of literature. In the following three sections, I describe

regional, ethnic, and age group patterns of aggressive drinking and

discuss some theories that may explain these patterns. In the fourth

section, I summarize the paper and discuss additional theories.

Alcohol Use and Aggression in the South

Evidence that the Southern region of the United States has a

higher rate of alcohol-related aggression than other regions comes

from three sources. First, national surveys of drinking practices

suggest a "Southern" or "dry area" drinking pattern characterized

by a high percentage of nondrinkers, low per capita consumption,

high social consequences associated with drinking, more alcoholrelated arrests, and "infrequent binges accompanied by

belligerence and guilt feelings" (Cahalan and Room 1974, p. 61;

Room 1970). Belligerence is operationally defined as the

"respondent's report of feeling aggressive or cross or getting into

fights or heated arguments after drinking" (Cahalan and Room

1974, p. 23). Second, a comparison of studies of alcohol-related

crime statistics shows that alcohol use and criminal behavior tend

to co-occur more often in Southern than in other States. Aarens et

al. (1977) list and discuss many of these studies. For example, Hollis

(1974) reports 80 percent alcohol use among either victims or

offenders in homicide cases in Memphis and Shelby County,

Tennessee; Globetti and colleagues (1974) report that in a sample of

242 men involved in violent crimes in Mississippi, 60 percent were

drinking at the time of the crime; and Mayfield (1976) reports that

58 percent of men imprisoned in North Carolina for the commission

of violent crimes were drinking at the time of the crime. hese

percentages are generally higher than those reported in

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308 LEVINSON

comparable studies conducted in other States such as California,

New York, or Missouri. Alcohol-related crime rates in other States

are generally below 50 percent. The thi d piece of evidence

supporting the Southern drinking pattern is less direct. It concerns

the social setting in which drinking occurs. Room (1970) notes that

rural drinking (and, thus, much of Southern drinking) usually

involves men drinking with other men in bars. Some recent

research on bar behavior (Gordon in press) suggests that men

drinking with other men in bars is one drinking environment

frequently associated with belligerent drinking behavior.

How can this Southern pattern of belligerent drinking be

explained? Two hypotheses seem especially relevant: the Southern

subculture of lethal violence hypothesis, and the Finnish

belligerent drinking hypothesis. The Southern subculture of lethal

violence or Gastil-Hackney hypothesis attributes the high Southern

homicide rate, as compared with homicide rates for other regions of

the Nation, to a Southern tradition that either indirectly or directly

encourages lethal violence in a variety of interpersonal settings

(Gastil 1971; Hackney 1969; Reed 1971). This hypothesis has its

genesis in a number of studies showing a 40-year or longer pattern

of higher homicide rates in the South than in other regions (Doerner

1975; Hackney 1969; Loftier 1938; Shannon 1954). Although Gastil

proposed the hypothesis only as an explanation for Southern

patterns of lethal violence, it seems plausible to assume that the

hypothesis might apply also to Southern patterns of violence in

general, including belligerent drinking behavior. However, recent

tests indicate that the hypothesis is not true at all.

Erlanger (1976) and Doerner (1978), using NORC and Roper

survey data, report that Southerners are no more likely to be

involved in criminal homicide than non-Southerners. O'Conner and

Lizotte (1978) find that Southerners (people born in the South) are

no more likely to own a gun than people from other regions. Loftin

and Hill's (1974) reanalysis of Gastit's data, using more careful

controls for noncultural variables, shows the Southern born

homicide relationship to be nonsignificant when the effect of

structural poverty is controlled. And, Smith and Parker (1980)

report that Loftin and Hill's Structural-Poverty Index (infant

mortality rate, percentage of population illiterate, percentage of

families with income less than $1,000, Armed Forces Mental Test

Failures 1958-1965, and percentage of children living with one

parent) is the most powerful predictor of primary homicide,

although not nearly as powerful a predictor of nonprimary

homicide.

In a general scalse. the Gastil-Hackney hypothesis can be viewed

32J
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 309

as a variation of the broader Wolfgang-Ferracuti (1967) subculture

of violence hypothesis. Wolfgang and Ferracuti suggest that some

subcultural systems are characterized by norms, values, and

attitudes which legitimize the use of violence in a wide range of

social situations. But, since the studies cited above indicate that the

South differs little from other regions in gun ownership and

homicide rates, approval of violence, or frequency of involvement in

fights, it seems unlikely that the South constitutes a subculture of

violence.

A different explanation for the Southern belligerent drinking

pattern is brought to our attention by Room (1970) who notes that

the Southern pattern is much like the pattern reported for Finland

as compared with other European nations. In terms of drinking

behavior, Finland is the "South" of Europe. Room suggests that we

consider Achte et al.'s (1969) explanation for Finnish drinking. The

Achte team argues that (1) Finns have ambivalent feelings about

alcohol use, which (2) result in guilt feelings about drinking. In

addition, (3) Finnish culture is authoritarian and patriarchal, which (4) leads to tension, anxiety, and difficulty venting

aggressive feelings, which (5) leads to belligerent drinking as an

outlet for pent-up aggressive feelings. While this specific

hypothesis awaits formal testing, the theoretical model on which it

is partly based has been tested and found to be largely a "myth"

(Straus 1977). I refer here to the drive discharge or catharsis model

of human aggression. The drive discharge model states in part that

aggressive drives in both individuals and groups must be

discharged; if not in one way, then in another. Recent reviews of

intracultural tests (Berkowitz 1973; Hokanson 1970; Straus 1974)

and cross-cultural studies (Russell 1972; Sipes 1973) provide little

support for drive discharge theory. In fact, tests of the drive

discharge model more often support the alternative culture pattern

model which suggests that "...all forms of aggression tend to be

strongly related to each other" (Russell 1972). Some support for the

cultural pattern model as applied to alcohol-related aggression

comes from Graham et al.'s (1980) study of bar behavior in

Vancouver. They report that situational variables that predict

physical aggression also predict nonphysical aggression in bars.

Thus, while the Finnish drinking hypothesis merits further testing,

we need to remain skeptical because of a lack of empirical support

for one of the main theoretical models on which it is based.
310 LEVINSON

Alcohol and Aggression in Ethnic Groups

The study of ethnic drinking patterns has a long history in alcohol

studies (Bales 1946; Glad 1947; Knupfer and Room 1967; McCord

and McCord 1960; Snyder 1958; Strauss and Bacon 1951; Wechsler

et al. 1970 among others). Many of these early studies focusedon the

drinking behavior of Irish, Jewish, and Italian men in the United

States. The consensus of these studies is that Irish men tend to have

high rates of alcoholism and more alcohol-related problems than

Jewish or Italian men. More recent research has examined the

drinking patterns of Anglos, Mexican Americans, and Native

Americans in Colorado (Jessor et al. 1968); Americans of British,

Irish, German, Italian, Latin American, Jewish, African, and

Eastern European descent (Cahalan and Room 1974); blacks and

whites (Grigsby 1963); blacks (Harper 1976); Irish, Portuguese,

and Cape Verdean immigrants (Thomas 1978); Americans of Irish,

Italian, Jewish, German, Scandinavian, Slavic, and British descent

(Greeley et al. 1980); Dominican, Guatemalan, and Puerto Rican

immigrants (Gordon 1978, in press); and a fair number of Native

American groups (see Leland 1981 for a comprehensive, up-to-date

review of these studies).

Many of the early studies listed above are well known, and

require no further discussion here, partly because they are well

known and partly because they deal more often with drinking

behavior in general than with aggressive drinking behavior. In

terms of he present discussion, the key point about these early

studies is that they tend to explain ethnic differences in drinking

patterns in terms of the extent to which cultural factors integrate

alcohol use into the subcultural system. The general claim of these

studies is that where alcohol use is well integrated, alcoholism and

related problems are rare, as with Jewish and Italian men. But,

where alcohol use is poorly integrated, alcoholism and related

problems are more common, as with Irish men. More recent studies

discussed below differ from these early studies in that external

economic factors rather than cultural factors are more often viewed

as the basic cause of ethnic drinking patterns. In fact, some scholars

argue that ethnicity is irrelevant as a causal variable (Graves 1970,

1971; Patterson 1977). And, Thomas (1978) suggests that while

ethnicity determines who may drink with whom, the actual

behaviors and customs associated with drinking among the Irish,

Cape Verdeans, and Portuguese he studied in a small New England

industrial city are quite alike.

The major theoretical framework for some recent work on ethnic

patterns of drinking behavior is Merton's (1957) anomie theory of

325
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 311

deviance. Merton suggests that deviant behavior drunken

aggressiveness, for example will more likely occur in a situation

where individuals lack access to legitimate means to achieve their

economic goals. Graves (1967, 1970) expands upon and relates

anomie theory to alcohol use:

When goals are strongly held for which society provides

inadequate means of attainment, the resulting meansgoals "disjunction" produces pressures for engaging in

alternative often disapproved adaptations, of which

excessive urinking is one common form (1970; p. 42).

Anomie theory may be a viable explanation for aggressive

drinking as well. Three studies support this interpretation.

Robbins (1979) reports on the drinking behavior of Naspaki men in

a small village in northern Canada. He interprets their drinking

behavior (he calls them drinking interactions) as "identityresolving forums." Identity-resolving forums, like initiation

ceremonies, or ceremonial exchanges, or drinking interactions,

exist to enable people to maintain, attain, or protect valued social

identities. Drinking interactions among Naspaki men come in two

forms. Some men are "friendly drunks." Others are assertive,

aggressive, boastful drunks. These men, unlike the friendly

drunks, often get into fights while drinking. Robbins attributes

these different drinking interactions to differences in economic

circumstances and resulting differences in access to statusconferring goods between the two groups. The friendly drinkers

are men who make a decent wage as iron miners at the local iron

mine. Their drinking behavior is meant to maintain and reinforce

their increased social status. The aggressive drinkers are men who

have not been able for various reasons to succeed as iron miners.

Their drinking behavior is meant to maintain.an old identity now

threatened by new economic realities. Thus, Robbins suggests that

it is economic change and resulting changes in the relative status of

Naspaki men which causes drinking interactions to be used as

identity-resolving forums.

Gordon (1978) reports on the drinking patterns of recent

Dominican immigrants to the Northeastern United States. In the

Dominican Republic male drinking was macho drinking. Men were

expected to drink, drink often, drink heavily, and to fight when

drunk. It was part of the male macho image. But all of that changed,

and changed rapidly, following migration to the United States. The

male image became one of hombre servo rather than of macho. An

hombre servo is one who proves himself through hard work,

sacrifice, and dedication to his family; not through heavy drinking

and fighting. Why this dramatic, sudden change from macho to

326
312 LEVINSON

hombre servo? Gordon suggests a number of reasons. For one, the

status and influence of Dominican women increased. In the United

States, Dominican women often work outside the home at wellpaying jobs. Second, a change in the Dominican economic

worldview now called for order, discipline, steady work, and saving

money. And, third, fewer opportunities for socialization with other

men were now available, as more time is spent now at home than in

bars with male drinking companions. Thus, Gordon suggests that

economic opportunity for both Dominican men and women is one

factor leading to a reduction in drunken aggressiveness. As a

footnote, it is instructive to mention Gordon's (in press) findings

concerning Guatemalan immigrants. Guatemalan men do not give up the macho image. Unlike Dominican men, 33 percent of

Guatemalan men drink heavily. For Guatemalan men, weekends

are a timeout for heavy drinking and carousing. Why this

difference between Dominican and Guatemalan men? A number of

factors strike Gordon as relevant. Guatemalan men come alone to

the United States. They hope to bring their families later. And, they drink mostly in bars with other men. Thus, it may well be that the

desire or need for economic security among Guatemalan men is not as great as among the Dominican men and women who have

families to support.

These studies (Gordon 1978, in press; Robbins 1979) indicate that anomie theory constitutes one viable explanation for ethnic

patterns of drunken aggressiveness. However, anomie theory is not

without its critics, especially in regard to Native American

drinking patterns (Leland 1981; Levy and Kunitz 1974; Lurie

1971). In regard to these critiques, it is important to note that

anomie theory in no way precludes the likely possibility that

cultural variables influence the nature and context of alcoholrelated aggressive behavior (see Heath 1980 for a review of the

sociocultural model). For example, Jessor et al. (1970) contrast

American with Italian youth and show that cultural meanings

associated with alcohol use mediate the relationship between

personality variables and drinking patterns.

Alcohol Use and Aggression Among Youth

Perhaps no topic in alcohol studies has drawn as much interest as

drinking among youth. In their comprehensive review of the

literature for 1960 to 1975, Blane and Hewitt (1977) cite more than

1,000 studies and discussions about alcohol use among youth. Most

of these studies pertain to youth in the United States. What is meant
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 313

by "youth" varies from study to study, with most investigators

setting a maximum of 24 years of age or younger as the upper limit

for the youth category. Within this age framework, researchers

have reported on the drinking patterns of high school and college

students, youth in military service, juvenile delinquents, youth

gangs, school dropouts, and employed youth.

With regard to the relationship between alcohol use and

aggressive behavior, these studies provide fairly consistent results.

Aggressive behavior in a variety of forms and directed at a variety

of targets is often associated with alcohol use by all categories of

male youth. Although there are social class, regional, ethnic,

religious, and community variations (Marden and Kolodner n.d.), it

appears that youth exhibit more alcohol-related aggression than do

older people. Cahalan and Cisin (1976) use national survey data to

comp...re rates of alcohol-related aggression in American men aged

from 21 to 59 years. They find the highest rates of belligerence

following drinking among 21- to 24-year-olds. Fifteen percent of

these men report belligerent behavior following drinking, as

compared to 12 percent of the 25- to 29-year-olds, 10 percent of the

30- to 34-year-olds, and less than 10 percent for the 35- to 59-yearolds. Similar findings are reported for Army and Navy personnel

(Cahalan and Cisin 1975; Cahalan et al. 1972). These survey data show the drinking patterns of these younger men to be

characterized by binge drinking, a drinking pattern often

associated with aggressive behavior.

This general pattern reported by Cahalan and Cisin is supported

by other sample survey research with youth populations. In an

often-cited study, Globetti (1978) surveyed the drinking behavior of

275 high school students in a small Mississippi community. He

found that 75 percent of the drinkers, as compared to 25 percent of

the nondrinkers, rated high on a deviant behavior index which

includes measures of fighting, damaging property, and speeding.

Wechsler (1979) and his associates surveyed the drinking practices

of 10,500 male and female undergraduates at 34 colleges in five

New England States. Twenty and one-half percent of the males but

only about 2 percent of the females reported fighting after

drinking. Mandell and Ginzberg's (1976) survey of student

drinking in New York State shows that both occasional and regular

drinkers were more often involved in fights, property destruction,

and auto accidents than nondrinkers. And, Jessor and Jessor's

(1973) longitudinal study of high school drinking also shows more

deviant behavior by drinkers than nondrinkers. As regards

drinking behavior in youth gangs, there is some evidence that

aggressive behavior is often linked with alcohol use (Miller et al.

1968; Tinklenberg and Woodrow 1974).

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314 LEVINSON

Blane (1979) provides additional, indirect evidence for the

alcohol-aggression linkage among youth. He presents data for the

incidence of a number of social problem behaviors that are linked

with alcohol use and reports that men and women aged 18 to 24 are

more often involved in these problem areas than those aged 35 to 54.

Younger people have higher rates of disorderly conduct,

vandalism, serious crimes against persons, assault, rape, sex

offenses, accident mortality, and motor accident fatalities than

older people. This evidence is indirect because, as Blane (1979)

notes, no evidence is presented linking these higher rates to alcohol

use.

Studies of alcohol-related aggression among youth classified as

juvenile delinquents provide equally striking results. These studies

regularly show high rates of alcohol-related aggression (30 to 50 or

more percent of all incidents), and more alcohol-related violence

among delinquents than among nondelinquents (Cockerham 1975;

Demone 1966; MacKay et al. 1967; Pearce and Garrett 1970;

Schonfield 1966/67; Widseth and Mayer 1971; among others). In

regard to these findings, and those cited above related to

nondelinquents, it is important to note that youth who are often

aggressive or deviant while drinking tend also to be aggressive or

deviant when not drinking (Jessor and Jessor 1973; Mandell and

Ginzberg 1976).

A different approach to youth drinking is provided by Burns

(1980) in his ethnographic account of an evening spent drinking and

carousing with four young men from the Charlestown section of

Boston. Burns' account is especially illuminating for three reasons.

First, it details the variety of aggressive behaviors which may be

associated with alcohol use. In about 6 hours of drinking in bars,

Burns lists 17 aggressive acts he and his companions were involved

in: loud conversation, good-natured wrestling, piling into a car,

speeding, verbal boasting, verbal threatening, raucous comments,

verbal disparagement, being rowdy, yelling, screaming, arguing,

putting a fist through a store window, fighting, bottle crashing,

threatening with a gun, and sexual aggressiveness.

Second, Burns shows how the drinking setting influences the

behaviors associated with drinking. In the "Mom and Pop"

community bar, the men were quiet and deferential in their

dealings with older members of the Charlestown community. But,

in Boston's downtown "combat zone" an area designated for

"adult ;entertainment," they exhibited their rowdiest behavior,

getting involved in a loud argument, a fight involving a gun, and a

run-in with the police. Burns suggests that one of the major

32 9
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 315

purposes of drinking that evening was to give the young

Charlestown men an excuse to get rowdy and to prove their

masculinity. However, since rowdiness was unacceptable behavior

within the community, the men went to the "combat zone," where

rowdiness and other deviant behaviors are more acceptable.

Third, Burns' account suggests that the level of violence associated with alcohol use is related to the amount of alcohol consumed.

The Charlestown men were most rowdy and aggressive at the end of

the evening, after each man had drunk at least a dozen beers.

Evidence from other studies also suggests that the amount of alcohol consumed is related to the level of aggressive behavior during

and after drinking. Graham and her team (1980) spent 3 months

observing the behavior of patrons in drinking establishments in

Vancouver, British Columbia. They found a strong relationship

between level of aggression (physical and verbal) and degree of

sobriety. They report correlations between sobriety and aggression

of -.41, between slight insobriety and aggression of .28, and between

extreme insobriety and aggression of .42. And, Gerson and Preston

(1979) report a significant positive relationship between the incidence of violent crime and the amount of alcohol purchased at

drinking establishments in a section of Ontario. Thus, there seems

to be some general relationship between amount consumed and

level of aggressiveness.

Although these three studies show an association between

amount consumed and level of aggression, they say nothing about

causal direction. Two interpretations are possible. First, that alcohol has the physiological effect of causing aggressive behavior

the more one consumes, the more aggressive one acts. Second, some

people, like Burns' Charlestown companions, consume alcohol in

order to be aggressive, and the more they consume the more aggressive they act.

There is no shortage of explanations for youth drinking patterns.

Among the better known are Jessor's deviant behavior model (Jessor et al. 1968). Zucker's family relations theory (Zucker and Devoe

1975), peer pressure theory, the parental emulation model (Mandell

et al. 1962), the anticipatory socialization model (Maddox and

McCall 1964), and power-motivation theory (Boyatzis 1976;

McClelland et al. 1972). In terms of subcultural patterns of alcoholrelated aggression, McClelland's power-motivation theory is the

most significant theory, as it claims to account for all of male

drinking behavior. Power-motivation theory suggests that men

drink to feel more powerful. McClelland distinguishes between

social power and personal power. Social power is power used to

achieve legitimate social goals. Personal power is individual

330
316 LEVINSON

aggression to achieve individual needs. Problem drinking, social

consequences associated with drinking, and aggressive drinking

occur when men see themselves as lacking power in cultures where

personal power is valued. Men in these cultures drink excessively or

become aggressive while drinking to feel more powerful. McClelland and his associates have presented an impressive body of experimental and psychometric research results in support of

power-motivation theory. However, the results of their crosscultural research are less convincing, especially in regard to their

use of questionable folktale theme measures. Schaefer (1973),

whose doctoral dissertation is the most rigorous cross-cultural test

of a number of alcoholism theories, suggests that power-motivation

theory cars be viewed as a restatement of anxiety-reduction theory.

Men drink to reduce anxiety, perhaps resulting from feeling powerless, but also resulting from other factors such as loose social

structure, or unmet dependency needs.

Conclusions

This paper had two main purposes: (1) to review research on

subcultural patterns of alcohol-related aggressive behavior; and (2)

to discuss theories relevant to these subcultural patterns of alcoholrelated aggression. Recent research reports reviewed here indicate

clearly identifiable subcultural patterns of alcohol-related aggression within the United States. Youth exhibit more alcohol-related

aggression than older people, Southerners exhibit more than people from other regions, and some ethnic groups exhibit more than

other ethnic groups or the general American population. Although

not discussed here, some of these studies also suggest social class

and sex differences in the relationship between alcohol use and

aggressive behavior.

A large number of theories, theoretical models, and hypotheses

seem potentially relevant to the question of why high rates of

aggressive behavior are associated with some subcultural groups

but not with other groups. Among the better known are the drive

discharge model, the Finnish drinking hypothesis, the Southern

subculture of lethal violence hypothesis, the subculture of violence

model, anomie theory, power-motivation theory, and a variety of

explanations for drinking among youth. Also relevant are the masculine protest hypothesis (Straus 1977) and the frustrationaggression model. None of these theories have been tested in terms

of their applicability to subcultural patternsof aggressive drinking

behavior, although there is some indirect evidence for anomie the331
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 317

ory, at least in relation to subcultural groups who have recently

migrated in search of economic gain. Tests without the alcoholaggression linkage in mind question the trustworthiness of the

drive discharge and Southern subculture of violence theories.

What all of this suggests is that there is a pressing need for more

research on alcohol-related aggression in American subcultures.

First, we need more studies of subcultures both with and without

alcohol-related aggression in order to provide a broader comparative framework. We also need a better understanding of the perception of and role of alcohol-related aggression in American society in

general. For example, do office Christmas parties represent an

institutionalized, ritualized interaction that requires the use of

alcohol to allow the venting of aggressive feelings? Third,we need

more research on how members of subcultures that stress alcoholrelated aggression behave in different social contexts. Burns(1980)

suggests that social context is a key determinant of how and when

alcohol use is associated with aggressive behavior. Fourth, we need

a consideration of cross-subcultural patterns of alcohol-related

aggression. There is some evidence, for example, of an interaction

between age and regional effects on alcohol-related aggression. Fifth, we need more ethnographic accounts that describe the

dynamics and processes of alcohol-related aggression. And, last, we

need more accounts that describe alcohol use and aggressive behavior in terms of what it means to drink or to be drunk or to be

aggressive in the culture being studied.

It seems appropriate to close with a brief story which brings the

matter of subcultural variations in alcohol-related aggression

closer to home. A few years ago the New York Times printed a story

on a hotel manager's experiences with members of scholarly associations whose annual meetings had convened at his hotel. He thought

the anthropologists were just fine. They drank heavily in the hotel

bars, went to their rooms, and went to sleep. The psychologists,

however, could take their business elsewhere. They also drank

heavily, but rather than going quietly to sleep, they became loud, argumentative, and rowdy.

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336
Presenter's Comments

ROOM: One of our searches, when we were prospecting the

parts of the territory that we didn't know how to handle for the

conference, was for someone who could take on a very diverse set of

literatures which seemed to us to havesome relevance in the discussion of drinking and disinhibition. This is the set of literatures that

very often talk about drinking only incidentally in the course of

discussing a lot of other matters, but which are dealing in or,e way

or another with subcultural groups within American society. Our

focus is on the variation within American society, what we can find

out from existing literatures about the variation among subgroups

in American society. The choice that we arrived at from a couple of

different directions was David Levinson, who is curently associated

with Yale University, with the Human Relations Area Files.

LEVINSON: In pulling this paper together, I did a number of

things. First, I tried to look at a variety of materials representing a variety of disciplines; and, second, I glossed over a number of

important methodological/conceptual issues. I didn't worry about what a subculture is or even what a culture is. I took that for

granted, just to have some sort of generalization and go with that. Then what I did was look at the literature that was there. I found

that in general the literature on the relationship between alcohol

and diL inhibition tended to focus mostly on aggressive behavior, so I

limited my search to aggressive behavior. I didn't look at sociability or such other things.

Then I further limited my focus to three subgroups or subcultural groups in the United States: the South as compared to

the rest of the country; ethnic groups, the idea that certain ethnic

groups show stronger patterns of alcohol-related aggression than

others; and youth, that is, generally, men under the age of twentyfour as compared to people over the age of twenty-four. I reviewed

the evidence there was suggesting that there is a link between

alcohol use and aggressive behavior in these groups, evidence which comes from a number of sources. The evidence was sufficient

to suggest that there is some sort of alcohol/aggression pattern in these three particular groups. I didn't look at social class

differences, although there's some evidence that alcohol and

aggression are tied together differently in different social classes.

322

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ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 323

also made an effort to throw out some theories and hypotheses

that would account for differences among subgroups apropos the

relationship between alcohol use and aggressive behavior. I looked

at two kinds of hypotheses, the first beingone that would apply to a

specific group. For example, for the South, I focused on the

Southern subculture of lethal violence hypothesis, which is an idea

that has some popularity in sociology, although it's probably close to

entirely incorrect.

That's an example of an hypothesis that appliesto one culture or

one subcultural pattern. I also looked at some more general hypotheses; for example, I mentioned McClelland's (1972) power motivation theory, the idea that men especially drink and perhaps drink aggressively to feel more powerful, which could plausibly be argued as the explanation for aggression being tied to alcohol use in

a wide range of cultures or subcultures.

And finally, Robin Room wrote me a letter and mentioned an

article by a Tom Burns (1980), called "Getting Rowdy with the Boys," which struck me as probably the most important piece of

literature that I looked at, and it's important not for its theoretical

or conceptual analysis but for a three- or four-page account of a

night out drinking with four or six young men in Boston. They were

drinking beer. That's all they drank at night. All of the men except Burns were aged 18-21. And he just went out drinking with them

for a night and told what happened. I found it especially important in terms of ersinhibition for three reasons. First, it shows the

variety of aggressive behaviors that can accompany alcohol use. I went through his account and found seventeen different acts that

could be considered aggressive behavior, ranging from boasting in

a bar to getting into a fight which involved a gun a tremendous

variety of aggressive acts is associated with alcohol use.

Second, I was struck by what Burns seemed to be suggesting: the

influence of social settingon the kind of aggressive behaviors tied to

the drinking. For example, they started the evening after a baseball or softball game drinking at a "Mom and Pop" tavern.

Somehow they wound up in the wrong part of the bar, in the family

section, and they were clearly out of place and uncomfortable. They

talked quietly; they were deferential to the woman who ran the

place and to other people from the community; and they also seemed

to want to get out of there as quickly as they could. By the end ofthe

evening, at the other extreme, they decided to move down to what's

called the "Combat Zone" in Boston, the red light district, an area where all kinds of deviant acts are allowed to go on. There they got into a number of fights, the last one involving a gun in a bar and the police. The contrast between these two different settings was

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324 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

dramatic, the one setting at the "Mom and Pop" bar where they

knew to control their behavior they couldn't become violent or get

out of control; as a matter of fact, they became inhibited in their

behavior and the other in the "Combat Zone," where they were

out of control.

And the third thing that struck me from Burns' account was that

he suggested a kind of escalation pattern: as the evening went on,

things got more violent, more aggressive, more out of control. He's

not the only one to suggest that. It's supported by some recent

studies of bar behavior, some of them published and some I've heard

about that aren't published, which suggest a strong relationship

between the amount one drinks and the amount of violence that

occurs. Now, I'm not saying there's a direct causal link, but the two

do seem to go together.

I do want to say a word about one of the theories I talked about,

which is what I called the anomie theory and which has been

mentioned two or three times here. It's the idea that certain

subcultural groups or ethnic groups, when they don't have access to

certain economic goals which they seek, tend to act in deviant ways.

I was struck by a study by Gordon in New England (1978) which

speaks to one of the problems in explaining ethnic differences in

drunken comportment. He found that the behavior of male

Dominican immigrants in Rhode Island was very different from

that in the Dominican Republic. I understand he gathered the

Dominican Republic data by asking people how they drank there

I don't think he was actually there. In-the Dominican Republic,

male drinking was what he called "macho" drinking: part of the

male definition was to go out and get drunk and get rowdy, and beat

people up, and get beat up and so forth. But all that changed when

they moved to Rhode Island the whole male image shifted over. It

no longer was considered the male role to go out and get drunk and

get in fights and become rowdy every weekend. Instead, the male

role was to get a job, earn money, save money, support the family,

put the money in the bank, buy a house. Accompanying that was a

total change in male drinking behavior. Gordon also cited some

other factors that seemed to have an effect, but I think the basic

point is that, especially in terms of ethnic patterns, while drinking

behaviors change very easily from setting to setting, they also

change over time.

To sum up, there's an awful lot of stuff on subcultural drinking

patterns. Most of it doesn't look very clearly at the disinhibition

idea, and I had to work awfully hard to get even just the aggressive

stuff out. But there's an awful lot of room for more research,

although I think part of the problem with doing more research is

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ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 325

where I started my talk: What are the boundaries of a subculture in

a pluralistic society? I started out as an urban anthropologist, but

no one ever answered that question for me.

34 0
Commentary

Troy Duster

Several years ago, I did some work that I thought was on the

sociology of law, and when I finished it, I had a friend, Howie

Becker, read it, and he said, "Welcome to the drug circuit" And I

said, "But, Howie, just because I used heroin to illuminate social

power and connections, there's no reason to call me a drug

specialist." He said, "Welcome to the drug circuit."

Now, Robin Room knows I'm on the drug circuit, so I was

surprised when he asked me to come to the alcohol circuit, and my

comments may indicate the nature of my lack of expertise. I'm

happy to report, however, that in conversation about Nineteenth

Century drug use, we have the same kind of wide ranging,

variegated discussions about soothing syrups and morphine as you

had in the last session this morning; and that is, lots of accounts of

what people were using from about ten different perspectives.

There is no consensus in the literature among colleagues in the

history of drugs about how powerful an influence these soothing

syrups were on people's behavior. But, interestingly enough, a

great contrast with alcohol is with this notion of accounts: :3U

rarely get accounts of morphine and soothing syrups explaining

behavior in the last part of the Nineteenth Century.

Now, in Robin's opening remarks yesterday morning, he

indicated that the group had decided disinhibition was a better way

to go instead of violence because it widens theoretical discussion;

and in keeping with that and because I don't know that much about

alcohol research, I'm going to contrast two approaches to this

general subject matter and argue in favor of one approach. And the

one I want to champion is perhaps best captured by the following

phrase: "Alcohol is to social science what dye is to microscopy." That

is, the notion of using colored dye to illuminate cell life in

microscopy. The argument is that what this dye does is to show up

certain kinds of fundamental features of the structures of the cell,

and I propose that we can probably use alcohol the same way to

penetrate the structure of social life. Imagine for a moment a giant

slide of the American class structure. Now imagine that alcohol is a

:326

341
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 327

blue dye that penetrates different groups.at different speeds and

with different effects, that other dyes can be constructed: say red

for marijuana, green for heroin, and so forth. That is, you can

conceptualize a slide with a little bit of imagination, which would

represent different colorations of the American class structure,

different ethnic/racial groups, different age groups, and it would

be a multi-colored many-splendored thing. At different points in

our history, that slide would shift its contours, its coloration; as

Harry Levine was pointing out yesterday, the location of the dyes

would be different from group to group and time to time.

Now, from a pharmacological or physiological perspective, the

penetration of alcohol into the cell life of an individual and its

effects upon behavior are extremely interesting that was

demonstrated again yesterday morning. Likewise, from an

anthropological perspective, or the perspective of the social analyst

trying to come up with interesting theoretical formulations about

features of alcohol use, it seems to me one could argue persuasively

that this alcohol, this blue dye, illuminates certain features of social

life as it moves throughout the structure. While not denying the

importance of physiological/pharmacological effects of alcohol, I'm

arguing [instead] from a perspective on utility of studies of alcohol

as a social analyst.

Mr. Levinson's paper is a very well-crafted survey of what we

know about alcoholism and aggression. As he indicated, he took

region of the country, age grouping, and ethnicity. He examines

alternative behavioral theories on consumption patterns and

aggression among youth, Southerners, and ethnic groups. On this matter I have very little to add. There's an extraordinarily wide

range of studies that he cites, and I think the summaries are well

done.

However, I do want to raise some complementary study

questions, emphasizing a different approach to these studies. In

order to bring some greater conceptual clarity to the point I want to

make, I want to draw a parallel to some otherareas. The first would

be the distribution of homicides in the social structure. Now, blacks

are only about 12 percent of the population of the country, but they

commit about 60 percent of the murders known to police and

reported. We could, then, probably raise the question: Why do

blacks commit so many murders? Is there something in black

culture which inclines blacks to aggression? Something about

poverty or economic circumstance? By the way, with reference to

Mr. Levinson's paper, homicide, of course, is unevenly distributed

by region of the country, and the South is where most homicides

have occurred historically and, indeed blacks account for the

342
328 DUSTER: COMMENTARY

greatest bulk of that, if you read the definition of homicide the way

it's done by the police and crime reports.

Just to give you a sharp contrast, then, with thi, notion of

homicide being distributed within the structure of social life, the

homicide rate for black males is approximately 40 per 100,000,

while for black females it is 1 per 100,000. So, I want to try to

demonstrate what I mean when I say it matters very much when

you ask the question: Why does one category kill more than another?

Why does the category called black males kill more? Why is it black

females kill so little?

That's occupied people in the literature for some time. Indeed,

there were chemical and genetic theories of black homicide. And

the anthropologist Paul Bohannon went to Africa and did some

studies of subSaharan tribes included in a book called African

Homicide and Suicide (1967), concluding that there was neither a

genetic nor an easy cultural explanation for rates of homicides in

this country among blacks. There were some tribes in subSaharan

Africa where it was virtually nonexistent.

But if we leave now the question of "Why do blacks commit so

much homicide?" and raise a question of different order, that is, if

we leave now the question of the actual explanation of why the act's

committed and move to the distribution that it illuminates, we may

get a different picture of the nature of the social relationships in

society.

Let's take the simple question of: Who kills who? Ninety-four

percent of all murders are of the same race as the victim. That is,

when blacks kill, they kill other blacks, typically; when whites kill,

they kill other whites; Hispanics kill Hispanics and so forth. Sixtyfour percent of all murders are of the same sex as the victim. And

now the interesting illumination about relationships: eighty-seven

percent of all female victims are slain by men; eighty-four percent

of all female murderers kill males. That is, while the women don't

kill very much, when they do, they kill men. And further, in almost

half the cases where there is a woman who kills a man, it is her

husband. Suddenly, the illumination of social relationships comes

fr3m the account of the nature of the act and its location (in the

social order) as opposed to the account which would be given of

"Why do people kill each other?"

My next example comes from the area of the distribution of

mental illness, and my ethnic variation here focuses on Chinese

Americans. Chinese-Americans have one of the lowest reported

rates of mental illness, and the literature is replete with accounts of

possible explanations of why this is the case. Why are there so few

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ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 329

Chinese in the mental hospitals? Because they're more emotionally

stable? Is it genetic, chemical, cultural? And so forth.

Let us ask instead the type of question: What does the distribution

of mental illness tell us about the relationship between ChineseAmericans and European-Americans or internally among

themselves? It leads someone like Ben Tong (1971) to conclude that

there's something deeply resonant in much of Chinese culture

called "taking care of one's own," and that one would never want to

reveal (if one were part of the family) that one couldn't handle a

problem. The problem is not conceptualized as mental illness, and if

it is seen as a disturbance, the last thing you do is go to an agency of

the state.

Let me give you another example from my own work with heroin.

As you know, for many years now, people of color have dominated

the heroin scene who uses, who gets addicted and this is

especially true for blacks in the northeast, and in many cities in the

midwest, and in Southern California for Hispanics or Chicanos.

And the theories in sociology journals seem to address the question

of: Why do those people get addicted to heroin? The theoretical

formulation is to try to give explanations of why people of color

began using heroin, let's say, in the middle and late part of the

Twentieth Century. And some of the prominent theories, based

upon the economic conditions of Hispanics and blacks, were that it

had to do with the culture of poverty, the natural depression of

people who are in these circumstances, and so forth. Living in

Harlem and Los Angeles in poverty is tough, the desire for escape is

great, and, so the theory goes, therefore heroin abuse.

In the mid '70s I was asked to consult the German government on

the question of why heroin addiction was such a big problem in

Germany and to give the current prevailing' American theories

some application. However, it turns out that those who were

addicted to heroin in Germany in the early '70s and in the middle

'70s were the children of middle class, successful Germans. They

were not the guest workers from Turkey, Yugoslavia, Italy; they

were not the few unemployed in Germany; they were not the

working class; they were the children of the middle class. So, an

attempt to give an account, a theoretical formulation of why people

take heroin in this country has little application when you take it

over to Germany. That doesn't mean that you can't explain it; but it

does mean that as we said yesterday in several of the comments

you can't go very far with it across cultures, across classes, and

possibly across groups.

Mr. Levinson's paper quotes Slane and Hewitt to the effect that

there have been over a thousand studies of drinking and youth. And

3 44
330 DUSTER: COMMENTARY

my guess is that this literature is dominated by the question: Why

do youth 'ink the way they drink and why are they so aggressive?

And that's fair enough. But there are other questions which get

raised if we ask: When you drink and get aggressive, what elements

of social life are thereby illuminated?

When people drink or give accounts, they do it for infinite

numbers of reasons. As you look from group to group, culture to

culture, or subculture to subculture, you will probably find an

extraordinary variation in what people say are their reasons for

consuming alcohol. Many years ago, Martin Nicolaus (1969) gave a

talk at the American Sociological Association this was back in

the '60s, and it was angry language and what he said was

sociologists and anthropologists spend a lot of their time looking

with their eyes down and their hands up; that is, they spend a lot of

their time looking at people at the base of the structure, observing

their behavior, giving an account, and their hands are up; that is,

the hands are out, taking from the coffers of either the federal

government even though that miv be closed soon or the

foundation. And he enjoined people, he said, "Well, why don't you

take your eyes up and put your hands down; that is, why don't you

spend most of your time looking at those groups, at those persons

with positions of power in the culture, seeing what their subcultural

pattern variations are, and then explaining to the base of the

structure what's going on?

Now, quite seriously, it may be worthwhile to take a look at the

drinking patterns of well-established, well-to-do people, and see

what the combination of behaviors are, and what kinds of

illumination of the social order emerge. When does this subculture

or upper culture, whatever the term would be, consume alcohol?

This is not a plea that we abandon research on groups at the base of

the structure, but that studies of alcoholism and other areas of

deviance might well allow us to illuminate the structure better if we

see what happens when powerful, privileged bankers at Chase

Manhattan consume, and then talk about their configuration of

activity as they go through this process of disinhibition.

3 4 rt)
Commentary

Denise Herd

ROOM: I asked Denise Herd to talk a little about some

ethnographic work sometime in the course of this discussion.

DENISE HERD: True to form, as an anthropologist, my eyes

are down, but as a graduate student, my hands are down, too.

However, I think one of the values of anthropology is that it does

bring in a sense of what the everyday reality is like, which adds an

important dimension to some of the things we've been talking about

in a very abstract manner. Anthropology can tell you a little bit

about how everyday people see their reality. Related to this is the

role of anthropology in exploring and exposing the cultural

interiors of various groups and showing their reality as they see it.

In the kind of society that we live in today, a multi-ethnic society,

one often runs the risk of having one group's stereotypes of another

group's behavior being interpreted as the actuality or reality of the

latter's experience.

I think the issue of black drinking is a particularly illuminating

example of this phenomenon. On the one hand, blacks are perceived

by other sectors of the society to be very vulnerable to the powers of

alcohol and to have difficulty controlling their responses to liquor.

Historically, the stereotypes of blacks suggested that while sober

they were docile, obedient, and industrious people, but as soon as

they drank, they became violent, aggressive, and sexually crazed.

Our modern images may not be this blunt, but they also suggest

that blacks and alcohol are a very explosive combination.

In contrast to the kinds of images the dominant culture has of

black culture, you get a very different perspective when you talk to

blacks themselves not only about how they regard their own

behavior but also about how they regard behavior of non-blacks,

particularly of whites.

In the study that I was involved in, we explored informants'

perceptions of the differences between all black social settings

where drinking was going on and their experience in interracial or

predominantly white social settings. As the black informants that

we talked to compared these kinds of drinking settings, they stated

1 346
332 HERD: COMMENTARY

overwhelmingly in two-thirds of the cases that in their belief

whites were heavier drinkers, and that when whites started

drinking they were inclined to be a lot more obnoxious and sexually

looser than blacks expected in comparable black events. It's

important to note that I'm not talking about middle class blacks

who might visit a lower class white bar. More typically, middle

class blacks described their experiences at middle class white

parties. So, there is some kind of comparability in class position.

Here are a couple of examples of those kinds of perceptions. The

following statement was made by a young woman regarding how

whites behave when drinking.

They act the fool, they get drunk, and they just get

outrageous, they just get obnoxious, and they drink and

drink and drink. They drink basic gin, bourbon, scotch,

whatever, but they drink and they always have plenty of

alcohol. They don't run out.

Then, she further elaborates on the differences in drinking styles

between white and black social occasions:

You go to a black party, oftentimes they run out. Black

people don't tend to change as much when they drink as

I've seen white people change. I've seen white people

carry it to the extreme. The type of parties I go to with

white people, like a Christmas office party, they just go

all out. They just get out there, I mean, they got smashed

and they just started acting crazier and crazier.

Here's another example:

At non-black parties, or if it were at an all white party,

they drink more than black parties. At black parties you

do find drinking, but you find people drinking and

controlling themselves in a more friendly manner;

whereas my sister went to the Oakland Hills: people were

getting drunk and taking their clothes off and jumping

into the pool. This was a mostly white party. There were

some blacks there; there were several couples. And they

were just shocked because you're thinking, 'Well, I'm

going to go to this party that's up in the hills, it's going to

be really nice, it's got a nice layout and the best liquor

that you can get.' But people were going overboard with

the liquor in the sense that they were doing it. I think

there is a difference between a black party and various

other racial parties.

A closely related assumption that was held by blacks suggested

that whites are generally inhibited and restrained when they aren't

drinking, and then alcohol is needed to relax and loosen them up to

341
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 333

what blacks perceive is a normal level of sociability. Blacks felt that whites change very dramatically from the non-drinking to the drinking state. Another woman said:

I think both groups drink to relieve pressure or as a result of pressure, but I think white people will drink more to

alter their personality and make them feel relaxed in

social settings than black people will. I think black

people can be . .. in a social setting, [and] it's obviousmost

of the time that you're there because you want to be; you don't really have to force yourself into a positive frame of mind. But whites don't really feel at home with

themselves or around a lot of their friends, so they have to get loosened up at parties.

In general, blacks saw themselves as being more down-to-earth,

more expressive, and more at ease socially than white persons across both drinking and non-drinking states. Some blacksfelt that

because of these tendencies, they were apt to interact more in

settings when they were drinking. Although liquor was recognized

and valued as an asset in sociability, blacks felt that drinking

should not negatively alter social behavior and the rules of social

decorum. A lot of people talked about the pressures that they felt to

remain cool and in control while at a party because these are viewed

as an important aspect of positive self-presentation, particularly in male/female interaction. So, a lot of value is attached to being able

to handle one's liquor and not show very many signs of physical or behavioral disturbance from drinking.

In contrast to their perceptions ofwhite parties as being loose and wild occasions where anything goes, blacks describe their own

social events as incorporating a lot of expressive behavior, such as dance and music, but still as being highly controlled and highly

patterned, to the point of being ritualistic and predictable. In fact, that was the occasion for some informants to criticize black parties as being too routine and uptight, while they saw whites as being more open to experimentation in allowing "time out" behavior. The

following sentiments are expressed in the response of a male

informant and reveal what seem to be differences between males

and females. in that men preferred interracial or non-black parties because they provided a broader arena for sexual exploration. While at black parties. people are more into the fashion

world, being cool, and everything has to be just right; whereas at white parties they're loose, anything goes, I mean, reach out and they're loose. Whereas at a black

party you can't do that because people are too tense.

Say like at a white party, you see three or four women,

348
334 HERD: COMMENTARY

you go and try to talk to them, they accept it; it's all right.

But you try that at a black party, and there's no way it's

going to get over: you're tacky, you're low class, low key.

So, there's quite a difference.

Some of the other differences that people talked about with

respect to white and black parties were that there were favorab.....

socioeconomic differences between the two. They saw whites as

being classier, as more often having catered affairs, and having

better food, better alcohol, and oftentimes providing an opportunity

for mixing with different kinds of people in different social strata.

Another major theme that emerged from people's discussions of

social events was the importance of the environment. In discussing

the behavior of one group in another racial setting, people were

very sensitive to the fact that if a black person was in a white setting

it would affect the quality of social interaction, and he was likely to

be more inhibited and restrained than when in an all black

environment. Similarly, respondents felt that whites would act

more naturally in their own social settings than in interracial or

predominantly black environments.

Informants also talked about how they modulated their own

behavior with respect to particular social contexts. An intimate

social setting, where one is drinking with relatives at home, is an

occasion where one is likely to drink much more than at a semiprivate dance or party. People were very conscious of how much to

drink and how much they were going to let their hair down. Here's

one guy that spoke pretty cogently to that. He says:

I like to drink at parties where I know everybody else. I

don't like to drink at a really big party.

In response to my question, "Why is that?" he said:

I like to be in more control. When I drink, I thirk I'm

under less control and less in tune with what's happening

around me. When you drink your senses are dull, at least

mine are when I drink. So, I like to be more in touch with

what's happening when I'm at a big party or in a big

crowd of people. And I hardly ever smoke at a big party.

"Smoking" refers to using marijuana.

I smoke in small crowds or at home, and I try not to smoke

when I go out and stuff like that, when I'm on the street,

because I like to feel I feel it definitely hinders my

sense of control to a certain extent.

The whole emphasis on control came up over and over again;

respondents continually talked about how they deliberately drink

very little in a bar or at a public kind of event. One gets the feeling

that a drink is used as a prop to signal a certain level of social

349
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 335

ambience, but not necessarily to get high or drunk. You go to a

dance; you're going to go to talk to a woman; you're going to go to

play a game; you're going to go to show off your new clothes; you're

not going to go to get smashed to the gills and lose your sense of cool.

I think the emphasis on restraint and the very conscious manner

in which people talked about shifting their drinking styles and

comportment are tied into a cultural complex in which individuals

attributed a lot more importance to the psychological state of the

drinker and to the social dimensions of drinking than they did to the

inherent powers of alcohol as a substance. This belief came out in

several different ways. First of all, informants recognized that

alcohol has variable properties, that it has both medicinal and

healing as well as destructive characteristics. Because of that,

respondents tended to believe that the effects of alcohol are highly

variable according to the mood of the drinker before he starts

drinking and even according to the type of beverage that's drunk.

Here's a really good example of this. This guy is talking about

how he feels when he drinks different alcoholic beverages:

I get different reactions. I've noticed that really fine

brandy, such as, like most people say expensive cognac

I kind of take on a personality like the price says. It kind

of puts me into a different class where I'm just, oh, real

moderate, real calm, cool, low-keyed, everything is all

right, and I have an answer to everything; whereas if I

was drinking gin, I kind of get overly sexy, more

aggressive, more outgoing, and I do things sometimes

that I might be embarrassed the next day. Sometimes

when I drink wine well, it's mostly like playing games:

dominoes, backgammon and chess it's more or less a

conversational drink I can talk with. And if I'm drinking

beer, more or less it's just something to do out of boredom,

plain boredom, just something to do.

He goes on to say how he chooses his drink according to his mood for

the day. Although most people I talked with were not this elaborate

in discussing the relationship between their moods and drinking,

others referred to the concept of drinking "well." Drinking "well"

means being able to maintain a positive social disposition while

under the influence not to become a crying. neurotic or obnoxious

drunk. Hence, it is inadvisable to drink with people that already

have problems before they start drinking because these problems

are likely to worsen as they drink.

In terms of the different kinds of effects that alcohol can impart,

individuals recognize the physical changes that occur in motor

behavior, such as loud or slurred speech and loss of coordination.

350
336 HERD: COMMENTARY

They also described the positive effects that Ron mentioned and the

functions that alcohol fills: to liven up a social setting or relax

people or signal festive social behavior. And they talked about

getting drunk: while drunkenness wasn't seen as an abnormal

state, it was viewed pretty unfavorably because it was associated

with a lack of social control that would lead to disruptive and

problematic social behavior as well as to sickness and hangovers.

Although informants recognized that drinking affects physical

capacity and emotional disposition, the feeling that comes out of the

interview data is that blacks appear to show little tolerance for

extreme personality changes or antisocial behavior in the drinker.

People are believed to be able to be in control and responsible for

their own behavior while they're drinking. Social norms permit

persons to drink as much as they can handle, and either one controls

oneself while drinking a lot of alcohol, or it's a person's responsibility not to drink to the point of losing self-control. I think there's a

bridge here between recognizing that alcohol does have certain

pharmacological properties, but on the other hand, feeling it's the

responsibility of the drinker to monitor his drinking so that he does

not get out of control.

On the same note, the only times I got descriptions of really severe

kinds of personality changes or of alcohol as a very powerful disinhibitor by itself was from individuals who had a problem-drinking

history. They were the kind of people who talked about a Dr.

Jekyll/Mr. Hyde kind of transformation, or felt that alcohol will

ruin and kill a person. Other people didn't talk about this kind of

thing at all, or they just described much milder side effects of

drinking.

On an interpretive note, this kind of cultural complex which

emphasizes a lot of restraint and gives a lot more consideration to

the social factors involving alcohol effects is tied into prevailing

norms which emphasize external social control of one's behavior

and the willfulness of the drinker in being able to do either one of

two things: either buffer the pharmacological effects of alcohol, or

control the amount of liquor that's consumed.

This kind of difference is even carried over into the treatment

personnel. Part of the study (Borker 1980) involved interviewing

black and white treatment providers, and the following section I'm

going to read is taken from the report. In general, black and white

providers saw loss of control quite ,:ifferently. The white treatment

providers defined loss of control in terms of addiction, whereas the

black treatment providers define' ;+ in terms of social control and

control of the person over his own behavior.

Black providers tend to reject, as do residents, the view

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ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 337

that drinking makes one act in ways in which one would not act when sober or, more exactly, that drinking somehow makes the behavior acceptable or less problematic. The focus by black observers is on maintaining control, drinking only what one can handle; drinking more than

that is regarded as a problem.

Here is one black male counselor, in talking about drinkers, saying they don't know how to act when drunk, and so weren't, in a

sense, responsible:

They were out of control, but they were in control 'cause

they were acting the way they really wanted to. Alcohol doesn't put anything in you. Some people may become more aggressive; they may get into fights or arguments, or those kinds of things. Let me state something at this

point: alcohol, you know, the guy says, "I did it because I

was drunk." Bull. Alcohol doesn't make anybody do

anything.

352
Discussion

MOORE: I'm beginning to get a little confused by what we mean

to imply by the idea of disinhibition. Let me suggest the dimensions

of my confusion or try to structure my confusion a little bit and see

which concept we mean to imply.

When we use words like "out of control," "time out," "uninhibited." and other sets of words like that, a question arises: How do

we know or how do we think we know when somebody is in that

state: out of control, disinhibited, "time out?" This is a little bit like

the accounts question, I guess. There are two answers to that question. One is that we look at the objective character of their act and

we decide whether they're well within or well outside some normative standard for conduct in that particular situation. And the other

is that we essentially look at the question of whether they would

claim authorship for their acts or not; that is, whether or not they

would say that the actions that they were taking were characteristic of them or the things that they wanted to show us about

themselves.

It seems to me that it matters very much that we realize that those

are two quite different ideas. In one case, being out of control

means, "Whatever my acts are, they aren't mine," "Whatever it is

that I'm doing it's not me that's doing it," And there's a different

notion, which is: "The acts that I'm doing are quite unusual or exotic

against some standard." The relevant standard there could refer to

the person's views about how exotic it is; it could refer to the

dominant views of people in that situation; it could refer to some

objective conditions for instance, how hazardous the conduct is in

that particular situation. Do we mean by disinhibition a loss of

authorship of acts, or do we mean a violation of norms; and if it's a

violation of norms, which norms?

DUSTER: I'm simply going to defer on the question of disinhibiton. Robin's going to have to take that one. But in your account,

you seem to assume a lot of consensus, and part of Mr. Levinson's

paper was to reveal an extraordinary amount of variation within

and between subcultures in the accounts given about why one was

drinking, a wide variation. I spent about two and a half years in

Sweden, and the reason why people say that they're drinking there

is in order to become less inhibited; that is, that's the explicit

338

3
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 339

account that's given on Friday and Saturday evenings among

males: "I drink in Order to come outside of what I ordinarily do. I'm

too inhibited ordinarily." And that's almost a culturally validated,

affirmed notion of why one is drinking.

MOORE: But it seems to me that the significance of that statement is that the way I get the license to behave other than either I

expect myself to behave or other people around me expect me to

behave is by disclaiming, by saying that the acts that I'm about to

engage in are no longer characteristic of me. They're temporary.

They occur only when I do this thing called drinking. And since I

have voluntary control over whether I drink or not, or do that in a

predictable pattern, nobody need be alarmed that this conduct is

really characteristic of me.

DUSTER: Well, it's not that clear because what they do with it is

say, "That's what we Swedes do"; that is, "inside of the normative

bounds, we get to this state on Friday and Saturday evenings."

MOORE: Okay. Which would say that if I was the only one who

held the view that I could disclaim authorship from my acts, it

wouldn't do me any good.

DUSTER: Right.

MOORE: So everybody else has to share that understanding

that by drinking I disclaim authorship. But that's quite a different

idea, and I can disclaim authorship either generally or with respect

to particular kinds of substantive behavior; that is, I suspect it

would be true that it would turn out that I would disclaim authorship for some acts, but not for others. And as the acts got more and

more serious, the willingness of the society to indulge me by allowing me to disclaim authorship of them would diminish.

DUSTER: Not only is that true, it's true for Swedes with a

vengeance,. but it's not true in this country. For example, in

Sweden, drunken driving is taken across the class structure to be a

very felonious act. So that you can be a businessman of extreme

wealth and

MOORE: And you go to jail.

DUSTER: If you drink and are caught driving, there is no way

to simply have your bail drawn.

EHLERS: From my conceptual framework, in that when I

came in here with an idea of disinhibition, I didn't think of it at all in

terms of accountability as being the issue. I was thinking more

about the effects of alcohol, that somehow behavior is different or

that some kind of constraints are lifted in order to uncover certain

behavior. As Denise mentioned, the behavior could be defined by

ethnic groups or it could be defined by culture, or it could be defined

by individual psychological patterns, but it doesn't have to do with

354
340 DISCUSSION

how culture views what that is. I saw disinhibition as having to do

rather just with the uncovering process, not the accountability for

it.

I want to add another level of analysis in looking at disinhibition.

I think that there is a physiological basis for it in terms of alcohol in

a small percentage of people, in the sense that people have this

disorder called "pathological intoxication." Some people call this

disinhibition, but in fact it's a subgroup of people who actually

become extremely violent following drinking alcohol, and there's a

very high incidence of head injuries in these populations. This

disorder is an example of the idea that a premorbid personality or

premorbid physiological state can affect how disinhibition is

expressed.

ROOM: Kai Pernanen, can I persuade you to comment on this? I

suppose of all of us you're the one who's most responsible for there

being something called "disinhibition theory."

PERNANEN: First of all, I think we're discussing two separate

issues: Is there more disinhibition connected with alcohol use in this

society or in this culture than in other cultures? And: What are the

possible explanations?

I must say I'm as confused as Mark Moore, maybe more so, on how

to approach this. I think there are many different explanations,

assuming that there is disinhibited behavior. I think there are some

pharmacological, physiological, biological factors which, in some

people, lead to behavior described as disinhibited. Let's talk about

aggression; the temporal lobe dysfunction pattern has been shown

in experimental and in clinical work as related to aggressive behavior and to abnormal brain patterns which also have been related to

aggressive behavior.

It's hard, also, to parcel out the potential effects of different

drinking patterns that occur in different cultures. It would seem

that there is a link between binge drinking that occurs over two or

three days perhaps connected with sleep deprivation, and

increased stress and a greater probability of aggression. This

would explain only part, maybe the most severe part of disinhibited

behavior in connection with alcohol use.

Then we have the whole, more normal range of alcohol use,

where, I think, the influence of cultural beliefs is very strong. Arid I

think these occur on many different levels. If one wants to try to

analyze the different levels, there is, of course, the expectancy

effect. There is the situational context of different cultures: What

are the modal patterns, the modal contexts of drinking? I think al..

these things are relevant I just don't know how they go together

Not just beliefs about alcohol, as such, but also expectancies as to

355.
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 341

alcohol are relevant. Maybe other factors in the hiddenstructure of

beliefs are important. Maybe certain beliefstructures interact with

the undeniable pharmacological/psychological effects of alcohol to

increase disinhibited behavior in certain cultures. I'm thinking

now of the stereotype of Finnish drinking, and to some extent I

think it's true that Finns tend to become aggressive when they drink. We have evidence from statistics on violent crimes which

show that the alcohol involvement is maybe ten percent higher, on

the average, than, for example, in the United States. Of course, the

Finns are very well-known for having good statistics, and also the

strong temperance sentiments in Finland make it a bit hazardous

to make these comparisons because Finns would tend to report alcohol use much more often and be more sensitive to alcohol use.

Well, I don't know, really. I'm aware of the complexity of these

things. I think there are many different explanations in which

certain factors are more relevant in certain types of behaviors than

in others.

LANG: I wanted to try to draw a parallel, and maybe have

people comment on it, particularly Ms. Herd. It's concerning the

tendency of blacks to demonstrate less disinhibition or have less of a

belief in disinhibiting effects of alcohol than whites. It's parallel to

the tendency at least in the experimental literature for there to

be less consistent belief on the part of women that alcohol serves as a

disinhibitor than on the part of males. It's in line with Robin's paper

on intimate dominance, in that one of the things that happens to

people when they're drinking if they believe in disinhibition is that

the latitude of their behavior expands somewhat; they're free to do

things that they otherwise are not able to do. And for both women

and blacks in this culture, one of the consequences of expanding the

latitude of behavior for whatever reason is that they may become considerably more vulnerable than they are under other circumstances. That that may be part of the reason why there's not as great a disinhibiting effect in either females or blacks, because the

society in general is not going to let them get away with it to the extent that they do the dominant members of the culture or the

dominant groups of the culture.

Does that make any sense?

HERD: Yes.

ROOM: There's a strong theme in the literature on Jewish

drinking that there were very good reasons, historically, for the

Jews to control their behavior while drinking. I've always been a

little suspicious of that theme. It seems that Jewish drinking

patterns are really over-explained by the literature; there are so

many explanations offered, all of which can't possibly be true at

3 5 S
342 DISCUSSION

once. But it is certainly a theme that would fit the notion that you're

putting forward.

LANG: Yes.

MACANDREW: One of the ways one can think about control is

in terms of the sort of imagery people might apply to themselves or

have applied to them imagery based on standards of excellence,

of sophistication, of propriety, of "style," or what have you. And in

this regard, Denise's reference to "cool" is apt. I got interested in the

etymology of the word some years ago, and I think I was correct in

tracing it back to black argot and specifically black jazz argot, and

more specifically still to the characterization of the sort of music

that came out of Lester Young's horn. If you compare Lester Young

with other major jazz tenormen of the '30s and early '40s Chu

Berry, Hershel Evans, Coleman Hawkins, people of that sort

there is a kind of controlled understatement that is absolutely and

unfailingly recognizable. I would only add that it's one of the more

cruel ironies that Lester Young drank himself to death.

ROOM: I can't resist calling on Charlie Winick at this point,

who's written in this general area. Do you have anything to add?

WINICK: Well, you're absolutely right in the derivation of the

word and the concept and the music in fact we were talking

earlier at lunch about the relationship between the quality of

different kinds of popular music, the substances that were used by

the musicians, and the degree of acceptance by the society of the

musician and the music. I think they're all related, and one can

trace this from the beginning of the Twentieth Century right down

to the present and see a very clear and positive parallel among all

three dimensions,

HERD: I'm just going to respond to Mr. Lang's comment about a

kind of social stratification hypothesis. I think that may be one

contributing factor, but I think there are other interesting things to

explore. One is just the fact that blacks come from a culture where

there's a long tradition of indigenous use of alcohol, and possibly

there has been some continuity in terms of related mechanisms of

social control. Another possibility is a structural hypothesis that,

since black culture has a very communalistic and familistic social

structure. there's a stronger emphasis on external social control of

one's behavior.

There are other things that might be added to the pot. For

example, there.is the contrast between Joy Leland's account of what

happened during contact with the Indians and what happened with

blacks. Their experiences seem totally different, even though you

have two peoples that are in a similar position in the social structure. Blacks had a big temperance movement at the same time

33 /
ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 343

there is evidence of a lot of disorganized social behavior around

Indian drinking.

LANG: Yes. That hypothesis certainly doesn't explain the

Indian phenomenon very well. I'm sure the anthropologists will

shudder at this because I know virtually nothing about Indians, but

it would seem that one possibility would be that Indians did not

perceive themselves to be under the control of white men, whereas

blacks may have; and that may have been an important factor in

determining whether there was a disinhibiting effect of alcohol.

ROIZEN: This business of what we drink for is a little bit

confusing. To give you the picture of two separate cultural

complexes in a cross-national analysis I'm doing, we see on the one

hand a country Scotland where drinking for relaxation is denied, at least in questionnaire data; people say they drink for

sociability, not for the psychotropic effects. In Zambia, on the other

hand, people seem to drink for psychotropic motivations, and the

social control of drinking that goes along with those psychotropic

motivations seems to be based on statuses, which is to say middleaged men get to drink and young women don't get to drink and so

on. So you have a social control based much more on social status,

much less on the Scottish notion that there should be a universal

moderation norm.

So, as the drinking moves away from being based on traditional

status relationships and moves toward a more universalistic model

in the Scottish data and I leave myself open here to accusations of

all forms of cultural evolutionary mayhem and anachronism we

see a movement away from traditional statuses defining social

control as a question of access who gets to drink versus who does not get to drink and move toward a situation where a universal

moderation norm replaces those questions of access, so that access

to drinking is much greater across the statuses in Scotland. In line

with this, it is no longer appropriate to report a motivation like, "I drink to relax," "I drink to loosen up," or "I drink to forget my worries," for most people responding to a Scottish questionnaire,

In thinking about the particular patterns in those two cultural

sets, I wonder if it doesn't provide the beginnings of an answer to

this issue of: If you're going to drink to loosen up, how can you use

the loosening up you did as an account for what you did while you were loosened up?

EHLERS: Exactly.

ROIZEN: It may be. then, that as a iesult of the movement from

old culture to new culture, the break: apart of the cake of culture and the rise of universalist drinking norms, we find the equivalent

rise of a norm of moderation, which then.in turn impliesgetting rid

35s

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344 DISCUSSION

of drinking for psychotropic effects as a legitimate motivation for

drinking motivation not in the personal or psychological sense of

motivation, but motivation in the sense of reflecting an appropriate

normative framework in which to locate the act. The rise of

universalism imposes on us as a logical necessity that we can no

longer say that we drink for relaxation. Now, I realize that's very

pristine and very neat, I wonder if you would have any comments on

it, Mac Marshall.

MARSHALL: My only comment is that my Scottish-born

grandfather always told me that Scots drank Scotch whiskey

because haggis was so horrible.

PERNANEN: I already brought up Finnish drinking here.

When Ron brings up the question of drinking for physiological

reasons, for relaxation, this connects in with the existing ideas

about Finnish drinking as drinking for the purpose of becoming

disinhibited. I have some results from an interview study which

was carried out in Thunder Bay, Ontario. We had an over-sampling

of people of Finnish origin in our interview sample. We asked them

the standard questions about why they drink, and there are some

remarkable differences among the people born in Canada who are

not of Finnish origin we left out the immigrants from other

countries the Finnish people who were born in Canada, and

Finnish people who were born in Finland. Drinking for relaxation,

for the assumed pharmacological effects such as "because it helps

me sleep," "because it helps me forget my problems for a while,"

"because it perks me up when I'm tired or in a bad mood," are much

more prevalent in the Finnish sample and are especially high

among the Finns who had immigrated to Canada. As an example,

perhaps I should quote some percentages: "Because it helps me

relax when I'm tense or restless," 50 percent among the nonFinnish who were born in Canada, 65 percent among the Finns who

were born in Canada and 74 percent among Finns who were born in

Finland. This is perhaps the most extreme example, but the pattern

is clear. But when we ask if they drink "because of the taste," the

pattern is completely reversed: of non-Finnish people born in

Canada, 59 percent said that this was important to them, of Finnish

people born in Canada, 45 percent, and of Finnish people who were

born in Finland, 33 percent. So it's quite a reversal, and I think it

points to the importance of this type of factor.

MARLATT: One of the things that I got out of the three

presentations in this session was a realization of the importance of

the influence of the situational, environmental or setting factors on

drinking. And also what Troy Duster said about looking at the

policymakers and their expectations and set made me think of an

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ALCOHOL AND AGGRESSION IN SUBCULTURES 345

example where these two sets of factors were, in fact, interacting in a way that increased not only drinking but aggression. This

example comes from my own first drinking experiences in my

home town of Vancouver, B.C.

When I was there, beer parlors were set up so that women and

escorts were on one side of the beer parlor and men in the other. And

the laws at the same time said, "There shall be no music, there shall be no food, there shall be no walking around except to go to the

toilet." If you were a man alone, there was no way that you could get

over to the other side of the beer parlor. On the men's side, the floors

were basically cement covered with sawdust; the tables were

round, steel tables because it was suspected that not only did men

drink a lot but they would get sick, throw up on the floor, and break

furniture. And lots of fights did start breaking out around eleven, or twelve o'clock mostly, I think, through the frustration of the

men not being able to get on the other side of the barrier. Then

everybody was let out at the same time at twelve o'clock, and

thousands and thousands of men were all dumped on Main Street in Vancouver because all the beer parlors were together and

numerous brawls would break out. And the more they tried to

control the behavior by controlling the setting, the more the behavior went out of control. In the '60s, when they finally took down the barriers between the'wo parts of the beer parlor, there was all this concern that the new rugs on the floor and the new

furniture would be immediately destroyed. But violent behavior and so forth did not occur. Overnight, total situational control.

And I contrast that with my current observations in Seattle:Two different liquor control boards, two different ideas about human

behavior, creating two different kinds of settings which have very big impacts on behavior. So it seems that there really are

interactions in lots of different ways.

MOORE: I'm less confused now. Or at least I had a moment of

clarity. I don't want to lose it. It seems to me that there's one

question which we want to answer and I take it the discussion of

Day One sought to answer and that was: Does the distribution of

views about the meaning of drinking matter in the production of the behavior that we see among drinkers generally throughout the

society, and the consequences that they and the society as a whole

take as a result of the drinking. I don't think it takes very long at all to get to the stage where you're prepared to say, "I think it matters"

the fact that we have views about drinking and what it means matters in terms of the behavior that we support as a result, either as individuals or collectively.

Now, then, having established that, what we've said is: There's an

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346 DISCUSSION

opportunity for understanding and maybe even shaping the nature

of the alcohol problem, whatever it is, in the society, an opportunity

that comes from understanding what those views are and

conceivably shaping them as well. So we've got a new independent

variable in our understanding of what's going on with respect to

drinking and its consequences generally in the population, and

that's called "views about the meaning of drinking."

It seems to me a lot of the discussion we've been having today

involves first, what are the possible contents of those views; that is,

in what dimensions could we array or how should we describe the

sets of views that are held, and how do they relate to the drinking

and its consequences? Second, what produces and sustains either

individual or collectively shared views of drinking. And third, what

is the distribution of views about these things in the society? Does

that sound to everybody else like what's been going on, or not?

Because if it is viewed that way, then it seems to me we're making

some progress with respect to understanding our agenda.

LEVINE: We're definitely making progress.

361
Drinking and Disinhibition in Popular Culture

Charles Winick

What kind of a connection is there between alcohol-related

disinhibition and "prepared communication," or the content of

drama, fiction, biography, newspapers and magazines, advertising, popular music, movies, jokes, and television, in

America and other cultures? To attempt even a partial answer to

this question involves examination of a vast amount of material,

because Americans not only spend time with today's mass media

but may be reading, listening to, and watching earlier materials at

school or via reruns or revivals. A conventional content analysis is unable to assess the impact of a particularly powerful or timely

publication or work of art, sinceevery book or movie has the same

weight as every other book or movie. A more qualitative review,

citing appropriate significant content, may be useful.

The discussion that follows is concerned with materials that are

relevant today. Thus, the 19th century American play, The

Drunkard, is not mentioned, even though it was popular for over half a century, because its message has so little to do with

contemporary America and it is no longer revived.

Drama

Disinhibited behavior resulting from drinking appears in the very first drama of Western civilization, The Bacchae. It is the only play to survive of the many dramas by which the votaries of

Dionysius honored their god of the vine. In Euripides' play, also

called The Bacchae (405 B.C.), King Pentheus of Thebes refuses to

welcome Dionysius, the giver of wine, and instead orders Dionysius

to be chained and imprisoned. Pentheus, disguising himself as a

woman, attempts to spy on the drunken maenads, one of whom is his

mother. While drunk, she tears her son limb from limb and impales his head on her staff.

347

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348 WINICK

The Elizabethan era had substantial drinking, which

Shakespeare used in 36 of his 37 plays (Williams 1969). He dealt

with comic, realistic, and moral aspects of drinking but frequently

presented alcohol as a precursor of uninhibited and disturbed

behavior which can have grave consequences. An example of the

awful effects of drinking too much can be found in Othello (1604),

often said to be Shakespeare's greatest play, performed more often

than any other, and essayed by almost every noted actor. The entire

denouement derives from Iago, the principle of evil, getting Cassio

to drink so much that Cassio gets involved in a street brawl. Cassio's

participation in the brawl leads to dismissal from his military

assignment. The dismissal leads to a series of events which end with

Othello's strangling his wife Desdemona and stabbing himself.

The writer who contributed more than any other to the modern

drama, Henrik Ibsen, was a moralist who was keenly aware of the

ways in which alcohol often led people to do things they didn't

intend. In Hedda Gabler (1891), perhaps his best play, the heroine

destroys a manuscript of a writer who is competing with her

husband. The writer, a former drunkard whom Hedda was lured

back to liquor, assumed that he lost the manuscript in a drunken

brawl, and kills himself. As in Othello, the rest of the play derives

from the tragic consequences of his drinking.

Maxim Gorki, the Russian contemporary of Ibsen, achieved the

greatest triumph in the history of the Moscow Art Theatre with The

Lower Depths (1902). Several of the derelicts in the play drink

heavily. When the ex-actor Satin gets drunk, he hangs himself. A

drunken brawl leads to the lodging house's proprietor's being killed

and several other characters going to prison.

A number of Gorki-like characters are to be found in the early

plays of Eugene O'Neill, the premier American playwright.

Alcohol is presented ambivalently in the plays of O'Neill. Anna

Christie (1921) drinks in order to adapt to her work as a prostitute,

and the habitues of a waterfront saloon, in this and other O'Neill

plays, cannot face the world beyond the saloon. There is the

implication that Hickey, the hero of The Iceman Cometh (1946), has

killed his wife while drunk. In Desire Under the Elms (1925),

drinking leads to infanticide. Many of O'Neill's characters need

alcohol to survive, but for some of them, alcohol leads to violence,

murder, and suicide.

One of the all-time successes of the American stage, Leon

Gordon's White Cargo (1923), involves an idealistic Englishman

who married the half-caste Tondilayo, in Africa. After he begins

drinking, he "goes native," disintegrating completely. In another

very successful play of the 1920s, which takes place in an American

363
DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 349

speakeasy, an aristocrat who has been drinking heavily seduces a

helpless and innocent young woman in Preston Sturges' Strictly

Dishonorable (1929).

Probably the most distinguished living American playwright,

Tennessee Williams, is almost obsessed by the harm that can be

done by drinking that removes constraints. In The Glass Menagerie

(1945), Tom runs away from home after drinking, as his father had

done before him. In A Streetcar Named Desire (1948), on the night that Stella Kowalski has a baby, her husband Stanley gets drunk

and attacks his sister-in-law Blanche. Blanche, a former alcoholic,

smashes a whisky bottle and uses the jagged edges against Stanley. The stage directions read, "Blanche has been drinking steadily." She is committed to a mental hospital. In Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin

Roof (1955), Skipper drinks heavily, behaves in a bizarre way, and

dies.

Drinking which leads to similarly uninhibited and destructive

behavior is also the theme of Edward Albee's WhcA Afraid of

Virginia Woolf? (1962). The play was sufficiently distasteful to the

trustees of the Pulitzer Prize for them to overrule their own

committee, which had voted to honor the play. As the two married

couples in Virginia Woolf drink continuously through the night, they become more and more abusive to each other and Martha

commits adultery with Nick. The characters' marathon ofdrinking has precipitated their saying and doing things which were

concealed below the surface and would not otherwise have

emerged. The play is often revived and has been made into a film, like other Albee plays.

Fiction

A number of the world's greatest novelists reflected and

expressed the view that alcohol led to the most frightening and

unacceptable kinds of behavior.

In Feodor Dostoevski's The Brothers Karamazor (1880),

frequently cited as the best novel ever written, alcohol is directly

related to violence and destructive behavior. When the father,

himself a sot, is found robbed and dead, his oldest son Dimitri is

arrested while in a drunken orgy with his mistress Grushenka. Although he is erroneously convicted, Dostoevski raises the

possibility that the alcohol could have led Dimitri to kill his father.

In other novels, Dostoevski similarly suggests that alcohol can lead

to many kinds of ferocity. A related theme runs through much of the

fiction of Leo Tolstoi, Dostoevski's compatriot.

36,1
350 WINICK

How fiction may reflect the changing nature of alcoholism in a

society emerges from a study of the appearance of what Jellinek

called the gamma alcoholic in early English fiction (McCormick

1969). From 1750 to 1830, heavy and addictive drinking is

described in fiction, but it is usually picaresque and does not

become tragic and desperate until novels published after 1830. By

the time of Dickens' David Copperfield (1850), Mr. Wickfield is

drinking himself into such a stupor over his evening port that his

legal trusts can be seized by Uriah Heep. In Dickens' Bleak House

(1852), Krook, who is drunk, steals some important papers and kills himself by spontaneous combustion. Similar gamma alcoholics appear in English fiction later in the 19th century when

industrialism was beginning to upset the balance of society and

because the novel mirrored the society very closely.

The Victorian novelists were likely to be very concerned about

the severely disinhibitory effects of alcohol. Thomas Hardy, in The

Mayor of Caster&ridge (1886), has the principal character sell his

wife and daughter at a village fair, while in a drunken stupor. His

action horrifies and later haunts him, after he becomes sober.

The French novelist Emile Zola had written many novels before

L'Assommoir (1878), an epic of alcohol, made him the most famous

writer of his country. The title, usually translated as The Dram

Shop, actually communicates Zola's view of the disinhibitory effects

of liquor. The verb assommer means to hit someone to the point of

the victim's becoming severely injured, often dying. What Zola

meant by the title was that the cabarets where workers went to get

drunk were places where alcohol assaulted them until the drinkers

low. their capacity for reasoning. In this and other Zola novels, the

miners and factory workers who frequent dram shops often commit

crimes of violence and assault their wives while under the influence

of drink.

In La Befil flumaine (1885), Zola presents a railroad conductor

who loses his capacity for judgment while drunk and drives the

train into a dreadful crash. Zola was convinced that alcohol led

people to be less prepared for the Darwinian struggle for existence

which, according to him, characterized France in the late 19th

century.

Although another 19th century writer, Arthur Conan Doyle, was

not a moralist like Zola, he was quite concerned about alcohol and it

frequently figures in the Sherlock Holmes tales. Dr. Watson,

companion of the world's greatest detective, loosens his tongue and

summons enough courage to reprimand Holmes for taking cocaine

only after Watson has some gl: :-^s of red burgundy wine after

lunch (Blacker 1974).

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DISINIIIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 351

In Holmes' case of The Illustrious Client, a criminal who becomes

drunk foolishly shows a book containing the record of his misdeeds

to a woman who tells Holmes what she has seen. In The Sign of Four,

an army major "...took to drinking..." and fled with a treasure.

Holmes and Watson are moderate drinkers who enjoy a whisky and

soda at the end of the day; many of the criminals they pursue, in

contrast, drink heavily and their doing so is directly related to their

misdeeds, and sometimes to their being apprehended.

Alcohol as a disinhibitor was a focus of the first novel of Swedish

novelist Selma Lagerlof, who won the Nobel Prize in 1909. 7'he Saga

of Gosta Berling (1898) deals with an intelligent minister who has

had too much to drink. Under the influence, he mocks his bishop.

Realizing that his career has been ruined by this indiscretion, he

becomes a recluse.

American literature has a special relationship to alcohol in that

three Nobel Prize winners Eugene O'Neill, Sinclair Lewis, and William Faulkner were probably alcoholics, and two others, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, were hard drinkers

(Kazin 1976). Dorothy Parker, John O'Hara, Thomas Wolfe, John

Cheever, J. P. Marquand, Dashiell Hammett, and other famous

creators of fiction were, at the very least, heavy drinkers. Novelist

Upton Sinclair was so disturbed by the number of his writing

contemporaries who were alcoholic that he wrote a book about them

(Cup of Fury, 1956). He discusses the heavy drinking of Jack

London, George Sterling, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Maxwell

Bodenheim, "F. Scotch Fitzgerald," H. L. Mencken, William

Seabrook, Sherwood Anderson, Theodore Dreiser, Horace

Liveright, Hart Crane, Eugene O'Neill, 0. Henry, Stephen Crane,

and Sinclair Lewis, all of whom were his friends.

There is no other country in which so many writers of both popular and literary fiction were either alcoholics or heavy drinkers. Their relationship to liquor ranged from that of a

Raymond Chandler, who could write only while so drunk that he

was near death, with 24-hour-a-day nurses to keep him alive, to

Ring Lard net., who went on extended benders but wrote only when

sober, to Sinclair Lewis, who routinely drank while he wrote.

Although these American writers were of course aware of the

health consequences of their drinking, O'Hara was the only one who

stopped completely, at age 48, after being rushed to a hospital with

life-threatening symptoms. Some of the writers died very young

because of alcohol-related conditions and others survived longer

but also died from conditions exacerbated by liquor.

These writers had varied attitudes toward presenting alcohol as a

subject in fiction. Some were like Horatio Alger, the alcoholic

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352 WINICK

creator of so much success-oriented fiction in the 19th century, and

never alluded to it. Others often wrote about alcohol and yet others

sometimes did. In terms of considering alcohol's relationship to the

American writer, William James' dictum is probably relevant:

"Wherever you go your Giant goes with you." Whether or not a

writer is a heavy drinker is likely to affect the content of his work,

whereas the alcoholism of a composer like Stephen Foster could

have little impact on the content of his music.

William Faulkner's alcoholism did affect his novels. Faulkner

grew up in a South in which it was manly to drink, but he later

moved in other circles in which drinking was disapproved, and his

ambivalence can be seen in several of his novels. In Requiem for a

Nun (1951). Nancy Mannigoe is so unaware when drunk that she

kills Temple Drake's child. In this novel, Faulkner presents alcohol

not only as the cause of ultimate disinhibited behavior but also as a

substance which enables us to transcend ourselves. Nancy is

everything that our society despises. but she is also saintlike. The

same kind of dichotomy is found in what is undoubtedly the best

novel ever written about an alcoholic, Malcolm Lowry's Under the

Volcano (1947). Disinhibition is too mild a word to describe the

hero's disintegration, although alcohol enables him to achieve the

extraordinary. The hero ultimately is killed by hoodlums but

actually dies of drinking. Lowry, whose early death resulted from

alcoholism, relates the hero's drinking to the violence and imminent

war of 1939.

Such literary novels are quite different from bestselling novels. A

major literary novel like Under the Volcano may sell modestly but

influence subsequent generations and be studied in schools and

colleges. A bestseller could sell millions of copies in a few months

and have substantial impact on people who do not read literary

novels. In the case of either kind of writer, they are expressing a

personal vision, which flows from their experience and world view.

In the post World War II years, fiction about suburban life

became a significant part of both bestsellers and serious literature.

Short stories by John Cheever ("The Housebreaker of Shady Hill,"

1958) and John Updike ("The Music School," 1966), originally

appearing in 7'he Neu. Yorker, have conveyed a detailed picture of

life in upper middle class suburbs. In their short stories and novels,

Updike and Cheever suggest that there is a lot of drinking among

suburbanites, often at parties. and that it is frequently followed by

bizarre behavior and adultery. Typically, one spouse drinks

heavily, finds someone else's spouse who is similarly situated, and

they go off together, to the discomfiture of the remaining mates.

Cheever and Updike are unusual in being both literary writers

36'/
DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 353

and bestsellers. At the very top of all lists of bestselling novels is

Jacqueline Susan n's Valley of the Dolls (1969). Although the novel is

more concerned with psychoactive pills (the "dolls"), there is also

considerable drinking. The heroine drinks too much before going to

the theatre for what was to be her comeback and passes out in the

street. Her understudy takes over and the opportunity for a

comeback is gone. Alcohol is presented as a substance which leads

people to behave self-destructively, in terms of careers, sex, and

interpersonal relations.

Social scientists have suggested some reasons for the widely held

belief that drinking among American Jews is culturally conditioned and seldom leads to alcoholism (Snyder 1958). It is

reassurring, in terms of the consonance between social science and

fiction, that drinking and alcoholism hardly ever figure in the

many novels written about American Jews, either older classics

like Meyer Levin's The Old Bunch (1937) and Henry Roth's Call It

Stye p (1934), or in the work of contemporary Jewish writers like

Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, and Nobel Prize winner Saul

Bellow.

A content study of American bestselling novels from 1900 to 1904

and 1946 to 1950 found alcohol to be a ubiquitous subject, with a

tendency for an increase in its dysfunctional effects in the more

recent period (Pfautz 1962), The image of the intoxicated person

was fairly consistent, affecting the ability to verbalize, sloppy

appearance, memory confusion, muscular coordination, and other

aspects of loss of control. Overall, there was a widely shared positive

image of drinking, and alcohol was treated in increasingly

naturalistic terms.

The manner in which alcoholism is described in fiction influences

different publics, among which are drinkers and members of the

helping professions. The University of Washington School of

Nursing uses literary works as one way of exposing students to

concepts, theories, and realities of alcoholism (Estes and Madden

1975). Literary works were found to be helpful in the development

of empathy and understanding among student nurses. Similar

outcomes might be expected from the use of other arts and media

materials in the training of professionals working with alcoholics.

Biography

A small but important aspect of American literature is the

celebrity biography or autobiography that candidly discusses the

drinking of its subject. Jack London wrote a whole book about his

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35" WINICK

life'with liquor (John I3arleycorn, 1913). Gene Fowler's biography

of actor John Barrymore, Good Night, Sweet Prince (1944), details

the actor's unpredictable behavior after drinking. Barrymore was

generally believed to be the inspiration for the character of Norman

Maine in the movieA Star Is Born. His daughter Diana wrote of her

career as an alcoholic in Too Much. Too Soon (1957). Singer Lillian

Roth told a similar story in I'll Cry Tomorrow (1954).

These books, which were enormously successful, are typical of

many such biographies. They uniformly present a picture of the

drinker's complete disregard of the proprieties, conventions, and

expectations of appearance, behavior, and speech. Friends could

not recognize the celebrities after they had been drinking. In every

case, the celebrity's career was in ruins.

Newspapers and Magazines

Most Americans read a newspaper every day. If newspapers gave

prominence to stories about alcohol's releasing the drinker's

inhibitions so that he or she committed crimes of violence or used an

automobile to kill or injure others, such content could be important.

Over half the 31 American newspapers sampled during a representative week in one study carried no reports relating drinking to

driving (Breed and DeFoe 1978). The role of alcohol in stories about

other crimes was practically nonexistent, although criminologists

usually connect drinking with a substantial proportion of murder,

assault, and sex offenses.

The relative paucity of newspaper stories linking alcohol to road

accidents and crime may reflect many factors: a feeling that such

material is not newsworthy, protection of privacy, nonavailability

of data from courts and police, a sense that such news has a moral

dimension, and the like.

In some spectacular recent newspaper stories, the alcoholdisinh ibition connection has been made. Representative John

Jenrette's defense for taking a bribe in the 1980 Abscam trial was

that he had been given so much "FBI booze" that he lost his powers

to discriminate. His wife noted that while drunk, Jenrette was

"...undressed and lying in the arms of a woman who I knew was old

enough to be his mother" (Associated Press 1980). The Congressman was convicted of bribery and conspiracy. Such a widely

disseminated story could. of course, have enormous impact.

In 1974, similar newspaper publicity was accorded Representative Wilbur Mills, one of the most staid and respected

members of Congress and its chief expert on tax matters. After

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DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 355

heavy drinking in Washington one evening in the company of a

striptease dancer, he fell into a water fountain, and couldn't

remember who he was when police came to get him out of the

foUntain. He subsequently appeared on a Boston burlesque stage

with Fantle Fox. the dancer.

Newspapers all over America gave very extensive coverage to the

details of Mills' postdrinking behavior. Columnists like Jack

Anderson regularly carry reports on congressional leaders whose

judgment is presumably impaired because they have been drinking

heavily. For some years Anderson published columns about congressmen with important national defense committee assignments who would be too drunk to stand up or speak coherently at

committee hearings.

Magazines have long carried fiction and articles concerned with

alcohol and its effects. One content analysis of magazine articles

from 1900 through 1966 concluded that there has been a tendency,

in recent decades, to view drinking problems more naturalistically

(Linsky 1970-71). However, there is an emergent type of expose

magazine, beginning with ( 'onfidentia/ in the 1950s and

represented by People. S. Star Week/y. and the Nat hmal Ern/Hi mt.

today. These gossip magazines carry exposés on public figures and

a substantial number of the articles, usually containing

photographs, deal with the celebrity as alcoholic. Over one-fifth of

the stories in ranfidentia/ claimed that their subjects were alcoholics or had a severe drinking problem which led to

destructive behavior (Winick 1962u). Alcoholic celebrities, mostly

actors, were said to be nude in public, falling in the street,

assaulting others, and forgetting their lines.

The public seems to enjoy such material, judging from the

proliferation of gossip magazines. We presumably feel better,

knowing that our betters are engaged in alcoholic acting-out.

Celebrities must decide whether to deny the charges, and thus give

them further currency, or ignore them. The serious consequences of

such stories can be seen from a current lawsuit alleging malicious

libel, filed by actress Carol Burnett against the Enquirer, for

calling her an alcoholic.

The magazine reports of alcoholic acting-out by celebrities get

much more attention than the reports about famous people who

were alcoholic but have recovered, such as Wilbur Mills. astronaut

Buzz Aldrin, or entertainer Dick Van Dyke. Had news about the

famous is more newsworthy than good news.

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Advertising

Over half a billion dollars are spent each year to advertise

alcoholic beverages. The amount and effect of this advertising has

been questioned by writers (Anderson 1978) and congressional

investigators (Committee on Labor and Public Welfare 1976). The

advertising of no major industry is scrutinized as carefully as the

messages for alcohol, which are examined by Federal agencies,

State groups, and voluntary self-regulatory media watchdogs.

Advertising for distilled spirits does not appear on radio or

television. Less than 2 percent of the total advertising expenditures

in the United States are for beer, wine, and spirits.

Because of restrictions on alcohol advertising, it almost never

directly discusses properties or effects of the product. A content

analysis of alcohol advertisements in national magazines concluded

that indirect appeals such as wealth-prestige-success, social approval, relaxation-leisure, pleasure, exotic associations, individualistic behavior, and sex predominate (Breed and DeFoe 1979).

It would be absurd to suggest t hat alcohol advertising contains

material which relates disinhi6itory behavior to drinking.

However. Key (1976) has argued that alcohol advertising is especially likely to contain covert "embeds" dealing with mutilation,

death, and sex. It is possible that these covert letters and shapes

appear more frequently in liquor advertising than in any other kind

of sales messages, If such material is being communicated subliminally. it might be related to disinhibitory behavior.

Popular Music

Attitudes toward liquor in popular music are especially

important because such music is a major vehicle for socialization

and communication of ideologies for young people. It provides a

vocabulary of emotion and a context for courtship and personal

relationships. Prior to the beginning of the modern rock epoch in

1954, popular music appealed to all age groups. When rock became

salient, it ati of primary interest to those under 25 (Win ick 1968).

For young people. rock music became the single most important

mass medium, in terms of ideology.

Because the new record companies were run by young people, the

composers were young, and performers were young, there was an

extraordinary ability to identify with the new music. The

availability of inexpensive radios and high fidelity sets mde the

music available even for youths who could not afford to buy records.

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DISINHIBMON IN POPULAR CULTURE 357

Rock music content differed substantially from the operetta-based

Tin Pan Alley songs from World War I through the 1950s and from

pre-World War I jazz.

During the first 20 years of the century, when jazz was emerging

in New Orleans, alcohol figured prominently in its lyrics. It was an

upbeat rather than disinhibitory influence, as in the songs of Jelly

Roll Morton. Alcohol did not figure significantly in the Tin Pan

Alley songs of the 1934-1953 "pop" era. However, throughout the

period since World War I, alcohol has been a subject of country

music. Such music, which used to be confined to a regional appeal,

has recently entered the mainstream with singers like Johnny

Cash, Dolly Parton, and Willie Nelson becoming national superstars.

In a content analysis of 275 popular country music songs from

1975, 30 communicated some values concerning alcohol use

(Beckley and Chalfant 1979). Although most of the songs suggest

that drinking is normal, alcohol is also simultaneously presented as

ruinous, leading to disgrace and destruction of family life. Earlier

country songs deal with moonshine and drunken drivers who kill

people. A recent (1978) Dolly Parton song ("Me and Little Andy'

discusses a child whose drunken mother has run away. An early

song ("The Drunken Driver," 1938) deals with a drunk who runs

over two youngsters. As they die in his arms, he realizes that they

are his own children.

A number of country singers (Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb) see

alcAol's contributing to failure. Others (Merle Haggard, Hank

Thompson) relate drinking to the disappearance of love (Morgan

1981). The singer drinks because his love has gone, with descriptive

titles like "Here I Am Drunk Again" (1960), "Blues Plus Booze"

(1966), "From the Bottle to the Bottom" (1969), and "She's Actin'

Single, I'm Drink;n' Doubles" (1976).

Since much popular music is played in bars and nightclubs

where liquor is served, there is a tacit connection between enjoying

the music and loosening oneself .ip by drinking (Winick 1961,

1962b). In popular musicians' folklore, however, liquor is usually

considered to be an inadequate substitute for other drugs, as in the

lyrics of Andy Kirk's "All the Jive Is Gone" (Decca, 1936)....

lyrics, although almost half a century old, accurately express the

longstanding dichotomy among musicians between taking liquor

and other drugs. Because liquor can lead to aggression, rowdiness,

and loss of control, it is considered inferior to other substances by

many composers, lyricists, and audiences.

Alcohol's effects in leading to disinhibition are not significant

themes in recent rock music, with the exception of singer Janis

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Joplin, who appeared on stage with a bottle of Southern Comfort so

often that the distiller gave her a gift of cash and a fur coat

(Freedman 1973), Joplin, who died in 1970 of a mixture of alcohol

and heroin, conveyed the impression that drinking enabled her to

unleash enormous energy and feeling in her music. The image of Joplin as a great singer who had to drink to loosen herself up for a performance %, as more important than the lyrics she sang. She was unusual because so many other famous singers and perfoemers used drugs other than alcohol. Joplin's unexpected and widely publicized death at 27 at the peak of her fame has served to

reinforce the presumed connection between alcohol and the ability

of a singer to make contact with, and extend, her talent. Most other

rock musicians found that alcohol interfered with their ability to

perform.

It is likely that there are substantial individual differences in

how alcohol affects the creativity of musicians and other artists

(Winick and Nyswander 1961). During the lOyears in which he was drunk almost every night, Maurice Utrillo painted masterpieces. On the other hand, his contemporary Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

lost his vitality after he began drinking heavily. Individual differences, the functions served by the alcohol, its social context,

and alcohol's place in the life cycle of the musician or other artist

could contribute to the extent to which alcohol releases or

suppresses creativity.

Movies

The movie audience is young, Persons between 12 and 29

repeesent 39 percent of the population, but 72 percent of movie

admissions. The social nature of the moviegoing situation makes it

likely that a film will be discussed by the young people who no

longer just "go to the movies" but engage in selective exposure. Films may be shown on television for decades after their original release and reach vast audiences over time.

Hollywood has been interested in alcohol since Tell Night8 in a

r Romp I 1903). By 1909, I). W. Griffith had made two films about drinking. Several scandals involving heavy drinking by movie

stars in the 1920s, notably Fatty Arbuckle's 1921 party at which an

aotress died, led to great public awareness of drinking in movies, as well as in the private lives of movie stars.

Movies are usually identified in terms of their directors, although

the director typically works as a member of a studio team. Since the

195(is and the decline of the studio system. financing is generally

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DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 359

obtained for each film from banks and there is more concern about

the themes and subjects of films than was true in the days when

studios made products which had assured audiences. There is thus

greater sensitivity in recent years to how the audiences will respond

to content concerned with alcoholism.

What proportion of feature films deal with disinhibited behavior

resulting from alcohol? During the decade of the 1960s,

approximately 5 percent of the films released by the American

studios contained such content to some significant extent.

Of 231 feature films released in 1971, 3 or 1 percent had such

content, to any significant extent. Of 168 feature films released in

1972, 9 or 7 percent included such material. The very low 1971

figure may be quite atypical, because 1971 was the year in which

President Nixon announced a major antidrug initiative and the

movie studios were concerned about their patriotic duty to assist in

the crusade. In general, there is a homeostatic relationship in

semiregulated media like movies and television between the

representation of alcohol and that of other drugs, so that when one

goes up, the other goes down.

In City Lights (1931), the rich capitalist, when sober, regards

Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp as an offensive miscreant and

rejects him. When in his cups, he generously welcomes the Tramp

and gives him gifts and food. Chaplin seems to be suggesting the

conflict within Americans, between the cruelty and callousness of

sobriety and the unfettered amiability of drink. A number of the

one-reelers that made Chaplin the world's leading film personality,

like ("aught in a Cabaret (1914) and The Faceon the Barroom Floor

(1915), presented people who drank so much that they lost their

bearings, dignity, and inhibitions, engaging in behavior that was

completely unimaginable when they were sober.

The Motion Picture Code of self-regulation, which dominated the

medium from 1930 through 1968, prohibited the use of liquor "...when not required by the plot for proper characterization...."

Since the rating system began in 1968, such restrictions no longer

apply. The pre-1968 films probably contain more overt and serious

disinhibitory behavior, since it could be balanced by the drinker's

subsequently suffering, going into treatment, or dying. The post

1968 films are under no obligation to present such outcomes and

therefore can show a drinker engaging in extraordinary

disinhibitory behavior but not suffering any consequences.

Before and after the code, alcoholism has been ofmore interest to

American films than to the films of any other country. For a special September 1978 program in London, dealing with 15

representative films concerned with alcoholism since 1932, 13 were

American (Cook and Lewington 1979).

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Some Examples of Disinhibition

Several major films deal with the Hollywood celebrity whose career disintegrates because of drinking while his female protege becomes a star. In What Price Hollywood? (1932) and the two

versions of A Star Is Born (1937, 1954), the male drinker becomes

sloppy, willful, and insulting. In A Star Is Born, one of the most

notable scenes presents Norman Maine so drunk that he disrupts an Academy Award presentation, shuffling up to the stage and unable

to speak clearly.

Memorable for a different kind of alcohol-induced disinhibition

is The Hucksters (1947). Advertising agency president Adolph Menjou has been drinking at home, awaiting the arrival of guests Clark Gable and Deborah Kerr. He drinks with them, and has more

liquor at the nightclub they visit. Menjou feels so unfettered that he

discloses, to the dismay of his wife and guests, how he sent an

anonymous tip on his employer's tax evasion activities to the

government, sending the employer to jail and ultimate death and

permitting Menjou to take over the business, The alcohol has

triggered an indiscreet confession which he regrets and which

irreparably damages h;s relationship to his wife and fi sends.

Perhaps the most famous scenes in the 1945 movie made from

Charles Jackson's 1944 novel The Lost Weekend are those involving disinhibited behavior while drinking: the hero's being caught attempting to steal from a woman's purse, his stealing from his own

cleaning woman, or attempting to pawn his typewriter on a

religious holiday. The film was considered important enough to be

the subject of a special editorial in the Quarterly Journal of Studies

on Alcohol (Current Notes 1945-46). The film won so many awards and was so successful that its images of drinking surely registered with many Americans. One of the ways in which The Lost Weekend

influenced later treatments is that its hero was an upper middle

class writer, so that the behavior that might ordinarily be expected

from him contrasted sharply with the amoral and uninhibited

nature of his behavior while under the influence,

The alcoholic's thinking the unthinkable is also vividly presented

in Come Fill the Cop (1951). James Cagney is an important

newspaper editor who discusses alcohol thoughtfully and

intelligently. Because of his addiction to alcohol, however, he becomes a street drunk, dirty. disheveled, and begging for coins. This film has one feature which is frequently found in other movie

treatments of drinking: The drinker is shown reaching rock bottom

in ter ms of appearance, speech, and self-concept, and has absolutel

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DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 361

no restraints while drinking. Such disinhibited behavior can be

used to provide a contrast to the later demeanor of the character

when he is recovering.

The contrast between the ordinary behavior of public relations

executive Jack Lemmon and his conduct while drunk is a theme of

the award-winning Days of Wine and Roses (1963), which had

previously been a successful television play. Ordinarily urbane,

Lemmon when drunk climbs out of a second-story window in a

thunderstorm and rips up the flowers in his father-in-law's

greenhouse. In another scene, he breaks into a liquor store after its proprietor has refused to admit him.

Embarrassing behavior is more likely to be shown in men, but is

sometimes found in women drinkers. In Key Largo (1948), Claire

Trevor is the alcoholic showgirl who doesn't hesitate to sing, off-key

and embarrassingly badly, when a gangster tells her that "...you'll have to earn a drink if you want it." The other characters in the

room are ashamed at what she is doing but she is desperate enough

for more liquor to keep singing.

Alcohol and Sex

In American popular culture, liquor is often seen as the catalyst for sex. In Phillip Barry's play The Philadelphia Story (1939), made

into a movie with Katharine Hepburn (1940), and a movie musical

(High Society, 1956) with Grace Kelly, heroine Tracey Lord gets

very drunk, goes for a midnight swim, and spends the night with a

reporter. Before she begins drinking, she is so cold that reporter

Frank Sinatra in High Society sings "The Darling Miss Frigidaire"

to her. After drinking, she has thawed enough for Sinatra t, sing

"Mind If I Make Love to You?" When Tracey wakes up the next

morning, she is sure that her heavy imbibing led her to have sexual

intercourse with the reporter.

A European princess whose deep-rooted inhibitions are dissolved

in alcohol is played by Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday (1953). When she awakens, hung over, in writer Gregory Peck's bed the

next morning and finds herself wearing his pajama top, she checks

to see if she is also wearing the bottoms, because she is sure that she

engaged in sex with Peck while drunk.

In Ask Any Girl (1959), Shirley MacLaine knowsthatshe will not

be able to give up her virginity without first drinking a lot of liquor. On the train from New York to Westport to visit her beau at his

home, she settles in the club car and not only gulps down drink after

drink but also finishes up the liquor left in the glasses of other

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passengers in the car. Although each of these three heroines

expected to yield her virginity because she was drunk, none of them

actually did so, because their men did not wish to exploit the

situation.

These heroines are good-bad girls, who give the audience the

excitement of their engaging in nonmarital sex but who, by the

final reel, are revealed still to be virginal. With the women's

liberation movement emerging in the late 1960s, films began

presenting women who actually engaged in unconventional sexual

behavior while or after drinking. In The Graduate (1967), the first

and most successful of the movies addressed to the new youth

market, married heroine Mrs. Robinson is always drinking before

and when she engages in sex with her daughter's boy friend. The

film suggests that there is a direct connection between her heavy

drinking and her abandonment of commonsense in pursuing young

Ben. Other movie women drinkers are increasingly shown to be

leaving the conventional passive role in sex situations.

When homosexuality is shown on the screen, it is often related to

heavy drinking, which may presumably make the subject more

acceptable to audiences. In The Killing of Sister George (1968),

drinking is important in the heroine's lesbian seduction and her

terrorizing two nuns. In Cruising (1980), much of the film takes

place in homosexual bars, and the characters are shown drinking

and then engaging in sadomasochistic and anal sexual activities.

There are many movies which present men otherwise unable or

unwilling to engage in sex, but who can do so after drinking heavily.

The American myth about the young men who get drunk enough to

have their sexual initiation from a prostitute is central to The

RiPers (1969). Steve McQueen and two companions begin drinking

heavily in the absence of his relatives. They continue drinking

during a joy ride in a ear, which has its climax when they visit a

brothel. In raiifiirn iv/ ite (1978), Walter Matthau's brother

wants to give his "square" brother a special birthday present, so he

gets Matthau drunk and sends a prostitute to his hotel room. Upon

awakening the next morning, Matthau is horrified to find the

prostitute in bed with him. He cannot recall anything that

happened during the night. Such loss of recall is often used in movies by characters whose drinking has led to otherwise

unacceptable behavior.

Taboos and Inhibitions

flow the drinking of even beer can precede the violation of a

deeply rooted taboo is illustrated in Thr I IIHnte (1980). which
DISINIIIIiITION IN l'OPII,Alt cuurtiRE 363

was highly praised for its realistic presentation of the lives of

Pennsylvania steel workers. The Robert De Niro character, after drinking heavily at a wedding, is shown running nude through the

town's main street, For such a character, public nudity is an

ultimate taboo.

Drinking heavily enables the Army captain played by Martin Sheen to overcome his repulsion at being ordered to kill a renegade

superior officer in Apocalypse Now (1979). At the opening of the

film, Sheen's career is collapsing. He is drinking heavily and is in a

drunken stupor, before meeting with the superior officers who order him to terminate the assignment of Colonel Kurtz "with

extreme prejudice," i.e., to kill him.

Another kind of unthinkable behavior is represented by the drunken middle-aged physician who tries to stab his wife in Come

Bark, Little Sheba (1952), which was also a successful play (1950). A

drinker who succeeds in stabbing a woman whom he has met in a

bar figures in Look ing for Mr. Goodbar (1978), made from a widely discussed novel (1975) by Judith Rossner, which centers on the

"action" occurring in singles bars.

Sometimes a film lingersover the details of a drinker's attempt to

avoid yielding to the effects of liquor. In The Best Years of 014 r Li res

(1946). war hero Fredric March has returned to his bank job but finds himself in disagreement with the bank's conservative lending policies. Prior to going to a dinner in his honor, March has some

drinks at home. At the dinner, he continues drinking. When March begins his speech at dinner, he decides to denounce the bank's

lending policies, to the horror of its conservative president. He tries

to restrain himself, but cannot, and blasts the bank's disregard for common people.

Robert E. Sherwood. the script writer, must have wanted to

stress the negative consequences of alcohol, because after an earlier

drinking session, March does not recognize his own wife. When he

takes his pickup "date" (the wife) to bed, he is so drunk that he

cannot perform sexually, and the long-awaited reunion with his wife is a humiliating fiasco.

Drink's ability to cause a man to engage in nonsexual behavior which is humiliating can be seen in the opening scene of Treasu re of

Sierra Madre (1948). Humphrey Bogart, already drunk and

begging for quarters to buy more liquor, approaches the same American for the third time in a few minutes. After the American,

played by .John Huston, reminds Bogart that he has already given him two quarters, Bogart explains that he never looks at people's

faces and did not recognize Huston as the person who had

previously given him money.

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A singer who turns to drinking as one way of dealing with her

family difficulties is played by Susan Hayward in Smash-Up

(1947). While drunk, Hayward sets fire to her house and almost kills

her child. Some contemporary audiences found this film

particularly offensive, perhaps because a woman was shown drunk

and doing something so frightening while under the influence. A

few years later, Hayward as a once famous alcoholic singer

completely ignores her appearance and roams the streets in I'll Cry

Mmorrow (1956). Her descent into the abyss is attributed to

personality factors which she cannot control,

Gangster Films

Of all the film genres. the gangster film is the one with the most

direct connection with violence. However, liquor is seldom

important. in the action of gangster films. In the first and most

important of the genre, Little Caesar (1930), the Capone figure

played by Edward G. Robinson does not drink, Making a speech at

the gangsters' banquet, Robinson says, "The liquor is good, but I

don't drink it myself."

In this and many other gangster movies, the mob office is in the

back of a bar or nightclub, and many mobsters are bootleggers, so

that their not drinking is quite conspicuous. They do not drink

because of the need to remain alert and in control at all times, and

their fear that liquor will interfere with such goals.

The Godfather (1971) is th o. fourth highest grossing film ever

made, and was adapted from Mario Puzo's (1969) novel, which was

the sixth biggest bestseller. It presents the story of two generations

of Italian-American gangsters, none of whom drinks, although

much of the action occurs in bars. Their not drinking may reflect

occupational caution. ethnic constraints, family closeness,

ritualistic drinking., or d combination of such factors.

Another kind of nondrinking is represented by Humphrey

Bogart, who began his career playing gangsters but who has come

to represent integrity and honor to a new generation of moviegoers

who regard Bogart as exemplar of the truth. In films like To Hare

and Hare Not (1944) and Casablanca (1943), the Bogart character

always seems to have a glass in his hand, but he never loses control.

Apart from the opening scene of Treasure of Sierra Madre and

,;ome self-pity in Casabla Pica ("Play it again, Sam; I can take it if she

can"), Bogart never indicates that liquor is influencing him. One

reason for the appeal of Bogart to today's moviegoers could be his

ability to appear to be in control and never show weakness, no

matter how much he drinks.

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Liquor and Humor

A number of comedians specialized in drinking heavily on the

screen. Jack Norton and Arthur Housman played drinkers who

became confused, got caught in revolving doors, and lurched

around. W. C. Fields' bulbous nose was the trademark of his heavy

drinking, which did not seem to affect his behavior.

Sometimes, major stars whose roles had established their

seriousness and rectitude were permitted to drink too much, so that

the audience could enjoy their shedding inhibitions. Greta Garbo,

the exemplar of aloof beauty and first lady of the screen, drank too

much in Ninotrhka (1939). In Ah, Wilderness (1935), Wallace Beery

drank heavily after quarreling with his wife. In both cases, the

charactc;rs' tipsiness enables them to present an unbuttoned

personality, which was amusing and charming.

The most ambiguous example of alcohol's leading to disin hibition

in films is to be found in Clint Eastwood's A ny Which Wall You Can

(1980). The orangutan, who is a friend of Eastwood and a key figure

in the film, is sitting at a bar drinking beer. He doesn't like a

remark that is made by a man sitting nearby and also drinking, so

the orangutan punches the man in the jaw and knocks him down.

The audience cannot tell if the punch was due to the effect of the

beer on the orangutan or to his having learned that aggressive

behavior is culturally appropriate for the bar setting.

Westerns

The most consistent content presenting disinhibition resulting

from drinking in movies is to be found in Westerns, most of which

have a scene in which there is drinking in a bar, which leads to

fighting and shooting. The Western is the single most popular film

genre. Through 1978, 3,339 Westerns had been released (Adams

and Rainey 1978). Of these, over three-fifths have a drinking scene

in a saloon. which is followed by a brawl.

From the late 1940s through the early 1970s, the Western series

was the most popular television format, and such series often

presented saloon brawls. Such brawls represented a relatively

acceptable kind of violence because it was so stylized and could be

communicated visually by mirrors cracking, glasses breaking,

chandeliers falling, chairs smashing, and other images that did not

involve direct brutality against a person.

The saloon, in real life as well as in movies dealing with the period

of Western exploration, was a social and entertainment center,

often the first bu:Iding put up in a new town. Judge Roy Bean, in

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Gary Cooper's The Westerner (1940), even conducted his court in a

saloon.

The barroom brawl became a staple of Westerns after the

enormous success of 7'he Spoilers (1914). in which the two

combatants, who have been drinking steadily, fight for a full 10

minutes. An extended fight was also part of the John Wayne talkie

version (1942), and of other famous Westerns, such as Union Pacific

(1939) and The Gunfighter (1950).

Indians were often presented in Westerns as quiet and friendly

until an unscrupulous trader would "liquor them up," The

"firewater" was given the Indians by viliains as one way of inciting

them to attack and go on a rampage, thus perpetuating the

stereotype. In films like Fort Apache (1948), The Great Sioux

['prising (1953). and The Big Sky (1952), drunken Indians engaged

in violence. Most Indians in the 19th century did not drink in

actuality, but the reality did not deter moviemakers.

There are several different kinds of Westerns, all of which

typically have a hero who is estranged from society but saves it.

Critics often mention Shane (1953) as the best and most representative example of the classic Western (Wright 1975). The film

involves four different saloon brawls. In the first brawl, Alan Ladd

(Shane) enters the saloon to get some soda pop for an 8-year-old

child. VillainBen Johnson, who has been drinking heavily, empties

a glass of whisky at Ladd, saying, "This way, you'll smell like a

man!" Ladd loses his temper and fights Johnson and the battle

between good and evil has begun, as it was similarly joined in so

many other Westerns.

Television

Practically all (97 percent) American homes have a television set

and over half the homes have color and at least one other set. The

typical household uses its set 6 hours a day. Children spend more

time watching adult programs than they devote to programs

specifically for the young. Television content is more sanitized than

that of other media, because it goes to audiences which may include

young people (Winick 1959), There is no rating system to alert

parents to sensitive material.

Television network representations of alcohol include prime time

serials, television movies, soap operas, and talk and variety shows.

A II such programs are critically screened by network broadcast

standards officials, before being shown, to insure that their content

is acceptable to audiences that may include children. We could

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therefore expect television to be the most cautious of the popular

media, in terms of its showing disinhibition related to alcohol use.

Another reason for caution is that a television program is a group

creation. If the program's creator is identified at all, he is usually

identified in terms of the producer, who is the general executive

concerned with administering the program. Additional constraints

are provided by audiences, because the program will not continue if

it does not get enough viewers, which is usually at least 30 percent of

the possible audience.

Prime Time Programs and Movies on Television

A number of studies have examined the amount of drinking

shown in prime time programs (Greenberg et al. 1979; Hanneman

and Mc Ewen 1976; Winick 1976b). There appears to have been an

increase in the incidence of representations of drinking from the

early 1970s to the late 1970s. Drinking is often shown as a way to

relax, cope with a problem, or indicate sophistication. Approximately four-fifths of the programs involved some reference to

alcoholic beverages, with an average of twoacts of alcohol used per

hour.

Typical of prime time drama's approach to drinking is

"M*A*S*H," which was originally a novel (by surgeon Richard

Hooker), then a successful movie (1970), and since 1972 is

television's most successful series. There is considerable humorous

talk about drinking among the U.S. Army hospital personnel

during the Korean War who are the stars of the show. Alcohol is

presented as a social facilitator and escape. Heavy drinking tends to

be present in a cautionary way. Thus, the lead show of the 1977-78

season, "Fade Out, Fade In," which was also the only full hour

program of the year, is entirely concerned with the disinhibiting

effects of liquor. When Nurse Margaret Houlihan gets married,

surgeon Frank Burns, who had been romantically interested in her,

becomes distraught. Dr. Burns goes on a drinking binge, during

which he attacks another nurse and goes berserk. Burns is arrested

and transferred to another organization. This is a representative

episode of heavy drinking in prime time television: There is a

reason for it, the character engages in atypical disinhibitory

behavior which involves sex and violence, and he is punished for the

behavior. In similar "M*A*S*H" episodes, other characters lose

their superegos after a few drinks. Different characters seem to

have individualized drink thresholds before disinhibition occurs.

In the context of surgeons working under pressure during a war,

such drinking is viewed as a small but necessary part of daily

living.

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There have been television movies which have dealt with

alcoholics who have completely lost any restraints and engage in

lying, stealing, neglect of appearance, driving into accidents, and

similar behavior. For example, "A Cry for Love" (NBC) was

presented on October 20, 1980, and dealt entirely with the dreadful

consequences of a man's abuse of alcohol and his wife's abuse of

amphetamines. They lie, do not keep their jobs, look bizarre, and

clearly cannot control themselves. A brief epilogue urged similarly

afflicted viewers to seek help. This is like other television movies in

its treatment of drinking. The characters are both professionals, he

an engineer and she a writer. Deep-rooted personality and parental

factors seem to be related to the reasons for their drinking. Their

decline is frightening but there is the hope that they can recover.

Soap Operas

Television daytime serials or soap operas are seen daily by about

35 million viewers, mostly female. In an analysis of all 14 nationally

shown soap operas over 4 weeks, there were 520 incidents of alcohol

use (Lowery 1979). In 70 percent of these instances, alcohol use had

no negative consequences. A small number of the characters, under

the influence of liquor, engage in disinhibitory behavior, such as

sexual assault, stealing, making spectacles of themselves, or

forgetting to show up for work.

A recent (January 12, 1981) episode of the most popular program,

"General Hospital," illustrates how soap operas present the alcoholdisinhibition link. Surgeon Jeff Weber, whose wife Heather is a

psychotic in a mental hospital, cannot divorce her because of her

illness. Ann, his girl friend, finally gets tired of waiting for Jeff to

get a divorce and marry her. She refuses to go to dinner with Jeff.

He is very disturbed by her refusal and goes to a disco, where he

drowns his sorrow in drink. He laughs loudly and continually,

grabs at women, dances in a strange way, giggles, and looks

disheveled. The disco proprietor has Jeff removed from the dance

floor, refuses to serve him any more liquor, and has him escorted

home. The next day, Jeff is so hung over that he misses an important

meeting at the hospital, where everybody seems to know about his

binge. The episode is consonant with other soap operas in that the drinking occurs in response to an interpersonal disappointment,

the disinhibitory behavior is antipodal to the ordinary activities of

the drinker. the alcohol is consumed in a social situation, and the

drinker subsequently suffers.

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Talk and Variety Shows

The personalities who appear on talk and variety programs may be particularly important because the viewer can engage in par- asocial interaction with them on a regular basis. They appear under

their own names and can become symbolic members of the viewer's

family.

There is a long tradition, going back 30 years to the beginning of

television, of the comedian who is drunk on camera, experiences memory and other lapses, cannot recall his name, and engages in

sexual escapades. In the 1950s, Red Skelton, with a comic

commercial for gin, often played this role. From the 1960s to the

present, Dean Martin has communicated the notion of heavy drinking leading to daring and sexual awareness. Johnny Carson

referred to Ed McMahon's "drinking problem" for years and

alluded to resulting unusual behavior on McMahon's part. Tel- evision comedian Foster Brooks has a standardized routine in

which he seems to lose the ability to speak, insults people, and

otherwise conveys the stereotypical amiable lush.

A number of performers communicate the notion that drinking

can occur with no significant effect on demeanor or speech. Jackie Gleason used to have an assistant bring him a large tumbler of "water" which he would drink with obvious enthusiasm. He would

then go about his business, completely unaffected by what was obviously intended to be the equivalent of several shots of gin or vodka.

Jokes

One clue to the importance of a subject to people is an

exam inatiln of the jokes that people tell about it (Winick 1963, 1976a). Jokes are usually told in a situation involving friends, so

that intimately held attitudes may be communicated in a private context. Jokes concerning drinking represented 6 percent of all

jokes during 1955-60 and 8 percent of the jokes reported during

1970-75. Over half the jokes in both periods dealt with bizarre,

inappropriate, antisocial, or otherwise disinhibited behavior on the

part of people who have had too much to drink.

Other Cultures

It is useful to look at negative cases, or those cultures in which the

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arts and media do not offer examples of alcohol-induced

disinhibition. If we look at the great plays of the Irish Renaissance,

such as J. M. Synge's comedy The Playboy of the Western World

(1907), S. O'Casey's tragedy Juno and the Paycock (1924), or

O'Casey's masterpiece The Plough and the Stars (1926), we see men

drinking in taverns and at home. Drinking is at the center of

cultural and social life, as part of the braggadocio, passivity, and

talkiness that characterize Irishmen in these plays.

Alcohol is so salient in these plays that it is inconceivable for it to

be related to disinhibition. The characters, presumably like the

people they represent in real life, are so saturated with alcohol that

it has little effect on them. Even in Liam O'Flaherty's novel The

Informer (1925), made into a famous movie in 1935, although the

informer Gypo Nolan drinks steadily before and after betraying his

friend for £20, it is clear that the drinking is incidental to the

betrayal.

Wolfenstein and Leites (1947) have documented how movies may

be used to distinguish and document national character. We could

expect that each country's movies and other media would reflect

some aspects of its alcoholism problem and the relationship

between drinking and disinhibition.

British movies show very little drinking of spirit and almost

never show any uninhibited behavior resulting from drinking

alcoholic beverages. The prototype of the spirits drinker is James

Bond, who has asked for "a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred," in

each cf the 12 movies which constitute the most successful series

ever made. Bond is representative of the upper class gentleman

who never loses his cool, no matter how or what he imbibes in the

private clubs. homes. and smart restaurants in which he is seen.

An indication of the kind of extraordinary and rare situation that

might lead upper class English men and women to drink enough to

become disinhibited can be obtained from The Holly and the Ivy

(1952), with Denham Elliott and Margaret Leighton playing the

children of a vicar (Ralph Richardson). They arrive home for a

holiday reunion. go to town to see a movie, and return tipsy. When

the vicar expresses astonishment that his daughter is drinking and

appears to be under the influence, she breaks down and tells him

her secret. As the result of a wartime romance, she has a 5-year-old

illegitimate child who has been ill continually and just recently

died. She began drinking only upon learning of her child's death.

However, she can confess her guilty secret to her father only while

she is drunk. Because of this very unusual confluence of forces. the

character played by Leighton can drink heavily and lose her

composure. As in so many British films. the conflict is between the
DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 371

person and herself. The kind of conflict with the outside world

found in so many American films is almost nonexistent in British

films concerned with upper class life.

Many British movies show pubs or saloon bars, where working

class people drink ale, stout, beer, and shandy. These places are

generally decorous and their customers tend to be well-behaved

people who are spending time quietly and pleasantly with their

friends. Drinking is not shown ambivalently or as a contributor to

emotional churning.

There are hardly any British plays or movies in which violence or

sexual acting-out results from drinking. When a character who is

drunk does something unusual, like "undeserving poor" Mr.

Doolittle's offering to sell his daughter Eliza to Professor Higgins

for a few pounds in May Fair Lady (1964), adapted from Shaw's 1913

play (Pygmalion), the audience can accept the offer because it is not

quite serious.

It is instructive to note that the films of France, which were so

important in the 1930s and 1940s, and those of Italy which have

perhaps been more sigr ificant than those of any other country since

World War II, seldom treat alcholism and hardly ever present

disinhibition resulting from alcohol. In both countries, of course,

there is an established cultural tradition of drinking wine. In Italy,

a bar is a place where coffee is the most popular drink and in

France, it is likely to be part of a restaurant. In both countries, there

is no equivalent of the American bar, a place where spirits and beer

are consumed.

French and Italian films, reflecting their respective cultures,

therefore have little occasion to present people who lose their

inhibitions after drinking. The films sometimes reflect the stereotype of the person who has had too much wine, who is likely to fall

asleep rather than engage in "acting-out" behavior. Even in films

where the characters, usually upper class, engage in serious drinking of spirits, as in some work of Jean Renoir, Federico

Fellini, or Michelangelo Antonioni, the characters can handle

themselves and seldom engage in disinhibited behavior.

If we were to examine the popular arts and media of any country,

we could expect that the connection between the arts and media

content, and the realities of social life in the country with respect to

the alcohol-disinhibition link, would be very close. In the United

States, the nature of the link is very complex and has varied over

time. It can be described almost decade by decade, by tracking the

arts and media.

There is such an interrelationship among the popular arts Lhat

the same theme is likely to be carried by several formats, in a short

886
372 WINICK

time. The novel becomes a television series, the magazine story

takes shape as a movie, the movie soundtrack metamorphoses into a

record album. Saturday Night Fever (1977), one of the 10 largest

grossing movies ever made, began as a magazine article. The

album made from the movie soundtrack became the biggest seller

in history. A novel was written about the movie characters and the

movie was first shown on cable television and then by a network.

A propositional inventory could be made of the manner in which

the arts and media present the alcohol-disinhibition nexus in this

country, as compared with other countries. This kind of effort,

which has proved so fruitful in the study of national character,

could be undertaken very productively to document the malleability of the relationships between alcohol and disinhibition.

References

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Anderson, G. M. Alcohol and advertising. America, October 14, 1978, pp. 238-240.

Associated Press. Rita caught Jenrette nude with a woman. New York Post,

December 3, 1980, p. 3.

Beckley, R. E., and Chalfant, H. P. Contrasting images of alcohol and drug use in

country and rock music. Journal of Alcohol and Drug Education, 25(1): 44-51,

1979.

Blacker, H. Drink in fiction: The adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Journal on

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Breed, W., and DeFoe, J. R. Alcohol as a catalyst in police stories. The Bottom Line on

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Cook, J., and Lewington, M. Images of Alcoholism. London: British Film Institute,

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Estes, N. J., and Madden, L. P. Alcoholism in fiction: Learning from the literature.

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Freedman, M. Buried Alice, the Biography of Janis Joplin. New York: Morrow,

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Greenberg, B. S., et al. Trends in use of alcohol and other substances on television.

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Hanneman, G., and McEwen, W. The use and abuse of drugs: An analysis of mass

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Key. W. B. Media Sexploitation. Englewood Cliffs. N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1976.

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DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 373

Lowery, S. A. "Soap and Booze in the Afternoon." Ph.D. thesis, Washington State University, 1979.

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Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 23: 131-146, 1962.

Snyder, C. R. Alcohol and the Jews. Glencoe: The Free Press,' 1958.

Williams, C. V. "Taverners, Tapsters, and Topers: A Study of Drinking and Drunkenness in the Literature of the English Renaissance." Ph.D. thesis, Louisiana State University, 1969.

Winick, C. Taste and the Censor on Television. New York: Fund for the Republic, 1959.

Winick, C. How high the moon Jazz and drugs. Antioch Review, 53-68, 1961.

Winick, C. Celebrities' errancy as a subject for journalism: A study of Confidential. Gazette, 7(3): 292-334, 1962a.

Winick, C. The taste of music: Alcohol, drugs, and jazz. Jazz Monthly, 8: 8- 12,1962b.

Winick, C. A content analysis of orally communicated jokes. American Imago, 20(3): 271-291, 1963.

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Winick, C. Drug education and the content of mass media dealing with "dangerous drugs" and alcohol. In: Ostman, R. E., ed. Communication Research and Drug Education. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1976b. pp. 15-37.

Winick, C., and Nyswander, M. Psychotherapy of successful musicians who are

drug addicts. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 31(3): 622.636, 1961. Wolfenstein, M., and Leites, N. Movies. New York: Free Press, 1950.

Wright, W. Six Guns and Society. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1975. pp. 40-45.

388
Presenter's Comments

ROOM: We had a lot of trouble with what to title this section,

because we wanted to emphasize that we thought that studies of popular culture were relevant, but we didn't want to exclude high

culture. And so we toyed with the notion of calling it, "Prepared Communication," and decided that was a little precious to put in the

title. Rut I notice that in his paper, Dr. Winick accepted the phrase

as a kind of boundary, as a definition of what we're talking about in

this section.

Professor Win ick has a very distinguished and varied career that

I can't begin to encompass for you. He invented "spontaneous

remission" in the heroin area, roughly speaking, long before it was

thought of in the alcoholism area. And he has also been very much

involved in studies of popular culture with respect to both drugs and alcchol.

WINICK: Actually we've been talking about popular culture on

and off for the last day and a half; we've talked about novels, we've

talked about plays, and we've talked about music. Maybe we can make some more specific statements in terms of what the

boundaries of popular culture are and what our interest in it might be.

First, we might begin with the reasons for our interest in the

term "popular culture" with which I'm sure many of you, like myself, find a certain amount of discomfort. I think the most

important reason for our being interested in it is that popular

culture takes more time from people than anything else that they do, including working or sleeping. The average American adult spends about 20 percent more time with the mass media than he or

she does working, and spends about half an hour more time with

popular culture than he or she does sleeping. Now, whatever a

person does that takes up so much time, it seems to me, is worthy of

serious attention. This has become particularly important in the

last 40 years, beginning with radio, and more recently with

television, It's been said, I think accurately, that just as the

automobile has changed the way people perceive space, in the same way the electronic media have changed the way in which people perceive time. If you're giving so much time every day, essentially

seven days a week and it's a seven-day-a-week activity to

:374

363

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DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 375

things that you feel you want to do, then other things must give way

to provide that time.

As a new medium has come along penny newspapers, silent

movies, radio, talking pictures, the long-playing record, comic

magazines, television, cable television, etc. what has happened is

that people have somehow found the time to give to the new

medium, but they have not abandoned the other media. What they

do is to take a little time from some of the other media or public arts,

and they take some time away from other things. Those other things

might be visiting, interacting with the family, reading if the new

media activities don't involve reading and so forth.

What we're witnessing, therefore, is a kind of revolution. Even at

a time when by general agreement the quality of television has been

deteriorating for the last five or ten years, and even though people

continue to say in national and local surveys that they don't like

television, they are continuing to give it more time than they gave it

15 or 20 years ago. There has been a slight decrease because of more

women entering the work force, and, therefore, having less time to

give television. But if you take that into account, the amount of

viewing has remained fairly constant: over six hours a day, seven

days a week for the representative family, and a couple of hours for

radio, for newspapers, magazines, comics, music, the

approximately 500 ads a day that the average person is exposed to,

of which he or she can recall about 85 or 90 you get some sense of

the enormous amount of time that we're talking about. Again, we

may assume that all of this time devoted to the range of these public

arts has consequences for the persons who are spending the time.

Terms like "popular media" and "popular culture" are awkward.

They are particularly frowned upon at elite universities which

don't know what to do with the subject. Does it belong in the English

department? Is it American Studies, Sociology, or Humanities?

Because of this conflict over territoriality at elite universities, the

subject generally has nb been popular; however, at other

universities it has caught on, and, in fact, the subject of Popular

Culture is the single most rapidly growing subject at

undergraduate colleges today. Police Science used to be, but soon

after the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration closed up

shop last year, there was a sharp decline in police enrollment in

colleges. So, the subject, whatever we may think of it, and whatever

schools like Berkeley may think of it, is an ..mportant subject in

terms of colleges.

Robin alluded to the distinction between high art and popular

art, and let me just talk about that for a moment. High art, such as

the important plays and novels of the heritage of the various

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civilizations that we are interested in, is part of what people study

at school and is part of a general cultural background. These

materials may be transformed into popular movies, or rewritten

into popular books. Classical music is frequently rewritten into

more popular formats. Much material from high art is thus

continually in the background of our consciousness. In addition,

there's the enormous flow of current popular material that is

continually washing over us and of which we may be more or less

aware.

When the study of communications began several decades ago,

the usual paradigm for explaining the mass media was Harold

Lasswell's (1948), who says what to whom with what effect; that is, a

kind of hypodermic syringe model. Media had content that was

being dispensed by "communicators," and a kind of general public

out there was receiving these materials. More recently, there's been

a greater awareness of the fact that there is no large, general public

out there; there are a lot of different publics who are segmented by

demographic and psychographic and other background

characteristics or tendency systems (Winick 1963). There is, in fact,

much self-selection of audiences for the different popular media.

Even in the case of television, you are always making a choice, even

if it's a choice between three programs that are relatively similar to

one another. And before that, there is a choice of whether to spend

time with newspapers or magazines or television or radio or music

or a book of fiction or a book of nonfiction or jokes which I regard

as a form of popular culture or whatever. So, the individual

makes the choice of how to spend the time, and then within the

medium there is a choice of which radio station, what television

Chow, movie, and so on.

If people are spending time with material, they are doing so

because it is meaningful to them, it fulfills functions for them, it

provides gratifications for them. Perhaps the most popular current

theory of mass media is "The Uses and Gratifications Approach,"

since it is concerned with what the audience brings to the

perception of the media and the uses and gratifications that the

audience gets from the media (Blumler and Katz 1975). We are

beginning to study the uses and gratificatior s people get from the

media, which is much more complicated than analyzing content.

It's easy to set up coding categories and analyze content of whatwe

see and then have somebody code the same material and establish a

reliability with a particular correlation. However, what we coders

see in this material may or may not be what the various publics are

getting from the material. Although content analysis is relatively

easy to do, the more difficult task of studying what people are

getting from these materials is more challenging.

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DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 377

It should be noted that with the enormous output of materials

40,000 books a year; 32,000 records released each year and so forth

the great majority of mass media materials are failures in terms

of attracting an audience. The great majority of records, novels,

movies, and television shows are failures. About 90 percent of all

new television shows are withdrawn before the first cycle of the

year. Only a relatively small number of these materials succeed.

They succeed because they are meeting some needs of the public,

and it is very difficult to manufacture these needs; that is, there's

really no way, except possibly in the field of rock music, in which

hype by itself attempting to create media events to call attention

to the material can really cause a movie to be successful or a

television series or a book to catch on.

Therefore, in terms of deciding what materials to study, itseems

to me that a reasonable criterion might well be whether the

materials have succeeded in attracting an audience. Are people

willing to give the time and/or money, make the effort to go out in

the rain to see a particular film, and so on. The material that people

decide to spend time with may be of high quality artistically or it

may not be. Sometimes an enormously successful movie, such as

"The Godfather," is brilliant and outstanding as an achievement of

film art. At other times, a very popular work of public art may not

have such attractive aesthetic qualities; for example, the most

successful novel ever published in this country is Valley of the Dolls

by Jacqeuline Susann (1966). Approximately one out of every three

homes in this country has the book. By way of contrast, I think it

would be fair to say that perhaps three of the best novels of the

Twentieth Century would be Proust's Remembrance of Things Past;

Mann's The Magic Mountain; and Joyce's Ulysses. Combining the

American sales figures for all three of those books since they were

issued in the 1920's, all of the copies of those books sold in the United

States to people who were not students comes to about one-fifth of

one percent of the American homes. I'm not equating the aesthetic

qualities of Susann's novel with these three masterpieces, but

Valley of the Dolls is apparently meeting the needs of the general

public. None of Susann's six books have ever been out of print. So,

the criterion of the box office, whatever one may think of its

ultimate relevance to aesthetics, is very important.

At any point in time, there are materials appealing to different

elements in the population; for example, in Shakespeare's time, the

audience at the Globe Theatre was rowdy and tended to be lower

class and middle class, and Shakespeare, who includes significant

alcohol content in every play but one, was writing for that audience.

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378 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

On the other side of the Thames River, there were other theaters

presenting classical plays that appealed to totally different audiences, plays that we have forgotten. At that time, the classical

plays would have been regarded as high art and Shakespeare would

have been regarded as vulgar and meretricious. Today, of course,

we have changed our view about the relative merits of Shakespeare

and the other writers who were considered the classical writers of

his time.

One other observation. There is a Shakespeare, there is a Lester

Young, there is a Tolstoy, there is a William Faulkner, there is a

Eugene O'Neill, there is an individual artist creating a personal

vision, expressing his or her sensibility and saying something that

he or she had to say or wants desperately to say. More recently,

when we talk about corporate forms of public arts, such as movies

and television, we have a different kind of situation; we have

something that's created by a group, almost by a committee; that is

rewritten; where a lot of people participate in the creation; where

there's an eye on the market for the material. We have to be aware

that the genesis of these different kinds of prepared communications may be very different, and we obviously have to apply

different criteria to them.

Sometimes, a person who has been a figure in high art becomes in

his own lifetime a figure in popular art the most recent example

is that of William Faulkner. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1949,

every single one of his books was'out of print in the United States.

However, after he won the Nobel Prize, he became a popular figure;

his books became popular, and he began to be read by large

numbers of Americans for the first time. So people may change

their status in terms of how they're perceived as popular artists

even in their own lifetime, although sometimes it may take longer

than that.

I stress the distinction between the individual artist creating his

or her vision and the corporate creation of some mass media today

because we often have to distinguish between who did what,

particularly in the case of American fiction and drama, where

many of the great creators happen themselves to have been persons

with very severe drinking problems. In fact, of seven Nobel Prize

winners from America, five had severe drinking problems. The

only exceptions were Pearl Buck and Saul Bellow.

SILVERMAN: I'm not so sure about Pearl Buck.

WINICK: This matter of who the author is is very important

because we're not just receiving the work of art; the work of art was

created by Somebody. And in terms of understanding it, it is often

important to be aware of the background of the creation, how it

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DISINIIIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 379

came to be, and so forth. So, these general considerations, I think,

are relevant when we look at some of the contents of what we might

call "public art."

Let me just make a few comments on some forms that we're

interested in. In drama, the very first play of which we have any

record, namely, The Bacehae, deals with a mother who, drunk at a

celebration of Dionysus, the god of the vine, kills her own son and

then puts his head on a staff, which she carries around. And many of

the great playwrights subsequent to Shakespeare present the

disinhibitory effects of drinking in a similarly frightening way. We might note that there's often an important class linkage

between art and audience. During the Restoration period, the time

of plays by writers like Congreve and Wycherly, the play and the

audience were both oriented to the upper classes. At this time, there

was great concern about the great extent of gin drinking on the part

of poor people in England, but there is hardly any drinking-related

unbuttoned behavior in the Restoration plays. In other words,

material by the upper classes, directed to the upper classes, seldom

presents this kind of material, at least in the drama.

Let me just comment briefly on fiction. A number of the world's

greatest novelists Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Thomas Hardy were

moralists, and were very concerned about whatwas right and what

was wrong. They felt very keenly that drinking too much is very

bad. In at least one novel by just about every important Nineteenth

Century novelist, a significant episode deals with murder, infanticide, patricide, or murder and suicide combinations result- ing

from drinking too much. In the Nineteenth Century, there were

three different novels which presented a man dying of spontaneous

combustion after drinking too much. Drinking was seen as such a

destructive act that people actually burned themselves to death in a

manner that could not be explained except by spontaneous

combustion.

Yesterday, Joan spoke about the work of a number of the early Twentieth Century writers who were either heavy drinkers or

alcoholics, notably, Jack London. There is no country in the world

even in the late middle to the late Nineteenth Century in France,

where drinking and drugs were an important part of the beginning of the early symbolist movement where so many writers drank

heavily and/or were alcoholics as in the U.S. Thomas Wolfe, John

Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O'Neill,

John Marquand, Dashiell Hammett, William Faulkner, Dorothy

Parker, John O'Hara, John Cheever, F. "Scotch" Fitzgerald, as he

was called, and so on. It isn't clear what this means. Some of these

writers dealt with drinking and the effects of drinkingon inhibited

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380 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

behavior and others did not, but overall it certainly is an important

contributor to the content of the work.

I might also mention successful current fiction writers like John

Cheever and John Updike, who bridge the gap between literary and

popular, who regularly deal with disinhibition in suburban life as a

result of drinking too much. John Cheever is, himself, a recovering

alcoholic.

Newspapers do not carry many reports on consequences of

drinking too much, but such reports tend to get enormous attention.

Just two weeks ago, for example, Dean Martin's showing up drunk

at the Presidential Inaugural festivities was picked up by almost

every newspaper in the country. Mr. Martin forgot his lines. He was

so drunk that after he appeared at the microphone, Johnny Carson

reported that Debbie Boone had gotten a contact high when she

approached, and he was not permitted to perform. Newspapers

regularly carry such material. Now, one spectacular story like this

about Dean Martin or stories about Wilbur Mills in 1974,

Representative Jenrette last December, and so forth even though

it may not come along very frequently has enormous impact. This

is one way in which ordinary content analysis would not be very

helpful. If we did a content analysis, we would discover few stories,

taking a sample of newspapers about, say, drunken driving leading

to serious accidents; but, even one story like this a year is

remembered because people like to think that their betters are

really no better than they should be, and they love this kind of

material, which is why Confidential and People and Us magazines

are so popular. Quite a lot of the contents of these magazines has to

do with drunken comportment on the part of celebrities (Winick

1962).

I spoke earlier about advertising. When we study the content of

the media related to disinhibition and alcohol, if people are shown drinking heavily and they are not engaging in disinhibited

behavior, that is important too. That's why I think advertising is

especially important, because in advertising, as in many kinds of

mass media, we see people drinking a lot, but we never see them

ruffled; they don't seem to be responding to it in any way. 'chat is a

message that people are getting as well as a message they might be

getting if they see someone shaking and weeping.

In terms of popular music, we talked earlier about jazz and

drinking. We might just mention that alcohol is not a significant

theme in rock music, which has been the most popular music of the

country since 1954; it is a significant theme in country music, and

there the theme has to do with the ubiquitous nature of drinking,

but drinking leads to disgrace, killing, harm, things thatyou don't want to do.

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DISINIIII3ITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 381

The most fruitful kind of content with which I can illustrate

practically month by month how mass media present messages on

disinhibition and drinking would be provided by movies. There's an

enormous body of movies that are shown on television and that are

revived in theaters. And we might just say, oversimplifying, that

movies have specialized in presenting drinking middle class and

upper class people doing things they would not ordinarily do: the

woman engages in sexual activity; the man says something he

didn't mean to say or engages in violent behavior. There's usually a

tremendous discrepancy between the predrinking position and role

of the individual and his or her dreadful behavior after drinking.

I would just like to mention for a moment that probably the most

important movie content related to alcohol has to do with westerns

because the western is the most popular movie form. Well over half

the westerns have a barroom brawl scene, and the barroom brawl is

presented as occurring subsequent to the drinking that occurs in

the bar. On the other hand, in situations like a military movie or a

gangster movie, where personal control is very important, where

the gangster must be in command of his faculties, and the soldier

must be aware of everything happening, drinking is very seldom

shown. So, certain occupations, where one might think drinking

would occur, are not shown with such content. The Indian frequently found in the western is over-represented as having had too

much firewater, as a result of which he will engage in vicious,

violent, or socially or personally destructive activity.

Just a few minutes now on how we might use this material. One

constructive way of using this kind of material is to conduct

comparative studies, comparing our country with other countries,

comparing this decade with the previous decade or the decade

before, and so on. We know from the early cultural and personality

studies the study of culture at a distance (Mead and Metraux

1953), the World War II Office of Naval Research project studying

the fairytales, folklore, movies, and thematic material of other

countries that we can build up an enormously detailed and

sensitive picture of the way of life of a country just from its mass

media (Gorer 1964; Gorer and Rickman 1962). One of the best books

ever written about Japan, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, was

written by Ruth Benedict (1967), who had never been to Japan. She

ti ased her study on these secondary and tertiary materials.

Wolfenstein and Leites (1950) sketched the national character of

England, France, and America by comparing one year's production of feature films from each country.

It is possible to take the films of England, France, Italy, Sweden

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and demonstrate how the manner in which drinking and

disinhibition are presented in those movies is a quite sensitive

barometer of the nature of the drinking habits of the society. Just

for a quick example, French, Italian, and English movies almost

never show anyone who is drunk and disinhibited. If we look at the

pattern of drinking in those cultures, we see that it is reflected quite

accurately in the movies of that country, almost year by year. Here

again we would look at the successful movies, those which were able

to establish a market, that somehow met the needs of the audiences.

The movie audience is a very young audience, and that's

something particularly important. The audience for movies and for

popular music is young and impressionable, still forming images of

life, still trying to determine meanings in the world. These

materials may represent a kind of a huge group Rorschach by

which we can see the meanings that different kinds of drinking and

disinhibited behavior are being given by the dominant culture of

the time. If we do this on a comparative basis, we can get a very

realistic and immediate sense of underlying cultural attitudes

toward and perceptions of drinking and disinhibition.

3 9'/
Commentary

Edwin Lemert

ROOM: Ed Lemert has so many possible connections with the

subjects of our discussions here that I think it would be superfluous

for me to try to go over them. In addition to being claimed by

sociology, I believe that anthropologists would put in some claim on

him.

LEMERT: My comments are pretty closely geared to Winick's

paper. Discussing this paper presents difficulties which I may or

may not be able to transcend. First of all, discussion had to be cast in

the conceptual format of the disinhibition issue, and it is doubtful

indeed whether the materials available from studies of popular

culture can shed much, if any, 1:.z,ht on the question or questions it

raises. Secondly, the term disinhibition has some reductionist,

psychoanalytic connotations which for me unduly narrow the focus

of discussion, particularly insofar as it bypasses or ignores the

influence of social control on drinking behavior and also the

consequences of such control.

In common with other sociologists, I also have some difficulties

with the concept of popular culture. In this connection, the author of

the paper could have helped by briefly stating his conception of

what this large and unwieldy idea means to him. As a result of his

omission, I was compelled to review what De Tocqueville,

Lowenthal and others had had to say on the topic, and I was

reminded that there are some older vintage questions in the area of

mass or popular culture that might still be mined with some profit.

However, as far as I could determine from examining current

writings on popular culture, there is very little in the way of theory

that might guide the thoughts of a meandering discussant like

myself. For the most part, the study of popular culture seems to be

almost exclusively ethnographic, ranging from historical

descriptions of the etiquette of blowing one's nose and spitting, to

the implications of punk rock for the collective consciousness.

One older idea that qualifies as theory is essentially in a critical

mode, namely that popular culture lowers the level of taste and

standards of judgment, making people vulnerable to mass

383

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384 LEMERT: COMMENTARY

persuasion and endangering democracy. This idea was worth an

explicit run-through, at least, by Winick, since he does here and

there allude to literary portrayals of alcohol abuse and alcoholism

as symptoms of discontinuous social change and the demoralizing

consequences of Nineteenth Century industrialism. Specifically,

references to books and novels about alcoholism among writers,

newspaper men and advertising executives suggest that depictions

of associated disinhibition may reflect the special sensitivity such

people have to the shallowness, spuriousness, and depersonalization

that goes with mass society and popular culture. The book and film

Days of Wine and Roses seems peculiarly apt in catching these

themes in the advertising world and showing how alcoholism may

reside among their psychological correlates.

Another theoretical idea gracing the study of popular culture is

that it initiates or foreshadows changes in social structure. I must

say that this proposition takes me aback considerably when I try to

apply it to media, literary, and other popular representations of

consequences of alcoholic indulgence. Winick does say that recent

novels overall show a positive "naturalistic" image of drinking; also,

that women increasingly are shown drinking without gross

disinhibiting consequences. If so, we are left to wonder what this

may indicate, given the implications of darker statistical

indications that alcohol abuse and alcoholism rates may be

increasing among women.

Perhaps the most significant change in the image of alcoholism

and the alcoholic in the past several decades, coming with the

establishment of the Yale Center for Alcohol Studies in the 1940s, is

the shift from a moralistic to disease conception of alcoholism and

from the alcoholic as a law offender to one who is sick. Yet none of

these media representations summarized or paraphrased in

Winick's paper touch on this changing image. Why is this? Is it that

our popular culture simply ignores this changing picture of the

alcoholic, or did Winick's directive to talk about disinhibition cause

him to selectively omit references to alcoholism as a disease in his

review? We might ask at this point whether any novels, plays, TV

programs or films have dealt with Alcoholics Anonymous and

recovery from the disease of alcoholism. I can think of at least one

autobiography that does, an older book by Harold Main, If Man Be

Mad, but then its high quality may explain why it never made the

best seller list and thus qualify as popular culture.

In one short paragraph or two, Winick does say that alcoholism

described in fiction influences members of the helping professions

by exposing students, such as nurses, to the realities of alcoholism.

Literary works are said to be helpful in developing empathy and

39J
DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 385

understanding. Yet one of the more provocative findings coming to

light in recent articles in nursing journals is the resistance to and

rejection of the disease concept of alcoholism expressed by the

nurses themselves.

Actually, Winick's lack of findings of media representations of

alcoholism as a disease may be valid, primarily because Americans

don't like to be told that it is a malady that anyone may suffer from

and that there really is not a sharp difference between ordinary

drinking and abnormal drinking. More important may be the fact

that drama, fiction, biography, newspaper stories, motion pictures,

TV programs, and popular music typically revolve around moral

themes. dramatizing the differences between good and evil. Hence,

popular images of disinhibition associated with intoxication tend to

reinforce a persistent moral conception of consequences of alcohol

abuse.

In this connection, I may be pardoned if I suggest that many

media portrayals of alcoholism and the alcoholic may still embody

what years ago I called "the folklore of deviance." This consists of

largely fallacious imputations of evil, destructiveness,

demoralization and tragic denouement associated with the pursuit

of deviant ways, best illustrated perhaps by Lindesmith's (1972)

older article on dope fiend mythology. In the case of alcoholism,

Hogarth's Rake's Progress typifies Nineteenth Century folklore,

which is in my estimation a kind of reverse entrepreneurial

ideology. The other side of this entrepreneurial theme is, of course,

the alcoholic who sinks to the depths but then turns about through

moral regeneration and overcomes his problem a kind of a moral

success story. This folklore of alcoholism, as with other deviance,

has utility not only for the deviant in the sense of providing material

for the "sad tale," which Goffman (1963) has talked about, but it also

provides propaganda and justification for reform and social control

and the activities of those that Becker (1963) called "moral

entrepreneurs."

A final theme or theoretical idea that might have been used to

organize and interpret some of Winick's ethnographic descriptions

of disinhibition is that the artifacts of popular culture are an index

to the social structure of contemporary consciousness. An even

grander theory can be drawn from semiotics, namely that images of

the consequences of alcohol consumption reflect a deeper, implicit

cultural ideology which sets the preconditions of interaction

between drinkers and non-drinkers, including those seeking to

influence alcohol use by control measures.

Here and there Winick notes that popular portrayals include

dual or ambivalent images of the transformation of behavior

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386 LEMERT: COMMENTARY

following intoxication. While generalizing about a society as large

and varied as the U.S. is hazardous, it may be proposed that

ambivalence is most characteristic of the American attitude

towards alcohol and the consequences of its use. This seems to be

well supported by Winick's contrasting characterization of media

and popular arts depictions of drinking in Irish, English, French

and Italian cultures, where apparently this ambivalence is absent.

It would be nice to say that ambivalence toward drinking is related

to the magnitude of associated problems or rates of alcoholism.

However, since France's rate of alcoholism is as high or higher than

that of the United States, this idea must die aborning.

In conclusion, let me say that I really find no fault with Win ick's

survey, and a good deal of it was informative. My plaint rather than

my complaint is that I would have liked to have been turned on by

some efforts on his part at more theoretical or analytical

exploration of his materials.

4 U1
Discussion

POWERS: As a graduate student formerly in folklore, I have a

few things to add about the whole debate about the differences

between high, popular and folk art, which is discussed ad nauseum

in that discipline. It is usually assumed by many people who write

about the subject that high art tends to be innovative, whereasfolk

art tends to be conservative. However, folklorists take quite the

opposite view that high art is very much entrenched in tradition, whereas folk art is much more innovative and takes up

contemporary opinions; and that popular art falls somewhere in

between.

LAWRENCE WALLACK: My comments are based just on Winick's presentation. I was somewhat surprised to hear that

alcohol on TV is being "prepared" in a positive sense, in terms of the quality and the nature of alcohol problems in society. Recent

reviews of content analysis on TV have shown, in fact, first, that

alcohol portrayals on TV are now more numerous than they have been in the past, increasing substantially since the Christian

Science Monitor study in the early '70s; and second, that they're

more inaccurate than ever. This comes from two recent studies, one

by De Foe and Breed (1978) of the Scientific Analysis Corporation,

and the other covering the last prime time season, by the people at

Michigan State University including Bradley Greenberg (1979).

Basically what they found was that consequences of heavy drinking

are seldom shown at all except on soap operas in the afternoons

where, in fact, much more realistic perceptions of alcohol problems

are shown because the characters are developed over long periods

of time.

In terms of disinhibition, one thing, as I recall, that Breed and De

Foe found was that intoxication or light intoxication or drinking

was often used as a lead-in to some sort of sexual activity, in comedy

shows for example: but it was the presence of the drinking which

allowed sexual innuendoes or sexual implications to be drawn out.

In terms of advertising on TV, I think there's an issue of the way

the context is set; thus we see a substantial amount of beet

advertising consistently portraying people driving out to a setting

at a beach, for example, with a couple of six-packs or cases of a

certain type of beer in the car, and there's a party going on at the

387

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388 DISCUSSION

beach, anc' you're left at the end of the commercial with an image of

that as normative. What does that mean in terms of disinhibition?

What models are being sent out through these very powerful

media? What does it mean, in fact, that not only alcohol but health

issues in general are treated very inaccurately on TV?

So the main point I wanted to make and I guess this follows up

on what Professor Lemert was saying is, given what we see in

terms of the way that alcohol is portrayed in popular culture and

now I'm speaking specifically of TV programming and TV

advertising what does it mean to discuss disinhibition? And what

does it mean in terms of the way it supports the type of behaviors,

which I think we're suggesting are mostly negative, that result

from disinhibition related to alcohol beverage use or overuse?

ROOM: If I could put in a note here, I think it's important to keep

our eyes focused on the alcohol/disinhibition link in this discussion,

because it's very easy to move out from that to simply talking about

alcohol in the culture. And I think that if I could interpret between

the points that Larry Wallack was raising and what I understood to

be in Professor Winick's paper: very often what Breed and De Foe

represent as being the lack of consequences is what Winick was

describing as the lack of disinhibition; because I think that what

Breed and De Foe are looking for in the way of consequences is for

bad things to happen which are some of the things that we are

trying to pin down in that very elusive concept called disinhibition.

So there may well be a point of contact about the nature of the

reality being presented on television, but with a very different

rhetoric to describe it. If you want to present alcohol as having bad

effects which in the rhetoric of Breed and De Foe is the realistic

way to present alcohol then you want to see more disinhibition

shown and more nasty things happening as a result of disinhibition.

So I'm not sure that I really see so much of a conflict.

On the matter of the disease concept of alcoholism, I think the

book that Marcus Grant's center was responsible for on Images of

Alcohol i$711 (Cook and Lewington 1979) is one source where you can

see that there have been a lot of representations of the AA model of

alcoholism in popular culture. So that concerning the question that

Professor Lemert raised, I would say there is the interesting

possibility that the popular culture representations that are

focusing on disinhibition may indeed be alternatives to a disease

concept presentation or may be a very different segment of media

material from the ones that are presenting the disease concept of

alcoholism.

MORGAN: Although I somewhat agree with what you said, I

think it's important for us when we're talking about different

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DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 389

interpretations of reality in popular culture to ask the question,

who is presenting that reality? And in whose interest is that reality being presented? It seems to me that there's a particular advertising interest in not showing any disinhibitory results from

drinking behavior. While you get the opposite view when listening

to certain kinds of popular music, especially the old blues and some

of the country music, in which there are negative results portrayed

in the culture. In one instance, you have a real popular culture, coming up from the bottom. In the other instance, you have

something instead that is presenting, that is being presented to the culture from an organized interest on top. Those are the kinds of

questions we have to begin to ask, besides dividing popular culture

into various kinds of mass media and fiction and music, etc.

LANG: Along those same lines, Pat, I think one of the aspects of popular culture that can have a significant impact on beliefs about drinking and disinhibition are TV presentations of so-called "news magazines" that make pseudoscientific statements about the

nature of relations among various behaviors. One particular

instance comes to mind, a recent I think it was "60 Minutes"

presentation on spouse abuse. As I sat there watching that with my wife, I said, "In a moment, they're going to say something about drinking," and they did. You know, "around that time I started

drinking, and then I started beating up on my wife." And the

implications of that were not explored at all by the commentators. They subscribed to this notion that alcohol in fact was a causal

behavior, when perhaps stress or some third variable caused both

behaviors. And those theories, I think, have a powerful impact on what people believe about drinking and disinhibition.

GRANT: I'd just like to make two points. They're not related to

each other, but they're both related to some things that came up in

the presentations. The first is that I would share Professor Winick's

reluctance to accept too readily what one learns from content

analysis. Stephen Spender (1967), writing of Under the Volcano, said, "Under the Volcano is no more a novel about drinking than King Lear is a play about senility." And I think that's an important corrective. We mustn't view this simply as facts about particular subject areas in which we have a greater or lesser interest, or we'll

end up taking a poem like "My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose" and

classifying it as horticulture.

When I was over here last year working with Carol Ghinger here on literary images of alcoholism in the family, we came across

something which was quite interesting and which stood up to

analysis, and that was the difference in the forms of the media in

which the representation occurred. It wasn't just an issue of

404
390 DISCUSSION

content, but also one to do with form. We found that novels, for

example, tended to present the drinking as something that was

egocentric: the person looked at their own drinking, they thought

about their drinking, they went into long soliloquies about their

drinking. In plays, on the other hand, the drinking was within a

context of other people, within a context of relationships (Ghinger

and Grant 1982)

And that ties us into something that Ron mentioned this morning

and which was mentioned two or three times yesterday, that

disinhibition has got two aspects: one is how you perceive yourself

as being disinhibited; and the other is how other people perceive you

as being disinhibited. The two may not be consonant; in fact the two

may well be quite different from each other.

Concerning the positive aspects of disinhibition, if one takes even

a cataclysmic portrayal like Under the Volcano, although the

disinhibition that arises through drinking leads in the end to the

self-destruction of the protagonist, it also leads to self-realization

and self-revelation; protagonists find themselves through the

disinhibition. They also kill themselves through the disinhibition,

but they find themselves. Now, that's a very fundamental

ambivalence, but one that's important because in an ontological

way it stresses the importance of the positive aspects of

disinhibition.

That's my first point. The second's easier. I was very interested in

the issue of the number of heavy drinking writers, American

novelists in particular, Twentieth Century American male

novelists in particular (Grant 1981). It's not quite such a huge

sample in some other fields. I've been looking at that again over the

last few months, and it occurs to me that it's convenient to divide

these writers into two sorts: one could look at the Bohemians, and

one could look at the writers of best sellers, and they both appear to

be groups who use alcohol in an extraordinary and very substantial

way in order to seek disinhibition. The Bohemian will choose to use

alcohol in order to separate himself from the cultural norms about

which he's likely to be writing. That's not dissimilar to the way that

French romantic symbolists used drugs. The best seller writer, on

the other hand, appears to alternate between binges of writing and

binges of drinking. I've been in correspondence recently with

writers of best sellers because they seem to be an interesting group

of people, people who tend by and large not to have been researched

very carefully, who are only too happy to talk about themselves ad

nauseum. And certainly there appears to be this peaking of

disinhibitory experience related to their drinking. As it falls off

they go through the disinhibition of creativity, and they go up and

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DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 391

down like a mountain range, And that, again, is a very positive

aspect to do with disinhibition. They will use it in order to give

themselves the space, the breathing space before the nextbout of

creativity, which ends up with yet another identical Frederick

Forsyte for-screen novel.

CAROL GHINGER: Just to continue with what Marcus is

saying about the positive aspects of alcohol that you find in

literature. There's another interpretation of The Bacchae. You

mentioned that it shows the horrid disinhibition that results in the

man's head being cut off by his mother because she's drunk and

doesn't realize what she's doing. There's another interpretation

which says that this play is really about the dangers of not

acknowledging the irrational side of life; King Cadmus refused to

accept Bacchus as the new god and that's why he was punished at

the end: his head was torn off because he refused to accept that the

irrational is a part of life. And so The Bacchae could really be a play

about the dangers of not acknowledging the irrational or the

disinhibitory parts of life.

I also wanted to say that you have to be careful when you're

talking about art and literature not to confuse literature and life.

Very often in literature you'll find alcohol used as a literary device

or just as a way of moving the plot along or just as a convention.

Very often in literature you'll have something like champagne

being used because a literary situation calls for the use of alcohol.

We have to be careful not to see that as a reflection of what's actually

happening in society. You have to make a distinction between

literature and life in that way.

ROOM: Well, if Harry's colleague, John O'Brien, was here, he

would be regaling us with stories of disinhibition and the ancient

Greeks, notably Alexander the Great (O'Brien 1980a, 1980b).

Kai, I think you had a point.

PERNANEN: Yes. It relates to the point about pop culture or

mass media not reflecting reality and also the point about

commercials for alcohol not showing any disinhibited behavior.

Somebody has counted the number of homicides that a sixteenyear-old child has seen in his life on TV and come up with a figure of

18,000 or something like that. The proportion of those which are

alcohol-related, I would think, is very small. So in that sense it does

not at all reflect what reality is. The best estimate, I guess, would be

that 50 percent of homicides would be related to alcohol; and, of

course, very few TV portrayals are family homicides homicides

that occur in the family which also doesn't reflect reality at all.

PARTANEN: I'd like to comment, if I may, on some of my

experiences dealing with this kind of popular culture material. One

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392 DISCUSSION

of these was at a London seminar on film where there were about 20,

mostly American, films dealing with alcoholism. I could compel

myself to see about two-thirds of them, and that was quite enough

because some of them were really pretty lousy for my taste. On the

basis of this, I would like to put forward one generalization.

Fundamentally, these films really didn't deal with alcoholism.

These films needed a hero or an anti-hero, and in some cases it just

turns out that an alcoholic's career is a convenient way to present a

hero, for dramatic purposes, as a popular hero.

Secondly, I have been intrigued by some material in Finnish

classical fiction. There are really some excellent scenes of group

drinking and their consequences, and what has struck me most is

that they are theoretically so satisfying; they very graphically

depict McClelland's (1972) two phases of drinking increased

sociality in the first place, and afterwards come the tendencies

towards personal power, drunken quarrels and fights and all that

stuff.

Now, on the basis of this, last year we organized another film

seminar, using as material scenes from about twelve Finnish films

dealing with drinking. They were not whole films but just

sequences of from two to twenty minutes. It was a very funny

seminar; none of those lousy papers, just films and much talk. We

have come out with a seminar report (Partanen 1980). Two of my

colleagues made a rather concentrated effort to look at this

material as a kind of corpus and perform a semiotic analysis. I'd

like to suggest very briefly what were the principal findings,

because they were really surprising and didn't at all correspond to

our original notions about this.

The first thing is that there emerges a rather clear separation

between instrumental and mythical drinking. This is roughly the

same thing which David Levinson referred to in the morning,

speaking of instrumental versus expressive drinking. We have

called it "mythical." Instrumental drinking isn't very interesting; I

mean, it's really what people's lives are in general. But this

mythical drinking consists of three rather separate stages. The first

thing is that practically invariably women are left behind when

men drink. There is a very tense polarity between alcohol and

women, The way we put it, there are two things in men's lives, but

they never go together: it is either woman or alcohol. From this

contradiction, men seem to shift to another level, and that's a kind of

solidarity between drunken men. There is an element of vacuity,

emptiness in these relationships. One should perhaps call it

"pseudosolidarit:,'" because there is really very little real

comradeship, but still it's a specific solidarity. And then the third

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DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 393

stage this is a very pompous way to put it is the cosmic

loneliness of the drunken man. Here, really, primordial mythical

themes come into the foreground: there are people who try to fly;

there are people climbing into trees or jumping into a well; and

there's a very close relationship with nature. All this brings about

very graphic ways of displaying disinhibited behavior.

I guess I'll stop here, but this was an example to show what kind of

analysis can be made. It was an effort to reveal the structure which

is portrayed in this corpus, in this sample of examples.

SILVERMAN: Maybe a possible explanation for the alcoholic

literary person is this primordial loneliness that you just

mentioned, the fact that in the United States most activities are

group-oriented, and these people are solitary they may drink

because of the fact that they really aren't inside the culture, and

that this is a way of escape.

MARLATT: One comment about the creative writers and their

drinking problems. It is certainly a fascinating topic, and I was

very interested to hear the comment earlier about Lowry and his

own drinking. Some of the biographies on Lowry have very

interesting models of why he was an alcoholic. One of the books, I

think by Day (1973), talked about psychoanalytic oral fixation and

so forth as what really went on with Lowry. But it seems to me from

my reading of that book that he was using alcohol in a different way

than we've been talking about when we've talked about

disinhibition so far, which was that it seemed like he wanted to get

rid of the normal inhibitions of his ordinary, conscious, day-to-day

mind to invite the muse or to let go of the normal controls over the

creative process so that things could start to happen and his

consciousness would start to change and he would become in touch

with a more spiritual dimension.

Now, I don't know if there's any degree of commonality among

those groups of writers that we've been discussing, but it seemed

that at least some of them were trying to use alcohol as a way of

getting in touch with creative, unconscious forces, and were very

successful, although at the end many of them suffered tremendously.

FINGARETTE: Let me make a remark in the form of a

question. We have heard that often what is simply a formula cliche

may be taken by persons studying the material as something

important, while what is the aesthetic point and what has the real

dramatic impact of the work may be missed by the person studying

it because of not looking at it in aesthetic terms. I wonder if it

wouldn't be an important supplement to ask the viewers in some

forum or other what they saw and why it happened and what they

4 08
394 DISCUSSION

saw as important. It might turn out often to be significantly

different from what the observer thought was important about it.

LUM: I think "Saturday Night Fever," which is one of my

favorite films, is a really nice example of that. I thought that

"Saturday Night Fever" dealt with what it was to be lower class

Italian, and it had all kinds of explanations for that and why

"Saturday Night Fever" was indeed "Saturday Night Fever." And

yet when "Saturday Night Fever" came out, the year after that

everyone started buying John Travolta clothes, and discoing and so

on. It should have had the reverse effect. It should have destroyed

any kind of commerciability of John Travolta clothing and

discoing, but it didn't do that.

MOORE: I was going to ask Professor Winick if he would be

prepared to speculate and meet Professor Lemert's challenge. The

question I'd put to him would be: based on your reading of the

popular culture and its treatment of alcohol, if that were having an

important effect on drunken behavior in the current culture, what

would those effects be? Or in what direction would it be shaping

them? My impression from reading your paper is that in many

respects it's teaching people that drinking is not an excuse, that it's

an ordinary typical part of daily life, that they might as well go

ahead and do it and not expect to use it as an excuse in any

particular direction. Would that be a fair reading of the current

treatment?

WINICK: It wouldn't be a complete reading of the current

situation, I would say, because you have exactly the opposite

message coming through, and each of these different formats may

be presenting contradictory messages

MOORE: To the audience?

WINICK: We have every reason to believe they're being

perceived differently by different groups; in other words, the

people who are already drinking heavily, the people who are

drinking moderately, the people who are drinking lightly, the

people who are not drinking, all bring something different to what

they are ready to accept; they have different expectations.

And do they find confirmation for their expectations? I did a

study of a film "The Man with the Golden Arm," which dealt with

drug use among a large population of ordinary high school

students, and went back to them almost a year later (Win ick 1963).

Some of them had gone to see the film because they cared enough

about the subject to buy a ticket; others had not. I compared the

differences in their attitudes in terms of population subgroups. The

differences in what the different groups got from seeing the film

were very substantial. In some cases there was a boomerang effect

4 o
DISINIIIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 395

from that intended by the producer; in other cases exactly the

intended goal had been achieved; and in some cases no message was

received. We can't discuss these impacts without considering the

modality, the medium, and how it's communicated. In the case of

that film, Frank Sinatra was the star, and he represented

something, then and now, and he is seen in a certain way: his

relationships with the two women in the movie were seen

differently, depending on the sex and the tendency systems of the

persons who saw the movie.

I think it would be really terribly hazardous to answer your question in a simple way. However, we do have excellent

information on the audiences for all of these things, since they're all

counted. We know how many people buy books, see movies week by week, etc. We certainly can assess the comparative size cl the

audience. We know the composition of the audience, and we can

attempt to interpret various ways in which the material is being

perceived. As several people have pointed out, this is much more

difficult than content analysis because, particularly when we're

talking about younger people, we know that perception of these different modalities varies in terms of developmental epochs

(Winick 1980). We also know that perception varies in terms of

cultural situation and may vary in terms of dimensions like

ethnicity. What we adults may think is there may not be there at all to a wide element of the audience. However, I think we know

enough now about how young people perceive these materialsthat

we could have a very good shot at coming up with different layers of

meaning, and we could estimate who was getting what. To attempt to say whether people are getting reinforcement

through positive representation of drinking on television and so

forth would be terribly difficult. There's evening television, daytime television, there are soap operas, TV movies, theatrical

movies that are shown on TV and news shows. All of these things we

know are perceived differently. People have differentmind-sets for

watching news programs and entertainment programs. What we

see as violence they may see as playfulness. So that that would be a

terribly difficult question to try to answer, but we could certainly

try it, taking one medium at a time.

WALLACK: I reLfly appreciate what Professor Winick just said because I'm surprised at what we've focusal on today. Except for these last few comments, the discussion has been centered

around such matters as alcoholic writers and the first play that was ever written; when Professor Winick mentioned that American

families spend an average of six hours a day in front of their

television, we dismissed that and instead we're talking about all

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396 DISCUSSION

these other things which have a lot less time exposure anyway. If

advertising in programs to which American families are subject to

six hours a day is suggesting that one of the effects of alcoholic

beverages is disinhibition, and it is being shown that disinhibition

often has no negative consequences, isn't this something that

deserves a lot more discussion and a lot more study?

GRANT: I accept what Larry says completely. In England, the

amount of time that people spend watching television is only

marginally less than it is here. In terms of the number of ounces of

alcohol consumed per program hour, I would guess that the

difference would not be very great; it would paint a very similar

picture.

Now if, as Larry says, a lot of the images of disinhibition that are

emerging are ones which do not show negative consequences, or

where the negative consequences are balanced by an equally

positive consequence, then that is obviously going to be of

significance to the whole culture. I think that the question we then

need to ask is whether we here are not out of step with our culture in

putting such an enormous amount of emphasis on the negative

aspects of disinhibition. It may be not that the television

programming is wrong but it's we who are wrong.

MOORE: In fact it mirrors exactly Ron Roizen's findings of the

morning. It's exactly consistent.

MOSHER: I was just going to comment on that. I want to tie in

where we're going tomorrow and where we've been. Television

programming reflects at least in part what people believe, at least

according to Ron. Many of my friends think that my studying

alcohol problems is rather odd. Everybody likes to drink in my

circle, including myself, and it's okay to do so. Some people have

problems with alcohol but there's something special about them.

This is my sense of the popular view of alcohol, which assumes a

disease concept of alcoholism.

This dominant view of alcohol that we're finding on television also

happens to reflect the drinking beliefs and styles of the dominant

classes in this culture. I've recently done a study of corporate

drinking. Corporate drinking is so ingrained into the lifestyle of the

corporate executive that it's considered necessary for business, and

in the business world, alcohol's disinhibi tory effects are considered

good. Alcohol makes you relax, talk business, compromise, and

generally helps a business run smoothly. If somebody gets in

trouble with alcohol in the corporate world and starts making bad

decisions, alcohol is not blamed; the disease, alcoholism, is the

problem. Television reflects this kind of portrayal of alcohol.

Although television does have to be successful in the ratings in

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DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 397

order to make money, we have to recognize that what gets on that

medium is very heavily controlled, and controlled by issues of

domination, I would argue. It's not an accident that the dominant

portrayal of alcohol in the popular culture especially television

and film reflects the attitudes of the upper classes of the society.

LELAND: Your corporate people I'm assuming they're all men?

MOSHER: Virtually.

LELAND: How did they feel about aggression? Is that positive

or negative? I have a feeling they think "aggressive" is a great thing

to be.

MOSHER: I'm not sure. I didn't find in the corporate images

that alcohol would lead to aggressive behavior. It was believed it led

to just the opposite. It was used for relaxing purposes. This is the

justification for making it a business expense; it helps aggressive

corporate executives relax and get into a mood to compromise so

that they can actually reach agreements. If you think of the

salesman, the reason why the salesman needs two drinks with his

potential customer is to make everything more genial. It doesn't

make you aggressive, it moderates those aggressive instincts a bit,

which is good for business relationships.

MOORE: That depends whether you regard seduction as aggressive or not.

ROOM: One thing that I think we need to keep clearly in mind is

that, as Lang and a number of others have laid out, disinhibition as

a concept really covers the whole spectrum when we talk about

violence and aggression we're talking about only one of the

potential cultural strands in this big box, which is labeled

disinhibition. When I use the word disinhibition, I simplymean the

cultural loading that's attached to feeling different when drinking.

RAUL CAETANO: A lot of people have voiced dissatisfaction

with the concept of disinhibition, and it seems to me a very, very

small umbrella to cover all the facts that we're talking about. We

seem to concentrate on sexuality and aggression, and we leave the

398 other rabbits outside. So maybe we should begin to talk about

the effects of alcohol and set aside the term disinhibition. Then we

could also include the 70 percent of people who feel romantic when

they drink, or the 79 percent who feel sleepy, or the 78 percent who

feel friendly, and maybe we'll get a more accurate picture of what's going on when people drink and get drunk.

ROOM: Mac Marshall has another rabbit to pull.

MARSHALL: I wanted to second that motion and say that I

think a lot of our discussion today has been very culture-bound. I've

kept my mouth shut because we're talking about American culture,

412
398 DISCUSSION

but if we're going to deal with the whole issue of alcohol and human

behavior not just American human behavior then we've got to

get beyond these two issues which seem to be major issues in our

own society and cast a wider net.

POWERS: I would like to remark that so far we've been talking

about popular culture representations of drinking, but we haven't

spoken at all about the popular culture of drinkers, which seems to

be another aspect which deserves looking at. At the turn of the

century I'm doing a study of saloon behavior at that time the

songs sung by all the guys in the saloon never had to do with

drinking; they were always about mother, about romance, about

labor, almost never about drinking. That was something that was

not a part of the repertoire of lower class popular culture.

FINGARETTE: I've just been going over a tally of things that

have been said here, and I wonder if it's significant that among the

effects that we expect characteristically are: that you feel lonely or

that you feel sociable, that you're gregarious or you're aggressive,

that you're sleepy or aroused, that you're mean or you're kind, that

you're sick or you feel great, that you socialize or you commit

crimes, or that you're inspired to creation or you actually break

down, that you feel friendly or you feel animosity, that you're sad or

you're happy, that you're talkative or you're quiet, that you feel

great physically or that you feel sick physically, that it tastes good

or it tastes terrible, that you're kind, or you're unkind and cruel.

That's beginning to suggest to me a picture that is familiar in a

variety of fields. And possibly it's a way of looking at the role that

alcohol plays, at least in our own culture. When you have something

that somehow has been able to take on all these possibilities, then

you have one of these wonderful instruments of pseudo-explanation

and symbolism that will do anything you want, just because it can

be used to imply anything at all.

On the other hand and here's a word in defense of disinhibition,

the dirty word of the day when I think of disinhibition, I'm not so

sure that I find it commonly thought that alcohol also inhibits you.

And when I think of the related term, responsibility, it's easy to

think of the notion of it making you less responsible, but I don't

th ink anyone says it makes you more responsible; that doesn't sound

right. So, as far as any definitive meaning goes, the only distinctive

terms are those two, which do seem specific to the disinhibition

idea.

ROIZEN: That might suggest that we need to talk in Talcott

Parsons-like (Parsons 1968) terms again, we have a new pattern

variable concerning situations, which divides those in which

emotional states are a valid and appropriate part of the situation

413
DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 399

from those in which emotional states are not so valid and

appropriate parts of the situation. For some reason alcohol may

play a role as a kind of door that takes us between the two normative

systems: a kind of official and responsible set of normative

alternatives, and a kind of unofficial and irresponsible set of

normative alternatives. It suggests to me that trying to account for whether it makes us friendly or makes us sad and so on is, after all,

misdirected. Which way it goes seems hardly even an interesting

question any more we might need to think instead about a kind of

Parsonian variable about emotion.

LEVINE: I want to third or fourth or fifth the canning of disinhibition as this sort of Platonic essential category of what it is we're

talking about. I understood that is what MacAndrew and Edgerton

did ten years ago. What so excited me about Jonathan Miller's

materials and what I learned since then is the fundamental falseness of the whole biological model upon which it's built. I have this

fear that instead of having a funeral here, we're giving life back

again to the whole notion. What we should be doing is developing a

richer vocabulary for describing that which has been called

disinhibition.

I wanted to give it a kick of another sort. Here's a classic statement. There's a bunch of them in the first few pages of MacAndrew

and Edgerton (1969).

The inhibitions are our moral brakes. The chief distinction between man and the 'ower animals is that the

former exercises many more inhibitions. Without them

he could hardly live a civilized life. Concentrations of

alcohol in the brain and blood far below those necessary

to produce detectable muscular incoordination will cause

a blunting of the sense of caution and normal restraints.

The key here is "civilized man" and "lower animals" coexisting in

the same body. Presumably the animal desire is the strongone, the

human desire is weak, and the animal is kept under chain except alcohol releases the chain.

I wanted to push that model a little bit and turn it upside down. If

I can't kill it, let me play with it and suggest that it makes at least as

much sense to construct a model of alcohol as an "inhibitor." Let us

take our model of human nature, still keeping it with the human

and the animal coexisting, but we say instead that the civilized

animal is the stronger one that both are free and unrestrained,

but the civilized one is just stronger and so it ordinarily wins out.

Then alcohol becomes an inhibitor; it inhibits the normally civilized

impulses of the human, chains the human up, and leaves that

weaker animal free to do what it wants. Both models equally lose a

sense of reality about what's going on.

414
400 DISCUSSION

RICHARD SPEIGLMAN: To follow up Harry, the other side

of the inhibitory is the disinhibitory, and in a sort of dialectical

sense you can't have one without the other. That takes me back to

Jim Mosher and his comments on the corporate executives and

their behavior and values. I was trying to think: Well, what is their

view about, say, the working class? Are they going to think that

alcohol is good for the working class because it's good for executives? Well, not necessarily. It can be a whole other understanding

of the effect of alcohol. Consider that in the past it was okay for rich

people to drink booze but not for German immigrants to drink beer.

As Herb Fingarette gave that whole list, the answer seemed very

obvious to me: there's a great political possibility for deciding

whatever you want about alcohol's effect on anyone you want to.

There are all kinds of categories: plus/minus, inhibit/disinhibit,

positive/negative. The question is who has the power to enforce

their view. The corporate executives get to enforce both what they

want to think about themselves and undoubtedly it will have

some effect on what is on television and also the view of the

working class which may be completely the opposite of their own

image of themselves.

LANG: I think it's important to understand in these lists that are

compiled that they're based on an amalgamation of data from a

variety of different people. The point was raised earlier about

differences. And it seems that one thing that's gotten lost

in this effort to look at disinhibition as a universal phenomenon that

pertains to all these different behaviors is that there may Le different strokes for different folks. One individual may find tha' alcohol

disinhibits his sexual behavior because he generally has difficulty

expressing himself sexually, and that's the main function that it

serves for him. His data are reported on a questionnaire and added

up with a bunch of other people who have different personal needs

or individual differences or inhibitions, if you will, and the result is

you get all these different things. The only thing that unites them is

that drinking lets them behave in a little different way, and the

particular behaviors in question are more an individual matter

than an amalgam of all these things.

MACANDREW: Referring back to the topic of Win ick's paper.

insofar as the medium provides the message, it follows that if the

message were truly homogenous. there would be only one rabbit.

F1NGARETTE: I asn't sure whether there was a misunderstanding in connection with what Harry Levine said. In saying that

the one thing that was left over that one couldn't naturally give the

opposite for, as implied by disinhibit ion namely, responsibility

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DISINHIBITION IN POPULAR CULTURE 401

and saying I was saying a good word for the disinhibition idea, I'm

not sure whether it was clear that I didn't mean to be saying a good

word for the truth of the theory that alcohol chemically does this,

but rather for the idea that this perhaps may be the only specific

content in the belief that we have about alcohol as a disinhibitor.

The one constant conceptual element that remains is that alcohol is

never usable as a rationalization for inhibition or more responsibility. Thus this would give bona fide meaning to the concept of alcohol

as a disinhibitor but of course doesn't tell us whether it's true that

alcohol disinhibits.

ROIZEN: I can think of one situation where alcohol does signal

you're more responsible. When the businessmen get together to

close a deal and have a few drinks, it's sometimes thought that

what's happening is people are opening up their true selves there

can be no misdealings, no under-the-table stuff. And so in a sense,

the deal closed in an alcohol environment is more responsibly closed

than the deal that never had a drink to seal it.

FINGARETTE: It's instrumentally nonresponsible, but in its

ultimate outcome, the expectation is that it will be more

responsible.

ROOM: Let the record show that Mark Moore shook his head.

416
DAY 3: DISINHIBITION AND

SOCIAL CONTROL

417
Introduction

Robin Room

Today, we turn to the third main topic of our agenda, which is

consideration of the relation between the drinking and disinhibition link and the issue of social control and power in society. In the

discussions in the last two days there's already been a lot of adumbration of this area, and I think that we're in a good position to take

it up in a more formal way. A fourth agenda which is not explicit in

the titles of the presentations involves moving towards some kind of

conclusion or closure, as much as we can manage, concerning the

implications of what we've been discussing for social policy and for

further research.

The first presentation on "Drinking, Disinhibition and Domination" is by Patricia Morgan from the Social Research Group. Pat

has worked in the area of social history of drug policy and also now

in the social history of alcohol policy, and has also done some substantial work in the newly burgeoning field of alcohol and family

violence, reviewing a large but not uniformly excellent literature.

404

418
Alcohol, Disinhibition, and

Domination:

A Conceptual Analysis*

Patricia Morgan

In any society where there is an unequal distribution of resources

:.nd power among its members, systems of domination exist which

act symbolically or substantively to reinforce that domination. Generally overlooked, however, are the ways in which alcohol is used as

an instrument within these systems of domination. Much as religion was used in the 16th and 17th centuries to foster and legitimate

struggles over political and economic power, the effects and characteristics associated with alcoholic beverages are used both symbolically and instrumentally to promote systems of subordination and

domination. Gusfield (1963) argues, for instance, that the need of

the native-born middle class in the 19th century to symbolically

maintain status dominance over the new immigrant working class

was an important factor in middle class leadership of the Temperance movement. More recently, Room (1980) suggests that beliefs

associated with the effects of alcohol have been used as instruments

of intimate domination, thereby reinforcing the inequality between

men and women by legitimating or offering an explanation for

aggression, violence, or unpredictable behavior aimed at less powerful family members.

What these two pieces of work suggest, and what is explored

further here, is the notion that it is a specific aspect of alcohol that

reinforces and helps maintain existing systems of domination. That

aspect is the tacit belief in the link between alcohol and disinhibition. Because alcohol-related research to date has not been organized around this conceptual area, the nature of belief systems which

link alcohol and disinhibition to relationships of domination are

examined first. The alcohol-disinhibition-domination link is then

*Preparation of this paper was supported by National Alcohol Research Center

Grant AA-03524 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to the

Social Research Grorp, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley.

405

419
406 MORGAN

analyzed through examples of their institutional manifestations.

This is followed by a discussion of the social and political implications of the alcohol and disinhibition link in systems of domination.

The Alcohol-Disinhibition Belief System

Ideologies represent belief systems, structured into societies to

enhance or promote norms and values of cultures as a whole, or

subgroups within those cultures. As such, then, they possess important instrumental as well as symbolic power. Levine (1979) notes, for instance, that the ideology of self-control, as an important part of middle class values in the 19th century, promoted a range of acceptable behavior for its members, including abstinence from

drunken behavior. Self-control and abstinence were not only sym- bolic representations of middle class power in society, but these values were also translated into organizational strength and legal power through legal prohibitions against alcohol.

The particular importance of alcohol in this example is not the

substance itself, but its perceived effects (i.e., lack of control) inter- preted within a larger ideological system. Thus, alcohol is more

than a substance to be used simply for recreational or nutritional

purposes. It represents, according to the specific cultural or historical circumstance, morality or immorality, power or weakness. It is believed to be a key to aggression, happiness, love, depression, or creativity. It is a scapegoat. It is given symbolic powers far in excess of the physiological effects of its ethanol content. The particular beliefs associated with alcohol use are influenced by specific value and power structures within a given culture or society.

The link between these belief systems and alcohol use lies within

the agreed upon definitions of the effects of drinking on individuals.

These definitions are strongly tied to the placeof alcohol in the more

general system of societal or subgroup norms and values. The belief

that alcohol use promotes social grace, status, or strength tends to make drinking an important part of a subgroup or culture which values such conditions. Conversely, if a culture promotes self- control, and alcohol is seen as destroying that value, then alcohol

will be proscribed. Thus, the link between alcohol and disinhibition

can have a variety of relationships with social values depending on

the specific content of the beliefs about disinhibition and on the

nature of the social structure. Whether the perceived disinhibitory

effects of alcohol will have either positive or negative values or consequences depends on which segment of society has power to define the disinhibitory function and to impose that definition on

4 :2, 0
ALCOHOL. DISINHIBITION, AND DOMINATION 407

themselves and others. Thus, the alcohol-disinhibition role played

within these belief systems operates through a system of domination. This power of a group to impose a particular value on a society

represents, in fact, that group's domination over alternative values

held by other groups. It represents the power of one group over

another.

In today's society, the disinhibitory effects of alcohol are subject

to conflicting characteristics. There is a powerful alcohol beverage

industry, which widely promotes the beneficial aspects of alcohol

use: social grace, status, masculinity, and sexuality are all attributes subtly attributed to the effects of drinking through powerful

and widespread media presentations (Mosher and Wallack 1979;

Sargent 1979). These messages capitalize on values implicitly promoted in today's culture values which shape individual, interpersonal, and group behavior in many ways, and through many

institutional settings. The effects of drinking promoted by the

industry are interwoven with, and in some cases enhanced by,

preexisting cultural values and beliefs.

We live, however, in a culturally diverse society, a society in

which racial, ethnic, social, and class divisions represent many

alternative value systems. It is within this framework that the

negative consequences of alcohol drinking behavior become identified. Among groups or individuals, at particular times, alcohol use

is thus also said to lead to aggression, violence, and immoral or

pathological behavior. However, there is no one antialcohol interest

presenting those interpretations in contrast to those promoted by

the alcohol beverage industry. Instead, these negative characteristics are selectively identified, and their consequences selectively

imposed on particular groups at particular times, by interests

which have the power to define and impose their values over others.

Alternatively, the same behavior can be identified as problematic

or not, depending on the group exhibiting the behavior.

The selective identification of negative alcohol-disinhibition

characteristics is made possible by an individualistic interpretation for alcohol problems. By locating alcohol problems within

individual psychopathology, associations between alcohol problems

and other "social ills" can be differentially attributed. For instance,

alcoholism can be an explanation for crime in both higher and

lower status individuals. It is the higher status individual, however,

who is more likely to have this alcohol-related criminal behavior

excused as an illness (see Mosher this volume).

In sum, whatever alcohol use represents the representation itself

marks a power differential according to who (or what groups) has

the power to enforce those definitions. Thus, the alcohol421
408 MORGAN

disinhibition link can be utilized to reinforce, maintain, symboli- cally represent, or excuse a system of domination and

subordination. Selective attributions of this link can provide the

rationale for selective restrictions on individual or group behavior

in general, and drinking behavior in particular.

Variation by Social Category of the Actor

Often alcohol is believed to have different disinhibitory effects on

different classes of people. For instance, Levine (in this volume)

argues that colonial Americans' beliefs about the effects on Indians

differed from their beliefs about the effects on themselves. But even

when disinhibitory effects are believed to be the same for different

statuses, the social meaning of the effects will often be very different. The same disinhibited behavior which is accepted for one

group may be viewed as shocking for another. Such differential

interpretations of the drinking-disinhibition link reflect the different social positions and relationships to power of the groups being

evaluated. One example of this is the different evaluations placed

on drunken disinhibition in women and in men in contemporary

American society.

These different evaluations can be seen reflected in the research

literature. In the post war period, notions of submissiveness, chastity, and nurturing were promoted as the acceptable behavior for

women, as were aggressiveness and strength for men. Unlike its

effects on men, inebriety was said to release a woman from the

moral ties that bound her, leading her to neglect her responsibility

to home and husband, and further to reject her very womanness. In

1962 Hirsh argued, for instance, that it was a woman's duty to hold

up the moral fabric of society through her duties as wife and

mother. Thus, he writes:

...when angels fall, they fall disturbingly far. We would

rather have them in their place, which is another way of

saying that they define and make our own place possible

and even more comfortable. (1962, p. 111)

In 1967, Cur lee underscored the importance of this role for women

in describing their drunken behavior as particularly problematic.

Because the role of woman has been equated with the

stabilizing functions of wife and mother, the drunken

woman has seemed to be a special threat; no one likes to

think that the hand that rocks the cradle might be a

shaky one. (1967, p. 115)

Cur lee further asserted that women themselves accepted this dif422
ALCOHOL, DISINHIBITION, AND DOMINATION 409

ferentiated value system which labeled their own drunken

behavior particularly immoral as a rejection of the subordinate

bonds of womanhood. "According to the stereotype, a woman who

has deserted her feminine role sufficiently to be an alcoholic has

deserted respectability in all areas, especially in the sexual ones"

(Cur lee 1987, p. 155).

Conversely, much the same drunken disinhibitory behavior for

men was not necessarily seen as problematic, much less as immoral

or threatening. In some cultures, as in certain areas of the United

States, aggression is acceptable drunken behavior among men;

some studies report that rowdiness, or aggression, among male

drinkers is a way to reinforce social status, male images, and influence in the home (Sargent 1979). In fact, Tiger (1969) suggests that

a "boys' night out" when men can exhibit drunken, masculine

behavior is important in modern society in order to reestablish

social ties of masculinity and male dominance over women.

Mac Andrew and Edgerton (1969) argue that Native Americans'

drinking behavior was "taught" to them by their suppliers and

absorbed within the context of their particular cultural heritage.

Thus, according to Mosher (1975), frontier whites were notoriously

heavy drinkers, from whom the natives partially learned their

drinking behavior:

...the binges were taught to be an integral part of the

drinking experience. Thus, white attitudes reflected a

double standard: White binge drinking on the frontier

was excused or viewed as individualistic, while Indian

drinking, similar to that of the whites, was condemned in

toto. (p. 6)

Alcohol and Disinhibition: Relation

to Domination

Unequal relations between groups or between individuals can be

established or maintained in two basic interrelated ways: by

increasing or maintaining the power and effective social control of

the dominant, and by increasing or maintaining the subordination

of the powerless. Beliefs in alcohol's disinhibitory powers can be

used in both these ways to maintain dominance. Belief in a negative

disinhibitory effect of alcohol on the subordinate groups often

appears in the labeling of deviance, serving as a justification for

maintaining inequality or for social control. Alternatively, beliefs

about the negative disinhibitory effects of alcohol can be used to

deny alcohol to those with less power, as a dramatic symbol of their

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410 MORGAN

subordination. In both these cases, the alcohol disinhibition link is

used as a rhetoric of justification for social control: as an often

powerful symbolic reinforcement of power relations which have

other material bases. The symbolic nature of the relation to domination does not make it any less real in its consequences: the successful

establishment of a hegemony of beliefs about alcohol, disinhibition,

and the powerless becomes in itself an instrument of power.

Alternatively, the alcohol-disinhibition link can reinforce dominant relationships more directly. Dominant groups can retain the

sole right to disinhibitory behavior (Sargent 1979), as well as using

it to wield fofce againt subordinates (Room 1980). Conversely, to the

extent drinking serves to debilitate the drinker, the powerful can

promote drinking among the powerless to reinforce their

subjection.

Thus, the implementation of drinking-disinhibition values by

dominating groups over subordinate ones can take several forms.

They can represent the rationale behind measures of social control,

as well as attempts to maintain the means of social control. A few

propositions will be offered here with examples to illustrate the

ways in which values associated with alcohol and disinhibition

support these relations.

Beliefs in the negatiie disinhibiting effects of alcohol can explain or

reinforce notions of deviant values or behavior in subordinate

groups. Here, examples from the literature abound. Levine (1979)

writes of the attempts of the 19th century middle class to delegitimate working class values and impose their own. Working class

drinking behavior was seen simply as another manifestation of the

inability of immigrant and lower class groups to maintain the

correct moral standards of society. During that time, images of

saloon behavior generally underscored the immorality of these and

other deviant groups. Sinclair (1964) quotes one Southern leader as

arguing:

The saloon is a place of rendezvous for all classes of the

low and vulgar, a resort for degraded Whites and their

more degraded Negro associates, the lounging place for

adulterers, lewd women, the favorite haunt of gamblers,

drunkards and criminals. (p. 30)

The perceived deviancy of Mexican farmworkers in California

during the 1920s and 1930s was reinforced through explanations of

their drinking behavior, Alcohol was said to drive Mexican men to

uncontrollable aggression and violent behavior, especially knife

fights and barroom brawls (Taylor 1931). This was used as an

explanation of the uncivilized nature of the Mexican culture and as

a rationale for keeping Mexican farm workers isolated from urban

areas in California (Morgan 1978a).

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ALCOHOL, DISINHIBITION, AND DOMINATION 411

Other examples can be cited to support this point. Drunken

disinhibition in blacks was seen as a particular threat by whites in

the pre-Prohibition era. Sinclair (1964) writes that Southern whites

saw liquor affecting "Negroes differently from Whites."

Liquor sometimes gave the Negro the strength to repudiate his inferior status. It also encouraged him to loose

his libido on White women, incited, so it was said, by the

nudes on the labels of whiskey bottles. (p. 29)

Although whites were subject to the same evil influences of liquor,

one Congressman commented, "...the White man being further

evolved it takes longer time to reduce him to the same level" (in

Sinclair 1964, p. 29).

Even tody, Native American drinking behavior is presented as

a reflection of weakness, racial inferiority, and inability to become

assimilated into white culture. Mosher writes that in place of old

racist theories of Indian drinking behavior, newer and more individual istic approaches deny the cultural specificity and diversity of

Indian culture which shape drinking behavior today. Thus, current

discussions of Indians and alcoholism still reflect the dominant

white ideas of the general inferiority of Indian culture (Mosher

1975).

In yet another contemporary example, acceptable drinking

behavior among American women remains restrictive. Therefore,

a woman who is a victim of assault or aggression and who has been

drinking wi'l likely be blamed in some way for her victimization.

Because women as a group are still considered subordinate, some

drinking behaviors will be viewed as an explanation for whatever

may befall those who step outside of traditional female behavior.

The woman who is raped on her way home from a bar, for instance,

can easily be blamed for her victimization simply because her

drinking behavior was seen to give evidence of her unwillingness to

abide by the moral code imposed on her by others.

Belief in the alcohol disinhibition link can also be used to deny or

limit the availability of alcohol to subordinate groups. Limiting

alcohol availability also often serves as a symbolic or instrumental

tool toward further isolation of a subordinate group, and a reinforcement of dominant values. Blacks, women, and Native Americans are all groups which have been denied access to alcoholic

beverages either legally or through intense social pressure reflecting more covert policies of social control.

For instance, in classical Rome drinking was thought to lead to

sexual abandonment, a behavior which was acceptable for men but

not for women. Thus, the preservation of chastity among Roman

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412 MORGAN

women was partly enforced by prohibiting women to drink. This

reflected the relative power of men in Roman society and their

ability to determine cultural values. In later years, after women

attained more power relative to men in Roman society, they were

allowed access to alcoholic beverages (McKinlay 1959).

For another example, Native Americans were subject to Federal

prohibition of alcohol availability on reservations until 1953, when

the Federal Government gave alcohol control jurisdiction to the

States. Mosher (1975) argues that this was part of a general governmental aim to "terminate the Indian tribes as corporate entities"

(1975, p. 21). Often, however, liquor availability for subordinate

groups was wedded to the need to maintain social control. As such,

control figured into the history of subordinate groups in a variety of

ways. Mosher argues that the history of liquor legislation illustrated a gradual attempt by the U.S. Government to control the

Native American Indian population. He writes, for instance, that

"liquor laws provided an ideal means for the federal agents to

control individual Indian behavior" (1975, p. 18).

In the South after reconstruction, liquor prohibition provided the

rationale for tougher social and political control over blacks. The

Prohibition movement in the South, according to Denise Herd

(1981), "served as the rationale for the political disenfranchisement

of blacks." Blacks were characterized by rural Protestant middle

class prohibitionists as violent and lustful drinkers who, by "selling" their votes, supported the upper class, wet, urban, Yankee

interests, (Herd points out, however, that other historical evidence

contrasts with this view, suggesting instead that, in reality, black

drinking behavior was more moderate,than that of whites. She also

points to the strong influence of black Temperance groups on the

general black population.) The idea that blacks were a major obstacle to statewide prohibition measures, coupled with the inundation

of provocative accounts in the press of drunken Negro debauchery,

contributed to the total political disenfranchisement of blacks by

the 1910s. In a related political development, by 1914, all Southern

States but two had passed prohibition laws (Sinclair 1964).

The proscription of alcohol to women in the 19th century offers

another interesting example. In the colonial period, characterized

by Puritan hierarchal values, women were scarce and a valuable

part of the community work force. They not only drank along with

men; many were tavern keepers (Lerner 1969). The Jacksonian era,

however, not only ushered in the secularization. urbanization, and

industrialization of American culture; it also brought in a new

middle class with new values which essentially were more egalitarian for men and more restrictive for women. Levine (1979) writes of

426
ALCOHOL, DISINHIBITION, AND DOMINATION 413

the changing notions of womanhood during this period and of the

values which brought intense social pressure for absolute abstinence for women.

In contemporary society, belief in the alcohol-disinhibition link

has continued to be used as a rationale for limiting access to alcohol

as a symbolic cover for social control. The circumstances however

are a bit more complex. In a continuing study of alcohol availability

in Berkeley, Friedner Wittman (1980) has made some interesting

observations concerning "public" and "private" alcohol-related d isinhibitory behavior in the community.

In the predominantly black neighborhoods, a concerted effort has

been made by organized groups to limit new alcohol beverage

outlets in the area. These neighborhoods already have the highest

level of alcohol availability, so that limiting new outlets will not

necessarily have an effect on overall availability. The issue instead

has been identified as an objection to alcohol-related rowdy street

corner behavior by homeowners in a part of the city which is

becoming rapidly gentrified. The issue then concerning alcohol is

largely a symbolic one. Public display of disinhibitory alcoholdrinking behavior, which was allowed to exist for years as part of

the neighborhood's subculture, is no longer acceptable public

behavior in an area that is undergoing rapid gentrification. Around

the moves to limit outlets is a broader agenda of control, seeking to

change street behavior.

Attempts to limit alcohol availability in groups considered subordinate or deviant find expression in modern society in attempts to

limit the settings of alcohol availability. For example, a recent

zoning ordinance in San Francisco restricted the development of

new bars in another neighborhood undergoing gentrification. In

this case, new family homeowners were fighting the encroachment

of gay homeowners in the same area, and saw the public display of

gay lifestyles associated with the scheduled opening of a new gay

bar in the neighborhood. In this example, as in the others we have

offered, the ability to limit alcohol, the access to alcohol, or the

settings of alcohol consumption is the "ability to limit access to the

means of disinhibition" (Room 1980).

In sum, the imposition of negative values on the alcohol -

disinhibition link has often provided rationales for the maintenance

of social control. Dominant values have bcth symbolically and

instrumentally been imposed on subordinate groups, as we have

seen, in a number of ways. Generally, however, these values, within

which alcohol and disinhibition play a key part, became a part of

institutionalized patterns of social control, separate from any interest in drinking behavior itself. Symbolically, the link has been used

427
414 MORGAN

to maintain a rhetoric of domination toward subordinate groups.

As Himmelstein (1978) has argued, these patterns are most likely to

arrive when the relationship between dominant and subordinate

groups is in a state of flux.

[it]...is a way of symbolically reasserting the legitimacy

of the hierarchial relationship between the groups, the

right of the relatively dominant group to its position of

dominance. (1978, p.42)

But symbols are in the end also instruments: Symbols which are

used as a justification for domination can also reinforce instrumental patterns or policies of social control (cf. Edelman 1977; Gusfield

1981; Morgan 1978b). Further, the fluidity of alcohol disinhibition

definitions has often enabled those with power to adjust the rationale for intervention according to particular social control needs.

The second pattern of alcohol and disinhibition value associations

is concerned with the maintenance of domination over others. These

also can take several forms, a few of which will be outlined here.

Commonly, beliefs in the alcohol-disinhibition link serve as

explanations for deviant behavior in place of broader or more

problematic associations. Alcohol "as demon rum" has, since the

Temperance era, provided the excuse for a wide assortment of

deviant behavior exhibited by otherwise nondeviant individuals.

Upstanding, responsible husbands and fathers abuse their wives

and children supposedly only under the influence of alcohol, and

their deviant actions are seen primarily in relation to this.

Historically, when physical chastisement against wives was seen as

a common prerogative of husbands, an alcohol-related or any other

type of disinhibitory "excuse" was not needed (Dobash and Dobash

1979; Morgan 1980; Room 1980). However, in the last half of the

20th century, with relations within the family in flux, husbands

attempting to retain dominance can no longer justify acts of

violence and aggression as an automatic right. The mediating

influence of disinhibitory alcohol behavior then is seen as a much

easier association to make. As Room (1980) has argued, it offers husbands a convenient instrument to use in maintaining

domination within the family.

Hidden behind the alcohol-as-excuse rhetoric, these relations of

domination also serve as facesaving arguments for wives in a

subordinate position. Unwilling in today's society to admit openly

that she exists in a subordinate relationship to her husband, the

wife often finds that alcohol, as a disinhibiting agent, provides the

necessary excuse for her victimization, and for continuing in the

relationship (Dobash as quoted in Aarens et al. 1977, p. 554).

The use of alcohol disinhibitory behavior as an excuse for deviant

428
ALCOHOL, DISINHIBITION, AND DOMINATION 415

actions, often termed "deviance-disavowal" by researchers in the

field (Gel les 1972; McCaghy 1968), is commonly used for more

public crimes es well. Theft, sexual crimes, bribery, and

embezzlement are shaded with the alcohol excuse by prominent

businessmen, professionals, and politicians (cf. Mosher in this

volume). Implicit in these deviance-disavowal explanations is the

assumption that these are all fine upstanding citizens whose real

crimes lie within their drinking behavior. Thus, they are sick

individuals who deserve to be "treated" and not punished.

Consequently, the alcohol-as-excuse explanation offers a

rationale for certain types of State intervention. Through unequal

application of the law, for example, some criminals who plead

alcohol as excuse can be diverted away from the criminal justice

system into alcoholism treatment programs. The selective

application of these options particularly favors those who enjoy

some measure of status, wealth, or power. This selective

application, however, is encouraged by current individualistic

models of alcohol problems. Thus, the moral dimension involved in

particular definitions of alcohol problems is often hidden behind a

technological/scientific cover. According to a recent book by

Gusfield (1981), this represents a political choice, as well as amoral

one. He argues that to wrap a scientific cloak around definitions of

drinking problems,

...denies that a moral decision has been taken, that a

political choice among alternatives has been made. The

ownership and responsibility for social problems and

their solution are given as a matter of fact and not of

value. (p. 194)

The alcohol-disinhibition link can also help uphold the status or

dominance of a group without excuse or apology. When connections

are made directly between prerogatives of power and drinking

behavior, disinhibitory behavior can be viewed as a right. For dominant groups, power can be reinforced through the right to

exhibit disinhibitory drunken behavior, which for other groups

would be sanctioned. To return to an earlier example concerning

intimate domination, disinhibitory alcohol behavior can represent

the power a husband has over his wife (Room 1980). He retains the

right to his drunken behavior, as long as power remains unequal in

the family. "Power," however, is commonly context= and statusspecific. The domineering husband may have the right to exhibit

disinhibitory behavior within the private realm of the family, but

would be sanctioned for the same behavior when exhibited in

situations where he is not dominant, such as public drinking among

his peers. Thus, Burns' piece (1980) on young male drinkers in

429
416 MORGAN

Charlestown, a section of Boston, shows that their rowdy drinking

behavior is acceptable only in certain contexts and neighborhoods

where they hold the edge on power and status. This behavior would

not be acceptable in other contexts such as the "family bar" or in

dignified sections of the city. It might present no problems to harass

a lesbian bar downtown, but to violate the decorum of the drinkers

in a middle class establishment wouLl bring heavy negative

sanctions. In the same light, the street corner behavior exhibited by

young black males in Southwest Berkeley might have been

tolerated in that neighborhood, but would not be in the middle class

white Elmwood or Claremont districts of the city.

In such examples, the "right" of publicly displaying drunken

disinhibitory behavior may well involve the symbolic display of

relative power or status in an enclosed environment which is not

attainable in the larger society. For the young men of Charlestown,

the room for public rowdy drunken behavior is symbolic of the

passage to manhood and all that that symbolically represents in

terms of power and dominance. Similarly, the young weekend

warriors in Marshall's study of Truk (1979) have the right to run

amok when drunk. The right encompassed in this behavior enables

young men to "work toward establishing the culturally valued

identities of competence, true bravery and manliness and to

express aggression against others in socially permissible ways"

(1979, p. 127). Boyatzis (1976) suggests on the basis of societies

where power is highly valued, alcohol fills a particularly useful role, by allowing an individual to feel more powerful than

warranted in his actual position in society.

In sum, the selective application of values to drunken

disinhibitory behavior can be used to support those with power or

status. As an excuse for negative disinhibitory behavior, it offers a

way out of problematic situations. As a prerogative of power or

status, it can be seen as a context-specific manifestation of

dominance. Disinhibitory alcohol behavior thus offers a way of

displaying power, or a way of supporting images of power, both

directly and indirectly, symbolically and instrumentally.

A final option, as we have noted, is that alcohol as a particular

disinhibitory drug could be supplied !o subordinates as a way of dissipating potential political problems. For the subordinated,

alcohol has always been the original and pervasive "opiate of the

masses." In many times and places drunkenness served as an

anodyne and diversion from potential political action against

dominant groups. Historical and anthropological accounts of

alcohol's relationship to society have presented evidence that

dominant groups have often been quite conscious of this relation:

4 3 0
ALCOHOL, DISINHIBITION, AND DOMINATION 417

Alcohol was thus made cheaply available to subordinates to soak up

excess purchasing power (as in Poland); to relieve the pressures of

autocratic regimes (as in Franco's Spain); or to realize maximum

profit in primitive capitalist production (as in the 17th and 18th

centuries).

Liquor and beer production flourished in 17th and 18th century

Europe when increased grain production forced merchants to turn

their products into alcohol which could be more easily shipped and

stored (Park 1979). Coupled with the expansion of colonialism

"booze," as George Orwell put it, became "the cement of empire"

both at home and abroad. Alcohol was used in the exploitation of

subject peoples abroad in Latin America under Spain, and in

Alaska under the Russians (Bunzel 1940; Lemert 1979; Stauffer

1971). At home, alcohol, when placed under complete government

control, as in Russia, not only brought maximum revenues to the

State, but, according to one writer, was also an "analgesic to

widespread misery" (Wortis 1963, p. 1645).

According to some, alcohol use played an important role in

Britain in the transition from feudalism to capitalism (Park 1980),

and in the United States in placating immigrant laborers. Stivers

(1976) writes of the 19th century Irish worker in the United States.

Under certain circumstances Irish laborers were

literally forced to become hard drinkers, if not

drunkards. Irish laborers, especially those working on

canals and railroads, were often paid a portion of their

wages in rotgut whiskey. .. . The Irish laborer was also

encouraged to drink heartily off the job as a means of

maintaining a class of indentured servants. Grogshops

owned by contractors encouraged hard drinking by

providing the laborer with unlimited credit. (p. 140)

Generally, Lemert (1979) found that "the unrestricted delegation of

control over liquor supply undoubtedly has been both a political and

economic means of maintaining indenture and peonage systems"

(p. 46).

Conclusion

This essay has been an attempt, on the one hand, to broaden

theoretical inquiry for studies on alcohol and disinhibition and, on

the other hand, to contribute to the development of analyses which

explicitly focus on the social control aspects of alcohol use in society.

Pivotal to this endeavor has been the cultural, social, and economic

specificity of values associated with disinhibitory alcohol behavior.

431
418 MORGAN

This has allowed us to look at old alcohol studies in new ways, As

such, it has been necessary at times to sketch in black and white.

Consequently, the propositions offered here are first attempts to

pencil in structural relations of power, domination, and social

control as they affect values and beliefs about behavior in general,

and drinking behavior in particular.

As theoretical assumptions about the complex relations involved

in the association between alcohol and disinhibition are broadened,

there is a need to ask why certain values and not others get placed on

certain behaviors. In this light, following a particular drinking

phenomenon through several historical periods, much as Levine

has done, becomf.s especially valuable. Cross-cultural explorations

offer the same opportunity to examine the specificity of values

which get placed on certain groups and their drinking behaviors.

The second purpose of this paper has been to focus more explicitly

on the relationship between alcohol and social control. As Room has

written recently, outside of Lemert's early work, the literature in

this area has been sparse (1980). This paper examines only one

component: how alcohol is used to maintain or reinforce systems of

domination. As Room (1980) suggests, there are also other dimensions in alcohol's relation to social control as a potential tool for

subordinates, and as a symbolic expression of opposition by the

powerless. Moreover, there is need to be aware of another whole

area of theoretical development between alcohol and social control

namely, the social handling of those identified as having alcoholrelated problems. In short, a whole new terrain needs to be mapped

out, adding the "contour lines of the social control dimension to our

understanding of drinking practices and problems" (Room 1980.

p. 14).

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Cusuallirs mid Crime. Report No. C18. Berkeley: Social Research

Group, University of California, 1977.

Royatzis. R.E. Drinking as a manifestation of power concerns. Everett. M.W.;

Waddell. J.0.; and Heath. DM.. eds. Cross-f 'utturot Apiowochrs lo the Sbedy of

Alrohol. The Hague: Mouton, 1976, pp. 265-286.

Runnel. R. The role of alcoholism in two Central American cultures. ychialry.

3;361-387. 1940.

Burns. T.F. Getting rowdy with the boys. .1mt mil (If Drug Issiirs, 10(21: 273-286,

1980.

Curlee.1 Alcoholic women. Bid/rtin of the Mut, n ;riper Clinic, 31:154-163. 1967.

Dobash. R.E.. and Dobash. R. 1'ioieurf..4goingt Wir.'. New York: The Free Press,

1979.

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ALCOHOL DISINHIBITION, AND DOMINATION 419

Edelman, M. Political Language. New York: Academic Press, 1977. Gel les, R.J. The Violent Home. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1972. Gusfield, J. Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1963. Gusfield, J. The Culture of Public Problems: Drink ing-Driuing and the Symbolic Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Herd, D. Alcohol Control: A Rhetoric of Freedom in Black America. Working Paper F140. Berkeley: University of California. Social Research Group, 1981. Himmelstein, J. The social labeling of psychoactive drugs; An interim report. Drinking and Drug Practices Surveyor, 11:36-42, 1978. Hinh, J. Women and Alcoholism. In: Bier, W.C., ed. Problems in Addiction. New

York: Fordham University Press, 1962. pp. 108-115.

Lemert, E.M. An interpretation of society's efforts to control the use of alcohol.

Drinking and Drug Practices Surveyor, 15:19-22, 45-49, 1979 (first printing, 1958).

Lerner, G. The lady and the mill girl: Changes in the status of women LA the age of Jackson. Midcontinent American Studies Journal, 10(45-15, 1969. Levine. H,G. Demon of the Middle Class: Self-Control, Liquor and the Ideology of Temperance in Nineteenth Century America. Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, 1979. MacAndrew, C., and Edgerton, R.B. Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation. Chicago: Aldine, 1969.

Marshall, M. Weekend Warriors: Alcohol in a Micronesian Culture. Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfiel! Publishing Company. 1979.

McCaghy, C.H. Drinking and deviance disavowal: The case of child molesters.

Social Problems, 16(1):43 -49, 1968.

McKinley, A.P. The Roman attitude toward women's drinking. In: McCarthy, R.G., eo. Drinking and Intoxication. New Haven, Conn,: College and University Press. 1959 pp. 58-61.

Morgan, P. "The Political Uses of Moral Reform: California and Federal Drug Policy. 1910-1960." Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of California. Santa Barbara. 1978a.

Morgan, P. The legislation of drug law: Economic crises and social control. Journal

Druy Issues. 8(1):53-62, 1978h.

Morgan, P. Alcohol and Family Violence: An Overview of Information and

Resources. Paper prepared for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and

Alcoholism. Berkeley: Social Research Group. University of California, 1980. Masher, J. "Liquor Legislation and Native Americans: History and Perspective. Working Paper F136. Berkeley: Social Research Group, University of California. 1975.

Mosher, .1.. and %Vail ack, L. Proposed reforms in the regulation of alcoholic beverage advertising. Contemporary Drug Prohlemx, 8(1):87-106. 1979. Park, P. "Industrialization and Alcoholism: Toward a Structural Explanation." Paper presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting, Boston, 1979.

Room. R. "Alcol--%1 as an Instrument of Intimate Domination." Paper presented at

the Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting, New York. 1980. Room. R. Alcohol, science and social control. In: Gomberg. E., and Raskin. H., White, eds. Alcohol. Sriorcr um/ Sorirty Rt.,/.witrti. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers

('enter of Alcohol Studies. 1981 (forthcoming).

Sargent, M. hrinkluy mu! .4 /coiodism ;), .4 itstro/io: .4 Poirri Relotion.4 Theory. Melbourne, Australia: Longman Cheshire. 1979

Sinclair, A. Era of Excess: A Social History of the Prohibition Movement. New York:

Harper and Row. 1964.

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Stauffer. R.B. The Role of Drugs in Political Change. New York: General Learning

Press. 1971.

Stivers. R. A Hair of the Dog: Irish Drinking and American Stereotype. University

Park, Pa.: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 1976.

Taylor. P.S. Mexicans in the United States. Report of the Wickersham Commission:

Crime and the Foreign Born. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing

Office. 1931.

Tiger, L. Men in Groups. New York: Random House, 1969.

Wittman. F. Tale of Two Cities: Policies and Practices in the Local Control of Akohol

A ra ilabil it y Berkeley: Social Research Group, University of California, 1980.

Wortis, J. Alcoholism in the Soviet Union: Public health and social aspects. American Journal of Public Health. 53:1644-1655. 1963.

434
Presenter's Comments

MORGAN: What I have suggested in the paper is a list of propositions which can be used to explain some of the ways in which

beliefs about alcohol and disinhibition become manifest in society.

By looking at the relationships of alcohol and disinhibition to domination we are in fact opening up a whole new way of looking at what

we've been studying in the last three days. But if we study domination, then it is also relevant to look at something else called inhibition. And what I'd like to suggest is that alcohol can actually be used

to maintain systems of responsibility, and certain aspects of social

control, by inhibiting certain kinds of behaviors.

For instance, in many cultures when one feels aggressive towards

one's neighbor or family member, one does not engage in physical

aggression; one goes out to drink as a replacement for that. In

another example, Joan Ablon (1980) has found in some recent work

she has been doing among second and third generation Irish Americans that these families are generally characterized by sexual

repression, that both husbands and wives readily admit that drinking very often is a substitute for expression of sexuality or sexual

relations within the family.

In this same vein, very often alcohol can be used as a symbol of

responsibility one has to maintain the inhibition, if you will, or

the control to go out and do what is responsible. For instance, I was

thinking of the Japanese fighter pilots in World War II who, before

they went off to certain death, were reinforced by a symbolic drink of sake. There are a lot of other examples, both historical and

contemporary.

So, by way of summing up, this has been an attempt, on the one

hand, to broaden the theoretical inquiries of studies on alcohol and

disinhibition, and, on the other hand, to contribute to the development of analyses which explicitly focus on certain institutions of

social control.

I would also like to note that the theoretical assumptions about

complex relations involved in the association between alcohol and

disinhibition need to be broadened, and there is a need to ask why

certain values and not others get placed on behaviors like drinking.

In this light, following a particular drinking phenomenon through

historical periods, as Harry Levine has done, becomes especially

421

435
422 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

valuable. Cross-cultural explorations offer the same opportunity to

examine the specificity of values which get placed on groups and

their drinking behaviors.

436
Commentary

Elizabeth Morrissey

ROOM: Elizabeth Morrissey has been at the Alcohol and Drug

Institute at the University of Washington in Seattle for a number of

years and is causing us to have to revise our notions of the differences between women and men in the natural history of drinking

problems. She is currently working on a life history study among

juvenile delinquents, a study focusing on drug use.

ELIZABETH MORRISSEY: In discussing Pat's paper, I'd

first like to offer a minor critique, that the propositions that she put

forth in the paper might be formulated more parsimoniously. For

example, explanations of deviant behavior in subordinate groups

might more profitably be seen as one of the mechanisms whereby

the availability of alcohol is restricted or controlled or denied to

deviant groups, so that those two categories could be combined.

I'd like to, first of all, bring to bear some further examples in

support of Morgan's propositions primarily from the literature on

women and alcohol, partly because that's the literature with which

I'm most familiar; and, secondly, I'd like to muddy the waters,

bring in the grays that Pat was referring to by taking up wt:sre she

leaves off the question of how alcohol/disinhibition ideology is

manifested in the social organization of social control. I want to

come down one level of analysis and look at the ways in which this

link shows up in social control of drinking behaviors.

First of all, there are additional considerations which lend support to Morgan's assertions regarding the power relations associated with the beliefs in the alcohol/disinhibition link. As has been

evident in numerous contexts over the last two days, women as a

subordinate group play multi-faceted roles in the maintenance of

the belief system in question. Our concern with disinhibition has

continually drawn attention to the relationship at several levels of

analysis among alcohol, sex and violence. In fact, before the conference when I was going through the papers, I mentioned to Robin

that the title should actually be changed to "Alcohol, Sex and

Violence."

Women provide a focus for very strong feelings about all three of

423

437
424 MORRISSEY: COMMENTARY

these things. As sexual objects, their presence may interfere with

the pleasures of drinking in male drinking groups there are

frequent examples of women being excluded because when they

were included in male drinking groups, illegitimacy and adultery

ensued. It's the women who are seen as causing those kinds of

problems; as long as they're excluded, then drinking behavior will

be fun. Women are also, as Pat pointed out, objects of violence,

which is excused by an account in terms of alcohol. And women are

members of a subordinate group whose access to alcohol is limited

by virtue of the power relationships, as observed in Pat's paper.

These aspects are woven together in intricate ways. For example,

Marian Sandmaier (1980), in a recent book, describes the

prohibition in ancient Greece against a female's use of wine. In that

context the intimacy of relationships between women and male

relatives was used to determine whether a woman had taken wine.

Any time a woman met up with a male relative any time of the day,

she was required to greet this person with a kiss on the lips. If

alcohol were evident on her breath and this is probably the first

example of a breathalyzer she was subject to execution on the

spot.

Morgan describes interrelationships between alcohol, family

violence and the power differentials between the sexes. There's

evidence that even when violence is not involved, women accept

responsibility for the impact of drinking problems on the family,

whether the problems are a result of their drinking or their spouses'

drinking. In the mid-'70s, Corrigan (1980) replicated the findings

that Curlee (1970) reported in the mid-'60s, and came up again with

the notion that alcoholic women find drunkenness in women more

distasteful than drunkenness in men, and they are also more likely

than other women to have this belief about drunkenness in women.

At other levels in family interaction, a study done by Anne

Sundgren in 1978 indicated that female spouses of alcoholic men

are more likely than spouses of alcoholic women who are males

to feel a sense of hopelessness about the spouse's alcoholism and to

feel that they were losing their minds. The women were, in a sense,

accepting responsibility for the breakdown of the family as a

consequence of the repeated drunkenness of the husbands. A

similar sort of thing did not happen with the husbands. If a woman

is married to an alcoholic, she has driven him to drink. If she is an

alcoholic, she is much worse than a man manifesting similar

behavior. As Morgan points out, these notions come through in the

research literature.

In the late '60s, a study of alcoholic women in France closed with

the admonition that "alcoholism is the price that women pay for

438
ALCOHOL, DISINHII3ITION, AND DOMINATION 425

their emancipation." Such a statement is a perfect example of

Morgan's contention that beliefs in the alcohol/ disinhibition link

can serve as explanations for deviant behavior, in place of more

problematic explanations. If the feminist movement is responsible

for increasing the prevalence of deviance among women, it is in

some sense discredited as a movement directed towards ending the

oppression of women. This sort of emphasis is also evident in

American studies of problem drinking among women, my own work included, in which, it is argued that the adoption of nontraditional roles by women will result in heavier female

drinking and ultimately in the increased prevalence of alcoholism

among women. There are many more examples of the ways in which the power relationships between men and women support the kinds of notions that Morgan is putting forth.

I'd like to turn now to the task of addingsome gray to the sketch in black and white that Pat's offered. Her basic argument assumes

that a connection can be made between ideology and social

structure, between belief systems and interpersonal relations. She

argues

...the fluidity of alcohol/disinhibition definitions has

often enabled those with power to adjust the rationale for

intervention according to particular social control needs. I think that's a very important notion. And the fluidity of that definition has been demonstrated over the last two days in our struggle to figure out exactly what the dimensions of it are. This

fluidity is also reflected in the organization of the social control of

alcohol problems in modern society.

Now, I want to present some caveats before I go on. One is that before I came to this conference I was sure I knew what

disinhibition was. My definition was the alcohol/disinhibition link

involves disinhibition that's undesirable the undesirable

consequences of alcohol use, of heavy alcohol use. Second, the ideas

that I'm going to go through involve some fairly complex notions. For purposes of presentation, I'm going to use ideal types just to

raise some questions that we can all think about.

The questions I'd like to pose are: (1) How is formal social control

organized in light of the fluidity of the connection between alcohol

and disinhibition? (2) Given that we've had all this trouble over the

last two days trying to pin down what the alcohol/disinhibition link

is, how do the representatives of organizations of formal social

contro; recognize alcohol-related behavior as problematic or as

requiring action?

I wanted to focus primarily on formal control rather than

informal control, but I'll say a couple things about informal control

439
426 MORRISSEY: COMMENTARY

later. Formal control can be based on moral/religious

considerations, on legal by which I mean governmental

considerations, or on medical/scientific considerations. Because

drinking problems in contemporary America are most often dealt

with by the systems of medical and legal control, I'd like to focus

first of all on the similarities and differences between the

organization of these two types of control.

The ideas that I'm going to go through very quickly come from

Judith Lorber (1967), Elliot Freidson (1965; 1970), Donald Black

(1976) and long conversations over many years with Paul Pastor of

the University of Washington.

When an individual is subjected to social control whether it's

medical or legal elements of social definitions of both illness and

deviant behavior come into play. Typically, regardless of whether

we're talking about illness or deviant behavior, the person

subjected to control undergoes, first of all, a change of status: he

changes from health to illness or from normal behavior to deviant

behavior. The change in status is legitimized in some way by

professionals. In the legal system, judges are the professionals; in

the medical system, doctors are the professionals. The change of

status involves a suspension of regular obligations, a "time out." In

this sense, and in the sense that the conditions and limits of this

suspension of obligations are negotiated, it parallels the discussion

we've been having about drunken "time out."

The change of status also involves limitations of some nature on

freedom. If you're sick, you stay in bed or go to the hospital or a":,

least you stay home from work; if you're subject to legal control, the

police pick you up and transportyou and put you in jail andyou may

go through the whole court system. Finally, in both cases, attempts

are made after the individual's been excluded from some social unit

to reintegrate the person back into the community. And as Robin

(Room, forthcoming) points out in a recent paper, many of the

notions that we see in the literature on the medical ization of

deviance involve taking that therapeutic language from a medical

setting and applying it in correctional settings. So that we're

treating offenders; we're going to rehabilitate them; we're going to

make them better.

There are three functions that are necessary in formal social

control. The first is prescription, which is the formulation of rules,

or a body of knowledge and procedures. The second and this is

where we're going to have the most difficulty dealing with the

alcohol /disinhibition link is mobilization, case-finding, getting

those people who are sick and getting those people who are deviant

and bringing them into the system. And the third is disposition;

4
ALCOHOL, DISINHIBITION, AND DOMINATION 427

that is, application of rules to cases, processing of clients and

offends. Jim will have more to say about that aspect of legal social control in a minute. In complex systems of law and medicine, law

tends to be more differentiated with regard to these three functions.

If we're talking about criminal law, we have legislatures making

the laws, setting up the prescriptions; we have the police in charge of mobilization, and we have the courts dealing with disposition and

processing in correctional facilities.

In medicine, the three functions have not so far been highly differentiated, although there's a movement in that direction.

Prescriptions are formulated in medical research. So, ideas about things like the alcohol/disinhibition link are generated in that arena. Generally, it has been true historically that mobilization and

disposition occur in the same place and are handled by the same people although it's increasingly true that with new health

practitioners mobilization is being done by professionals other than

physicians, and then the physician comes in if the problem is serious enough to require a "professional jvrlgment." So, those are some

ways in which the sick role or deviant behavior are similar and in

which the organization of medical control and the organization of

legal control are similar. Key differences arise when we begin to

look at mobilization. That's the problem area.

The differences in the two systems are: first, in dealing with

criminals in the legal system, initial contact involves coercive

relationships between the agent of control and the individual being

controlled. In medicine and this is ideal-typical now the

relationship is more voluntary or cooperative: The patient goes to

the doctor to ask for help.

Second, legal control is more often pro-active, that is, intrusive

into the community. A good example of a completely pro-active sort of control is speed traps. If police go into the community to find

cases, they're pro-active. Medical mobilization is more often

reactive. That doesn't mean that legal mobilization is never

reactive. But medical mobilization is more reactive. Members of

the community go to the providers to ask for help. There's a third fundamental way in which the two forms of control are different. The rules about when to exercise control

differ. In the criminal justice system we have the premise that if

there's any doubt of guilt, control should not be exercised. Turn the

person loose. Medical control is the opposite. If there's any doubt about the person's health, control should be initiated. The person

should be treated.

Despite these differences, I would argue against a view that's been appearing in the sociological literature more and more

441
428 MORRISSEY: COMMENTARY

frequently, which is the argument that legal social control is

becoming increasingly medicalized. I think, as Robin has argued

(Room, forthcoming), that's too simplistic and too simple-minded

an approach. Differences between the organization of medical and

legal social control can be viewed as continuous. For example, some

medical control is pro-active, as in the control of venereal disease,

where public health agencies go out into the community and find

the sexual partners of people that they're treating to provide

treatment. And some legal control is reactive, as when police are

called into a domestic situation where people are arguing.

Certainly the two systems of control interact and overlap, as in

the involuntary commitment of mentally ill patients, when

psychiatric testimony is required in court, and as in the

decriminalization of public drunkenness, in which the legal system

of social control incorporates disease conceptions of alcoholism

those people who are proponents of the disease concept go to the

legislature and get the law changed so that alcoholics are then put

through a system based on a medical model rather than the legal

system. Or, the two systems come together in programs referred to

by such terms as "deferred prosecution" or "diversion," in which

DWI offenders are referred to the court by the police and then by

the court to alcoholism treatment. In fact, in our state and in many

states, the courts are the largest single source of clients for the

public alcoholism treatment system. So, even though it's being

defined increasingly as a medical problem, the agents of social

control responsible for casefinding for that medical problem are in

the legal system of social control.

What I'd like to argue is that the fluidity of the belief in the

alcohol/disinhibition link is reflected both in the process and in the

organization of the formal systems of social control of alcoholrelated behavior. Not only are the boundaries of "time outs"

negotiated in face-to-face interaction, the control of events of

drunken behavior and of the consequences of repeated intoxication

come to be negotiated. Negotiations occur between agents of control

and drinkers, as well as between the systems of formal social

control, with regard to who has domain over particular cases or

problems, so that drunken behavior can be bounced back and forth

between the legal and the medical system.

In the process of mobilization and interorganizational

relationships, what organizational theorists (Thompson 1967) call

"boundary spanning personnel" become extremely important.

Those are precisely the police and the new health practitioners and

the nurses who first have contact with the community. They make

decisions about whether to activate control or not. In the criminal

442
ALCOHOL, DISINHIBITION, AND DOMINATION 429

justice system, the boundary spanning personnel are, as I said, the

police, and we know something about the factors that affect police

decisions to formally process offenders, whether we're talking

about drunkenness or not. The police don't like formal processing; we know that. The organizational logic discourages formal

processing of offenders; it requires a substantial expenditure of

time and resources for apprehension, transportation, booking, and

later at the arraignment.

So, decisions in a field situation for officers are based on

immediate cues "how are we going to make this case up?"

available evidence of guilt, testimony of witnesses or complainants who may be on the scene, seriousness of the offense, and the

characteristics and behavior of the offender toward the officer. If

there are witnesses, if the offender is disrespectful, and if it's a

serious offense, they're going to take the person in; they're going to

exercise formal control or initiate formal control.

The police, at least, recognize alcohol problems by evidence of

intoxicated behavior; and that's precisely what most statutes

prohibit. Most laws refer only to states of intoxication in particular kinds of locations. Some laws like that in Alabama apply to

individuals who are in addition "loud, boisterous, or profane, or who disrupt public or domestic peace and tranquility." As a study in Seattle (Pastor 1976, 1978) has shown, police encounters with

drunken behavior seldom result in formal processing; it's not a

serious offense in their eyes. And when there is processing, it's because the police are making the decision on the basis of cues other

than the intoxicated state of the offender. The teenagers that we've been talking to in our study of adolescent substance abuse careers

(Morrissey 1975) generally get in trouble with the police for things

beyond drinking per se. In the situation of their being drunk in the

park at Anchor Bay, what's written up is indecent exposure, which

means they're taking a leak somewhere where other people can see

them; or verbally assaulting an officer, which means using bad

language when the officer comes to talk to them. Normally, what

the police would do would be to confiscate the alcohol, maybe take it themselves, or dump it out, and tell the kids to move on and quit causing problems. So the police have a lot of discretion, especially

with drunkenness offenders. We all know about the biases that

operate in the mobilization of legal social control, The police guess

the resources you might have by how you're dressed, and make

decisions on that basis, and on the basis of gender, on the basis of age, on the basis of race.

For medical control in general, mobilization is different. People generally ask for help. And formal social control, as Robins (1975)

443
430 MORRISSEY: COMMENTARY

argues in her critique of labeling, is generally preceded by informal

social control. As the disease concept of alcoholism is pushed, the

medical system of social control has to begin to accept it, and they

aren't. In fact, in the control of problem drinking or alcoholism, one

of the laments of the alcoholism movement is that physicians need to

be trained. They don't understand. Denial characterizes problem

drinking, and physicians are not sensitive to the cues that need to be

attended to. And in Washington State, there are moves to try to get

them to pay attention to how to recognize alcoholism or problem

drinking. Pushing the notion of disease, together with pushing the

notion of the association between problem drinking and denial, is

an attempt to get physicians to use the normal medical decision

rule, which is "when in doubt, treat," because what they're doing

now is using a legal decision rule, which is "when in doubt, set the

person loose and wait and see if they get sicker."

What I'd like to suggest is that these two systems of control reflect

the ambiguity and the flexibility of the alcohol/disinhibition link,

and that we might be able to begin to get some insights into what the

conference is interested in by making the negotiation process and

the boundaries of the systems of social control into a research

problem. We need to look at the police and look at medical

practitioners and what they think is evidence of a problem, of a

serious alcohol involvement. What we'll find, I think, to start with,

is that they use notions very similar to what the rest of the people in

our culture use.

4 4,4
Discussion

MACANDREW: I'd like to applaud Pat's attempts to bring

some semblance of order out of the reigning chaos. The problem, if I may state my point of view of it again, is that drunkenness is an

empty bottle which can be filled with anything from the finest of

French wines to the basest sort of rotgut. Let me exemplify this with a word about two revolutionary

situations which occurred in Eastern Europe in the past 25 years and how the effect of alcohol on conduct was construed in each of

them. In Gdansk rather recently, the Polish working class rebelled

and, in order not to allow a situation of provocation to arise, decided

(among other things) to set up a temporary prohibition on the

consumption of alcohol. This they did; it was self-policed, and it was entirely effective. Now, what was going on in the minds of those who

so decided? In all probability it had to do with the still vivid

remembrance that approximately a decade earlier there had been a

similar outburst of revolutionary ferment in Gdansk during which

some of those involved got drunk and attempted to burn the

Communist Party headquarters to the ground. The army then moved in and there was a massacre. Here, then, drunkenness was

seen as a threat to the maintenance of revolutionary discipline.

The second revolutionary situation: In 1956, the Hungarian

populace revolted against the Stalinist regime of Rakosi. Imre Nagy was temporarily placed in power; the Russian tanks moved

in; Nagy was killed, and Kadar replaced him. What happened to, e.g., brandy consumption in Hungary in the aftermath of the

Russian suppression was that in 1957 it increased several hundred

percent. Since Kadar didn't introduce a free market economy, it is evident that for his own purposes he saw fit to greatly increase the citizenry's access to brandy. What was going on in Kadar's mind? Certainly, his decision was not predicated on a desire to rekindle

revolutionary sentiments. Rather, with such sentiments forcefully

quashed, he could only have viewed his largess as providing a sop

for the then-reigning despair of the populace. Here, then, we have two diametrically opposite decisions based on two diametrically opposite presumptions as to what happens when a disgruntled citizenry ingestsalcohol. Our task is not an easy

one.

431

445
432 DISCUSSION

DON CAHALAN: What the two excellent papers suggest, it

seems to me, is a need for a great deal more emphasis on studies of

organizational behavior as they relate to alcohol. In Carolyn

Wiener's book (1981), The Politics of Alcoholism, an excellent start

was made on studying the extent to which alcohol is utilized by

organizations to reinforce their power positions as well as the

imagery of activities that they might conduct. Organizational

behavior in general is a somewhat underdeveloped area by and

large, and particularly because of the rapid changes in treatment

and activity related to alcohol where there's a lot of excellent data

lying around that could be analyzed.

PARTANEN: I have a question for Pat Morgan.

You hardly mentioned in your paper restrictions of children's

and minors' drinking, which are pretty universal, I understand. To

what extent would you be willing to look at these restrictions from

the point of view of power relationships?

MORGAN: It's a very provocative question.

PARTANEN: It was meant to be.

MORGAN: I have a hunch, and that's all I have right now.

Alcohol is not uniformly restricted for children. In many cultures,

wine is an important part of everyday life at meals, especially in

Italian and French cultures. Significantly, those are cultures

which place very high values on children in general, and,

especially, very high values on the family. What we may be

witnessing in those cultures is a very long-term education of

children to drinking, to using alcohol in a certain way, and to

experiencing certain kinds of effects: family life, sociability, etc. In

other cultures where initiation into alcohol use takes place

primarily away from the family, the proscription of alcohol to

children takes on a different kind of significance, because the

values associated with this alcohol consumption are totally

different.

I don't know of anyone who has studied the proscription or the

availability of alcohol to children in a way which includes the

institutions of the family, which includes values associated with

alcohol consumption, and, correspondingly, the legal systems

which do or do not proscribe alcohol to older children.

ROOM: One observation that I would feed back to Juha on this is

that even where drinking is allowed, I would suspect that in many

cultures there will be an absolute prohibition on the children

showing disinhibited behavior, that access to the means of

disinhibition may be limited, and in some societies that access to the

means of disinhibition is defined as going through alcohol and in

other societies it isn't. Alcohol as mixed with water and given to

4 4 6
ALCOHOL, DISINHIBITION, AND DOMINATION 433

children at mealtime is not defined in those societies as relevant to

power.

PARTANEN: It's not alcohol.

ROOM: Whatever. At least it's not a means of disinhibition.

MORGAN: I would argue, however, that children don't seem to

have problems being disinhibited in any case. It's the adults that

suffer from inhibition, not children. What we're talking about as

disinhibition may in fact be just general childish behavior, which

adults have somehow repressed. I think it's too bad that adults have

forgotten, and that it needs to get reawakened through alcohol.

ROOM: Yes, but children have childhood as an excuse for

behavior in our society; they don't have alcohol as an excuse for the

behavior in our society.

MOORE: The interesting effect of that is that when you begin

drinking as a child, you give up the status of childhood as an excuse

because you're now taking on an adult role. In fact it turns out to be

inhibiting, because you're now assuming an adult responsibility.

ROOM: I'd like to inject a note from France in this discussion.

Susanna Barrows has some material that's relevant both to this and

to the question that Craig Mac Andrew raised about alcohol and

revolutionary situations.

BARROWS: I just wanted to say that I've been very much

struck by Pat Morgan's fine articulation of some possible working

principles concerning the kinds of discriminations we could make,

depending upon very different kinds of cultural contexts. As Robin

has suggested, I've been working on French history and the shift in

drinking patterns and forms of public sociability in Nineteenth

Century France. I've been very much struck by some similarities in

structures of social control brought about by quite different social

and economic and political causes. For instance, the law against

public drunkenness in France was not passed until 1873, and then,

quite obviously, as a means of policing revolutionary activity; the

association of the drunkard in later Nineteenth Century France is

not so much with a child beater or a sex maniac, but rather with

someone who was manning barricades. So if you look closely at the

circumstances of the passage of certain laws which bring new

forms of social control, very often you can see differences in the

associations they codify, between which it's important to

discriminate.

I was also very much impressed with the notion of the fluidity of

forms of association of alcohol, disinhibition and control. France

never had a teetotaling temperance movement. If you know how

important the liquor trade is in the French economy, that explains why in many cases there is a kind of compromise in the public order

447
434 L)ISCUSSION

between freedom of the liquor industry, on the one hand, and

patrolling of deviant populations on the other, The control has to be

perceived as simply against public drunks rather than in the

slightest against consumption of alcohol.

France also provides an interesting comparison because, among

other things, there's a conflict throughout the Nineteenth Century

between the medical profession, which has articulated how

dangerous certain varieties of drinks are, and the state's refusal to

do anything about that medical model. So you find the scientific

community at loggerheads with the state. For instance, not until

World War I did the French government outlaw absinthe and that

is an example of that sort of difference. I think Pat's caution to

mediate our understanding of the way hegemonic structures work

is something we ought to underline. I think there are very

complicated interactions between different forces of moral order

underlying particular kinds of attitudes towards drink and

responses to it.

In conclusion, I think that when we talk about power we need to

consider not simply drinkers as victims but also drinkers as actors.

Rather like Herbert Guttman's (1976) argument about black

culture as a subordinate group in a period of slavery, I thinkyou can

make an argument for drinkers, and say that people who exhibit

disinhibited behavior are sometimes responding in very interesting

and sometimes quite creative ways against moral strictures. For

instance, increased pro-active interference on the part of the state

can escalate the visibility, perhaps even the ritual intensity of the

drinker's behavior. I think that only by looking at that kind of complicated interplay between structures of power and the

responses of the subordinate groups can you begin to appreciate

what the real meaning of disinhibited behavior is. I think we really

can't fully understand motivation for what we call "disinhibited

behavior" without a history of strictures in the most general

sense, but being very sensitive to moments and times, patterns and

cause and without an understanding of what other opportunities

for "time outs" are given to subordinate groups: the length of the

workday, the number of other ritual occasions like Mardi Gras or

carnivals or whatever. If you suppress carnivals, what other outlets

do the actors have to engage in "time out" behaviors? I suppose I'm

beginning to realize how lucky I am in my own work in France. The

French had a police force which surveyed public establishments for

drinking and kept copious records on drunken behavior or

allegedly drunken behavior, and so I've looked in the archives and

found a lot of this very creative work of drinkers as actors using drunken behavior as a means of symbolic protest against a

repressive government. 4 4 r, ,
ALCOHOL, DISINHIBITION, AND DOMINATION 435

I have also learned quite a bit as I suspect Joan Silverman has

from looking at visual sources. If we've learned anything in the

last two days, disinhibited behavior is at least somewhat and

perhaps entirely learned behavior; but it has complicated layers of meanings. Maybe by looking at some sources like visual

illustrations, like movies, like popular fiction, we may discover how

people learn to be disinhibited.

DORIE KLEIN: I'd like to follow up on both Dr. Barrows'

comments and on Dr. Morgan's presentation, which I find very

exciting conceptually, What we're moving toward is seeing disinhibition as, to some extent, a belief system that is fought over rather than strictly imposed. And it seems to take on special

importance in ambivalent situations where we have dominant and

subordinate groups that are battling over that unequal relationship. I think of the example that Pat raised: now that

beating one's wife is no longer acceptable from a legal or moral point of view and attitudes'are somewhat ambivalent,disinhibition

suddenly has become an excuse ofsome importance. And looking at disinhibition on the subordinate group side, your

example brought to mind some very suggestive possibilities. One I

was thinking of was disinhibited behavior by youth in our society; for example, teenage kids who go out and have beer busts and soon;

I'm wondering if that isn't a subtle form of individualistic rebellion

against the marginalization of youth in our society.

ROIZEN: One way to look at drinking norms in our society is to

think about the structure of U.S. norms as pretty well suggesting drinking is okay as long as the statuses are responsible and the

situations are irresponsible. So you have two axes: responsible

status and irresponsible situations. That connects back to Herb

Fingarette's significant comment yesterday about the effect of

alcohol, that the only thing that we couldn't find a polar opposite to

was responsibility/irresponsibility. Now, if it's true that drinking is okay when we have responsible statuses and irresponsible

situations then, of course, as the statuses become more irresponsible and as the situations become more responsible, drinking per se is

less permitted in the society.

I realize this is a little bit too clean, but perhaps that partially

explains for us a bit why children are so often under an abstinence

norm in our society. They have irresponsible status already the

status of child per se is irresponsible picking up and giving a

slightly different color to what Robin was saying before. If the

status of child is irresponsible, then that raises an interesting dilemma concerning the child drinker, which is to say, whose

449
436 DISCUSSION

responsibility is that drinking, and whose responsibility is the

behavior of the child after he has begun drinking? In a sense, the

social problem of adolescent drinking may well be a shadowy

representation of the dilemma: Who's r sponsible for that child?

This dilemma of power relations has a very real effect in

determining who will be allowed to drink and express what

disinhibitions when drinking; and in understanding how, indeed,

the disinhibited drinker is expressing a social power.

SILVERMAN: Pat spoke about the complexity of studies. I

think you also have to broaden your account of the frontier in the

paper. It's much more complicated, in that binge drinking was not

universally applauded or regarded as an example of individualism,

but was condemned particularly in sermons and in every popular

best-selling novel as an example of "barbarism" or "semibarbarism." One of the reasons the evangelical circuit riders were

sent out to the frontier was to curb this kind of drinking. I think that

has to be included in any kind of an analysis of celebration of binge

drinking.

LINTON: In the politics of drinking, there might be another

option, too. Some years ago, Erving Coffman usedan overdramatic

phrase in talking about parties as a "status bloodbath." What his

phrase implies is that what you may get with certain kinds of "time

out" is a kind of democratization of these relationships, a way to

manage situationally differences in status, so that the effect of

alcohol in that situation is seen as equalizing the participants in the

immediate circumstance.

MOORE: And that's why we regard it as both desirable and

nondesirable.

LINTON: Yes, at parties especially, I suppose, being ritualized

occasions for submerging those kinds of difference.

40
Alcohol: Both Blame and Excuse

for Criminal Behavior*

James F. Mosher

Introduction

Recent political events have served to highlight a question that

has intrigued legal scholars for centuries: When should alcohol

intake provide a legal excuse for criminal behavior? Last

September, Representative John Jenrette testified at his Abscam

bribery trial that he was an alcoholic and that his "illness" was the

primary cause of his participation in the congressional scandal

(San Francisco Chronicle 1980a, b). That participation included a

secretly filmed episode in which he discussed introducing special

legislation for the benefit of two nonexistent Arab sheiks in

exchange for $50,000. During his encounter with the Arabs'

"representative" (an FBI agent), Jenrette said: "I have larceny in

my blood" (San Francisco Chronicle 1980b). Jenrette claimed he

was drunk at the time and contended that this fact both explained

and excused his admission of criminal intent. His wife later stated

that his drinking problem had reached such an advanced stage that

he was drunk repeatedly, even during official House functions (San

Francisco Chronicle 1980a). This remarkable "excuse," which one

would have expected to have been a damning accusation in most

circumstarces, did not convince the jury to return an innocent

verdict, but it may still provide a basis for lenient punishment.

Two other House of Representatives members blamed alcoholism

for serious wrongdoing within days of Jenrette's testimony. On

October 2, 1980, Representative Michael "Ozzie" Myers, convicted

previously of accepting a $50,000 Abscam bribe, testified befortthe

House that his misdeed was caused by his drinking problem. "I was

drinking FBI bourbon, big glasses of it," Myers stated in his

defense, and implied that the FBI had used alcohol to help induce

'Preparation of this paper was supported by National Alcohol Research Cente

Grant AA-03524 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to tnt

Social Research Group. School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley.

437

451
438 MOSHER

the crime (Herman 1980). The House would not accept this

explanation, and Myers was expelled, the first such expulsion in the

House's history.

The following day, Representative Robert E. Bauman, a

conservative, "family-oriented" member of the "moral majority,"

was caught soliciting sex from a 16-year-old boy. Alcoholism, he

claimed, was to blame for his deviation from the "moral" road

which he himself championed (Cohen 1980; Russakoff and Diehl

1980; Shaffer and Weisner 1980). Unlike those of his two colleagues,

Bauman's "excuse" has been at least tentatively accepted by the

law, as he has been diverted to a treatment program after pleading

not guilty to the charge against him. The court permitted criminal

diversion despite a public statement by Bauman's physician that,

from a medical standpoint, Bauman "is in no way, shape, or form an

alcoholic" (Herman 1980).

Jenrette, Myers, and Bauman are not the first Washington

celebrities to admit publicly to being alcoholics. Wilbur Mills,

Harrison Williams, Herman Talmadge, Wayne Hayes, Betty Ford,

and Joan Kennedy have all done so in recent times in a variety of

circumstances (Sinclair 1980). Yet the three most recent cases are

unique; they seek to excuse criminal behavior within the formal

legal structure. The individuals involved claim that they lost their

free will because of alcohol, that their alcoholism was so pervasive

as to dictate their actions. Moral and criminal punishment, they

claim, is therefore inappropriate.

Alcohol has indeed been viewed as the "cause" of criminal

behavior for centuries and in a wide variety of cultures

(Mac Andrew and Edgerton 1969; Perr 1976). Its negative powers

are not seen as limited to criminality alcohol is also blamed for

accidents and violence generally. Alcohol, however, has

traditionally not relieved the drinker from the legal consequences

of his or her actions, at least in the United States. In fact, a more

likely scenario has been to attach greater blame to the individual

for lack of control of his or her drinking.

The advent of the alcoholism movement has created a serious

challenge to this traditional viewpoint. What has been treated as

morally reprehensible behavior in the law is increasingly accepted

in the society as a medical "disease." This change in social definition

is reflected in at least some aspects of modern American

jurisprudence. Indeed, many alcoholism treatment programs are

filled predominantly with court-referred patients, often as an

alternative to incarceration. The referrals, according to a recent

study, are becoming increasingly routine for a variety of crimes,

often to the frustration of police (Weisner, in press). Bauman, then,

452
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 439

who is likely to avoid any criminal trial or punishment for his

solicitation crime, represents a typical case. Washington celebrities

who have sought to excuse their misdeeds by blaming alcoholism

are both benefitting from and encouraging this trend.

The "alcohol excuse," however, is surprisingly absent in other

arenas of the law, including other aspects of criminal procedure.

Alcohol is an unlikely ally for a criminal defendant during his trial

and on appeal. where traditional legal principles apply. A

defendant claiming to have been intoxicated during a criminal

episode is generally viewed as responsible for subsequent actions

when determining guilt. Jenrette and Myers, then, whose alcohol

defenses failed at trial and before Congress, also represent typical

cases.

The law's reluctance to embrace an alcohol excuse is not

surprising; the potential impact is enormous. Alcohol has a very

high association with crime and accidents. Studies estimate that up

to one-half of many violent crimes (as well as larceny and burglary)

are committed by people with significant amounts of alcohol in

their bloodstreams (Aarens et al. 1977; Wolfgang and Ferricute

1967). Alcohol's role in accidents is largely uncharted, but what

studies do exist also suggest high correlations (Aarens et al. 1977).

Permitting alcohol defenses, then, could have major repercussions

in the legal system.

Many scholars have grappled with this issue in the last 30 years,

attempting to devise reasonable standards for determining when

alcohol should be accepted as a legal excuse for undesired behavior

(e.g., Fingarette and Hasse 1979; Fingarette 1970; Epstein 1978;

Moore 196G; Hall 1944; American Law Institute 1962). The scholars

have examined criminal legal principles almost exclusively. They

agree that traditional criminal rules are contradictory and fail to

reflect current societal explanations of alcoholism, and they seek to

remedy the situation by devising "rational" rules within the

existing legal structure. A major concern of the proposals is to

provide a means for possible excuse without at the same time

opening the prison doors to all who might raise an alcohol defense.

The search for legal consistency, however, is ignoring crucial

aspects of the problem being addressed. The legal treatment of

alcohol-related harmful behavior varies widely, particularly when

legal realms outside the criminal trial itself are examined. As the

congressional cases illustrate, drinking is sometimes excused, but

in other circumstances it can be ignored or even punished. The

variations reflect differing social and legal concerns and priorities,

often totally unrelated to alcohol use. Alcohol is sometimes made a

crucial issue in order to avoid exposing those concerns and

453
440 MOSHER

priorities. The need, then, is not merely to determine a "rational" or

consistent treatment of alcohol involvement in the criminal law, but

also to understarid the social forces which shape the legal arena

within which drinking occurs.

This article analyzes the role alcohol plays in various criminal

proceedings. It first describes the basic legal rule of intoxication at

a criminal trial that alcohol provides no legal excuse for criminal

behavior. The second section discusses the "specific intent"

exception to the rule, analyzing its limitations and lack of rational

foundation. Section three describes various legal rules and crimes

which actually punish drinking behavior in certain situations

without regard to any disease excuse, most notably public

drunkenness and drunk driving.

These first three sections discuss "formal" criminal laws, those

which apply at trial and which symbolize the "official" legal

approach to alcohol and crime. Section four discusses the role of

alcohol in two other criminal proceedings probation and

diversion hearings in which an entirely different approach to

alcoholism is taken, in stark contrast to the approach at trial. This

section analyzes the importance of diversion and probation; the

factors which determine when probation and diversion are

considered appropriate; the role of alcohol problems in those

decisions: and the relationship of alcohol treatment programs to the

criminal justice system. Finally, a concluding section suggests the

importance of these conflicting alcohol ideologies.

Alcohol and Crime: The Basic Legal Rule

A basic precept of the criminal law is that "voluntary"

intoxication does not excuse criminal behavior. According to one

commentator: "The legal rules governing the question were early

settled and may be briefly stated: intoxication, if voluntarily

incurred, no matter how gross, is ordinarily no defense to a charge

of crime based upon acts committed while intoxicated...."

(Annotation 1966. p. 1239)) "Voluntary" intoxication includes

virtually all drinking, as the courts have held that. compulsive

drinking by an alcoholic or problem drinker is voluntary behavior

( hall MO). Drinking is involuntary only when it is introduced into

the accused's system by force or trick. There are few reported cases

where this limited exception has been successfully utilized

(Annotation 1960.

The courts use several ratioi..ies to justify this basic rule. Most

Ni,teN appear at vall of papyr.

454
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 441

frequently mentioned is the fear that an intoxication defense can be

easily simulated, thus making prosecutions too difficult

(Annotation 1966). According to one court; "All that the crafty

criminal would require for a well-planned crime would be a

revolver in one hand to commit the deed, and a quart of intoxicating

liquor in the other...." (State v. Arsenault. Maine, 1956, quoted in

dissenting opinion, People v. Grares, Pennsylvania, 1975). A second

justification arises when courts attempt to distinguish insanity

from drunkenness. Alcohol is viewed as a disinhibitor, in some

sense an outside "cause" of crime which is or should be well known

to everyone; defendants therefore have a moral responsibility and

legal duty to control its intake. As one commentator has stated:

"Having voluntarily chosen to become drunk, the accused must also

be regarded as having voluntarily chosen the consequences of that drunkenness" (Annotation 1966, p. 1246). Insanity, on the other hand, does not involve an outside "culpable" agent, and the question of control or voluntariness is not at issue.2

Many court opinions express outright moral indignation at

drunkenness, particularly those from the 19th century (e.g., People

v. Roriem New York, 1858; U.S. v. ('ornell, 1820; State v. Noel, New

.Jersey, 1926). Several early commentators, in fact, argued that crimes committed while the accused was intoxicated should be

more, not less, severely punished." Even in modern cases, the

defendant may seek to block the admission of evidence of his or her

intoxicated state. In a 1980 California Superior Court case (People

v. Habeeker). for example, the prosecution attempted to question a police officer concerning the defendant's intoxicated state when he

was arrested; the defense strongly objected and the evidence was

disallowed. The judge admonished the jury to disregard the

question. Clearly, the defense was concerned that the jury might

interpret intoxication as a symptom of guilt or at least of increased

likelihood of unreasoned and irrational behavior.

The "Specific Intent" Exception

As with most "basic" rules, exceptions have been developed for unusual situations, Cases appeared early in both English and American jurisprudence, particularly in murder prosecutions, where courts apparently felt that the punishment execution

was too harsh, given the accused's extreme drunkenness at the time

of the crime (Hall 1960). From these cases arose the distinction of

"specific" and "general" intents. In recent years the related

doctrine of "diminished capacity" has developed in many

jurisdictions.

455
442 MOSHER

Many commentators have traced the history of this exception,

which will not be repeated here (e.g., Hall 104, 1960; Fingarette

and Hasse 1979; Epstein 1978). The basic precept is that some

crimes require a special volition or willfulness. For example, first

degree murder requires premeditation, deliberateness, and intent

to kill; burglary requires unlawful entry with an intent to commit a

felony; larceny requires a taking with an intent to deprive the

owner of his rightful possession. "General" intent refers to the

"guilty mind" necessary to commit any crime, in legal terms the

"mens rea." Drunkenness can never negate the "mens rea" the

basic rule discussed above but can negate the "specific" intention

requirement. If a man is so drunk when he shoots a gun wildly

without being aware of the risks to others around him and thereby

kills a bystander, the drunkenness can mitigate the crime from

first degree to second degree or, in some States, even to

manslaughter.

The "specific-general" dichotomy sounds reasonable. Indeed, it is

a basic law school lesson. One's suspicion is aroused, however, by the

fact that it developed specifically in response to drunken murder

cases rather than as an integral part of criminal law theory. There

are two basic problems.' First, when the exception is applied to

nonhomicide cases, it can provide a complete defense rather than

mere mitigation, the intent of the rule. For example, in many

circumstances, it is not a crime to deprive someone of his or her

property unless the offender specifically intends to deprive the

owner of possession permanently. Thus, in some cases, drunkenness

can be a complete defense to larceny. Second, a careful analysis

results in the inevitable conclusion that, in terms of actual behavior,

general intent involves essentially the same mental process as

"specific" intent. Two examples illustrate these problems of actual

application.

Rape is considered a "general" intent crime one does not need

to specifically intend any particular act. In rape prosecutions, then,

evidence of a defendant's intoxication is irrelevant and

inadmissible. Assault with intent to rape, however, is a "specific

intent" crime one must. assault with the specific intent to rape.

Rape. of course, is considered the more serious of the two crimes.

Suppose a defendant is charged with both crimes; the crucial issue

then becomes whether he actually accomplished the rape. The jury

would be allowed to consider intoxication evidence to determine

whether the defendant formed an intent to rape for the lesser

assault charge but would be admonished to ignore the evidence for

the rape charge itself. Although possibly logical on an abstract
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 443

level, such a result is arbitrary and confusing when applied,

particularly for a jury.

A second example stems from comparing two jurisdictions'

definitions of the same crime. In California, for example, prison

escape is defined by statute as a "willful failure" to return to the

place of confinement when on a work furlough program. The courts

have interpreted the law to be one of "general" rather than

"specific" intent, In one case (People v. Haskins, 1960), a defendant

on a work furlough program was found drunk in a city park after an

evening's drinking bout instead of at the prison by 8:00 a.m.

Evidence of his drunken condition was held to be irrelevant to the

defendant's intent to "willfully fail" to return to prison. In Colorado,

the same crime requires a "specific intent," defined by the courts as

the intent "to avoid the due course of justice" (Gallegos v. People,

1966). Evidence of intoxication was therefore held admissible in a

case where a prisoner attempted to leave a prison yard in a drunken

condition. There is similar confusion over several other crimes,

including child molesting and assault.5

The disarray in the legal community concerning the specificgeneral intent distinctions is perhaps best illustrated in the opinion

in People v. Hood, written by Roger Traynor, formerly the Chief

Justice of the California Supreme Court and considered one of the

greatest judges of the century. As Fingarette and Hasse (1979, p. 96)

note, the opinion illustrates the extent to which the law has "missed

the mark" in its attempts to determine the criminal responsibility

of the intoxicated defendant. The case involved a charge of assault

with a deadly weapon, and the defendant sought to introduce

evidence that he was drunk during the episode. "Assault" is defined

in California as an "attempted battery" and lower courts prior to

the Howl case had reached conflicting conclusions concerning

whether assault was a specific or general intent crime.

Traynor, after a careful analysis, concluded that an assault is

"equally well characterized" as a general or specific intent crime.

Ile concludes:

Since the definitions of both specific intent and general

intent cover the requisite intent to commit a battery, the

decision whether or not to give effect to evidence of

intoxication must rest on other considerations.

A compelling consideration is the effect of alcohol on

human behavior. A significant effect of alcohol is to

distort judgment and relax impulses. [Citations omitted

Alcohol apparently has less effect on the ability to engage

in simple goal-directed behavior, although it may impair

the efficiency of that behavior....What the drunk man is

.1 J
444 MOSHER

not as capable as the sober man of doing is exercising

judgment about the social consequences of his acts or

controlling his impulses toward anti-social acts. He is

more likely to act rashly and impulsively and to be

susceptible to passion and anger. It would therefore be

anomalous to allow evidence of intoxication to relieve a

man of responsibility for the crimes of assault with a

deadly weapon or simple assault, which are so frequently

committed in just such a manner. (p. 458)

The two basic problems thus confound Traynor's analysis. First,

the dichotomy, so logical in theory, is inapplicable to assault.

Second, to permit an intoxication defense in assault cases could

result in outright acquittal, which should be avoided as a matter of

policy since drinking alcohol increases the risks of just such

behavior.

Traynor ignores the fact that his policy analysis is equally

applicable to all violent and "antisocial" crimes, many of which

include "specific" intents, Why permit diminished responsibility or

complete excuse in some but not all such crimes? Traynor also

bypasses the central issue: Is the drinker less responsible for violent

criminal actions if he or she can show that the behavior was beyond

his or her control due to drinking? Traynor instead falls back on the

"disinhibitor" justification for the basic criminal rule there is a

moral obligation to control alcohol intake because of its well-known

potential for causing harmful events. That one of the century's

great legal minds could stumble in such a basic way is dramatic

evidence that the specific-general dichotomy is in practice both

unworkable and illogical.

This conclusion, however, is not so serious as it might appear;

juries are unlikely to rely on intoxication evidence even when the

court permits it into the case. Many jury instructions and court case

decisions hold that no excuse exists unless the defendant was so

drunk that he or she was ;neap/hie of even forming the specific

intent i.e., virtually unconscious (Epstein 1978). The "incapacity

to form an intent" standard, as Fingarette and Hasse suggest, is a

very heavy burden of proof the defendant must show he or she

was "virtually an automaton" at the time of the act (Fingarette and

Hasse 1979, p. 98). Evidence of extreme intoxication is necessary

whether or not the incapacity rule is adopted. Alcoholism, of itself,

does not excuse criminal behavior and, in many States, is

inadmissible until the defense first shows that the defendant was

extremely intoxicated during the criminal episode (e.g.

('m), mmormith v. Kiri,/ inc, Pa. 1976). Finally, most juries, perhaps

responding to these strict. rules of evidence, usually reject

43s
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 445

intoxication defenses (Annotation 1966; Epstein 1978). This

suggests that, at least in a jury setting, the basic criminal law

precept that drunkenness is a blame rather than an excuse for

criminal behavior reflects a popular sentiment to that effect.

In sum, alcoholism and intoxication normally provide no excuse

in the formal criminal law. They do no constitute involuntary

behavior and are carefully separated from insanity defenses except

in very extreme situations. The law does recognize that intoxication

can be so severe that a defendant could not have known what he or

she was doing. If so, then intoxication may mitigate or even excuse

certain offenses, which are selected based on whether an arbitrary

"specific" intent is found to be included in the definition of the

crime. In many States, the defendant must show not only that he did

not form the required intent because of his intoxication, but also

that he was incapable of forming that intent. Evidence of

alcoholism is usually not admissible until intoxication is shown, and

even then is usually only relevant to the issue of capacity to form a

specific intent. Finally, juries are typically skeptical of intoxication

defenses, perhaps reflecting these strict rules of evidence. A more

limited and unworkable exception would be hard to imagine.

Alcohol Consumption as Exacerbating Criminal Conduct

Opposed to the limited specific intent exception is a body of criminal law which actually imposes additional hardships or

penalties on the drinking defendant. Rather than recognizing an

alcoholism disease as a potential excuse, the law here seeks to deter

drinking, whether compulsive or not, by imposing strict criminal rules.

The most obvious examples are public drunkenness and drunk driving statutes. Although there was a strong move toward

decriminalization of public drunkenness in the 1960s and 1970s, most States still recognize it to be a crime today (National

Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors 1980).6 The

Supreme Court, in its famous if inconclusive opinion of Powell v.

Texas, blocked the move for recognizing a constitutional defense

based on a theory of involuntariness due to alcoholism. Since that

time, many States have taken legislative action. Even when

alcoholism is not treated as a crime, however, States usually

provide a means to involuntarily detain public inebriates, in some

cases for extended periods (NASADAD 1980). Public drunkenness

can lead to involuntary incarceration in a treatment facility, a fate

459
446 MOSHER

which many offenders find worse than jail. Thus, whether formally

defined as a crime or not, public drunkenness can lead to serious

deprivations of freedom, even when no other crime has been

committed. Several commentators (e.g., Neier 1975; Klein 1964)

have observed that these laws are selectively enforced against "skid

row" derelicts. Public drunkenness in "respectable" establishments

and neighborhoods is very unlikely to lead to arrest.

The Powell case serves to highlight the fears of the legal

community of formally recognizing an alcohol excuse. The

plurality opinion relied heavily on the fact that there would be no

logical basis for providing the excuse in a public drunkenness case

but excluding it for other criminal conduct. If alcohol addiction

could be the basis for a finding of involuntariness in public

drunkenness, why should the same result not be reached for any

other crime? Although several court opinions and commentators

address and seek to resolve this issue (e.g., Salzman v. U.S.,

concurring opinion, 1968; Kirbens 1968), the criminal law has

resisted any move toward expanding the alcohol excuse. This is

especially ironic in the public drunkenness cases, where a classic

example of the socially defined "alcoholism disease" is being

officially punished and treated as "immoral" or wrongful behavior.

Drunk driving is a second example in which drinking forms a

basic part of the definition of the crime. Unlike public drunkenness,

drunk driving arrests and convictions are becoming more common

(e.g., Bu nee et al. 1980). In fact, there are considerable pressures on

the legal system to be increasingly harsh on drunk driver offenders

(Chatfield-Taylor 1980). Legislatures in many States have

responded by enacting a long series of bills which provide special

rules and which narrow potential defenses (California Alcohol and

Drug Report 1979, 1980). The police, meanwhile, have developed

sophisticated methods of detection. A common popular belief is that

drunk drivers are treated too leniently, and there has been an

increasing clamor for mandatory jail sentences (Chatfield-Taylor

1980).

Evidence of intoxication is not only not a defense at a drunk

driving trial; it is a crucial aspect of the crime. A driver commits no

crime if he or she is merely negligent; a drunk driver (or a driver

who is drinking or has an open container in the car) is committing a

crime whether negligent or not. If injury occurs, intoxication can

form the basis for severe criminal punishment which would

otherwise not exist or be greatly lessened. Ironically, drunk driving

might be considered a "specific intent" crime one must

specifically intend to drive. Logically, then, the opposite result

should occur extreme intoxication should provide a potential

defense rather than be a part of the criminal act.

460
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 447

The legal treatment of drunk driving as immoral, criminal

behavior is actually best expressed in negligence law. Since drunk

drivers cause considerable injury and property damage, civil suits commonly occur. In addition to permitting recovery for actual

losses, many courts permit victims of drunk driving accidents to

recover "punitive damages," a form of quasi-criminal punishment.

Punitive damages are permitted only when a defendant has

intentionally acted with "wanton disregard" of the rightsof others

such that he or she is guilty of outrageous conduct evidencing

"malice" (Dooley and Mosher 1978). Punitive damages are quasi- criminal because they go beyond compensation for actual damages

(the purpose of civil law) and are imposed to punish and deter antisocial behavior.

Normally, a defendant causing damage through the negligent handling of an automobile is not subject to punitive damages; Many

courts, however, permit punitive damages when the negligence is associated with intoxication even when there is no proof of undue

carelessness or outrageous driving behavior (Dooley and Mosher

1978).7 Court opinions express moral outrage drunk driving is "willful and wanton negligence" and "morally culpable" behavior

(e.g., Collign v. Fero, New York, 1973). Thus, ratherthan providing

an excuse, excessive drinking provides a basis for quasi-criminal punishment.

Drunk driving and public drunkenness are two of the most

prevalent crimes committed in the United States today. In California they constituted approximately 471,000, or 60 percent of all misdemeanor criminal arrests for 1976 (Gusfield in press). Both

crimes make drinking and intoxication key elements of the offense, and evidence of intoxication is therefore a crucial part of a

prosecutor's case. Evidence of alcoholism or problem drinking, while potentially helpful to the defendant at other stages of the criminal process (discussed below), is either irrelevant or

potentially harmful at trial. Thus, the formal criminal law is far

more likely to punish than excuse excessive drinking, whether or

not it is perceived as disease-related.

There are other, more subtle, examples of criminal punishment for excessive drinking. Courts dealing with crimes that are

considered morally repugnant are likely to be particularly

skeptical of alcohol excuses despite the likelihood of alcohol

involvement. For example, Georgia, Washington, and Connecticut

courts (Helton v. State, 1951; State v. Huey, 1942; State v. Dennis, 1963) have held that the crime of "taking indecent liberties with a

female child with intent of a ;:sing, appealing to, and justifying

461
448 MOSHER

lust, passion, and sexual desires" (or wording to that effect) is not a

specific intent crime despite language which appears to require an

opposite result. In the Washington case, the court at first told the

jury to consider the intoxication defense and then withdrew the

evidence when jury deliberations became protracted. The jury

thereupon convicted the defendant, indicating that the intoxication

defense was being taken seriously. The appeals court held that no

reversible error occurred. In a California case (People v. Oliver,

1961), the same crime was considered a specific intent offense, but

the jury found the defendant guilty despite testimony that the

defendant was extremely drunk.

An informal review of several other cases appears to show that

drunkenness defenses in sex offenses are generally unsuccessful

even when permitted.8 These cases may well involve situations in

which the defendant actually attempts to exclude evidence of

alcohol consumption, since alcohol is popularly viewed as a

disinhibitor of sexual desires. As M'akela (1978, p. 331) has stated:

"In modern society, most sexual crimes ... are not based on rational

deliberation but on sudden emotional outbursts. ...This is relevant

to alcohol crimes, because drunkenness undoubtedly diminishes a

person's capacity to think rationally."

The adverse legal consequences of alcohol involvement in sex

crimes that go to trial can go beyond questions of evidence

admissibility. In California, additional penalties are placed in the

form of additional probation and parole restrictions on sex

offenders who drink. If the sentencing authority (judge at

sentencing or parole) "believes" that the offender was intoxicated or

addicted to alcohol at the time of the offense, it must order the

defendant to abstain from alcohol during probation or parole. In the

case of "mentally disordered sex offenders," abstinence is an

absolute requirement for parole whether or not alcohol is believed

to have been related to the crime. These restrictions are applicable

to relatively minor offenses, as "sex offenses" include both serious

and minor crimes from rape and child molesting to indecent

exposure and (until 1975) oral copulation. Drunkenness is usually

not a defense to these crimes, but abstinence from alcohol can be

made a condition of parole, a violation of which could lead to further

incarceration.

Legal consent provides another arena where alcohol may

exacerbate criminal conduct. Confessions or adverse admissions

are often obtained by police from criminal defendants. Because of

the dangers of permitting unlimited police interrogations, the

courts have created numerous safeguards, and a defendant must

"knowingly and voluntarily" waive these rights before a confession

462
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 449

is admissible in court (see Miranda v. Arizona, United States,

1966).

Drunkenness, although considered relevant, will virtually never

form the basis for invalidating consent in these circumstances. The

Abscam cases indicate that this may be true even if undercover

police (or FBI) ply the defendant with alcohol to obtain statements.

A recent California case, People v. Barrow, 1979, in fact, appears to hold that a defendant who is capable of talking is capable of

understanding and waiving his rights, no matter how intoxicated

he is in that case, with a .19 BAC.

This contrasts sharply with another area of the criminal law a

rape victim's ability to consent to intercourse. Early 20th century

cases in particular held that an intoxicated woman was incapable of

consent (e.g., Quinn v. State, Wisconsin, 1913). Intercourse with an

intoxicated woman, then, was rape by definition, even if the defendant showed that the intoxication was purely voluntary. Although

there are no reported cases recently, commentators still view this as

a valid rule (American Jurisprudence 2d 1966). The point here is

not to argue that either rule is inadvisable. What is curious,

however, is that the legal definitions of consent are virtually

synonymous in both situations, yet intoxication is treated as

irrelevant to one and crucial to the other.

The Alcohol Excuse at Probation and

Diversion Hearings

Despite this very strict and moralistic view of alcohol

consumption when determining criminal guilt at trial, alcohol

involvement does in fact provide a widely accepted excuse for

criminal behavior. An entirely different dogma concerning intoxication and alcoholism is applied at certain criminal proceedings

proceedings which, practically speaking, have a much greater

impact on most criminal defendants. The coexistence of opposing

ideologies is indeed striking.

The alcohol excuse is crucial in at least three criminal

proceedings: directly following the arrest, at a diversion hearing,

and at sentencing. Depending on when it is applied (which is

determined without regard to the general-specific intent dichotomy), alcohol may circumvent all court proceedings, any finding of

criminal guilt, or incarceration.

Particularly for drunk driving, juvenile offenses, and public

intoxication, the police may sometimes take drunken offenders

directly to detoxification facilities (or to their homes) rather than to

463
450 MOSHER

police headquarters for booking.9 As has been noted earlier, when

this procedure is applied to public inebriates, it is best viewed as an

alternate form of punishment (instead of the drunk tank) since no

crime beyond intoxication has been committed. It does, however,

avoid any criminal record, and in this sense is an "excuse" for

criminal behavior, For drunk driving, a police diversion to a

treatment facility can be particularly beneficial to the offender,

since potentially serious civil and criminal penalties are avoided. A

police officer's decision is discretionary and may be based on the

extent of intoxication a borderline case, where proof of a violation

would be difficult to prove, is most likely to be diverted in this

manner (Weisner in press). The procedure is unlikely when injury

or property damage occurs.

The diversion hearing, in contrast, is a legally constituted

procedure that has become increasingly popular.19 Here, the defendant, who has been formally charged with a crime, is presented an

opportunity to argue that further criminal proceedings are

unnecessary or inappropriate. The judge's and/or prosecutor's

discretion can be nearly absolute. The California Penal Code

(section 1001.1), for example, empowers a judge to postpone

prosecution "either temporarily or permanently at any point in the

judicial process from the point at which the accused is charged until

adjudication" without specifying any guidelines whatever.

According to the National Advisory Commission on Criminal

Justice Standards and Goals ("NAC") (quoted in McIntyre 1978):

Diversion is appropriate where there is a substantial

likelihood that conviction could be obtained and the

benefits to society from channeling any offender into an

available noncriminal diversion program outweigh any harm done to society by abandoning criminal

prosecution (p. 29).

In practice, diversion is particularly common for first offenders

and juveniles and when certain crimes are charged white collar

crimes, offenses stemming from family disputes, and minor

offenses such as shoplifting (Brakel 1971).

If the defendant can claim to have alcohol problems, his or her

chance for diversion is greatly enhanced, particularly if none of

these factors is present. Although legal writers either fail to

analyze or ignore the role of alcohol in diversion decisions (see, e.g.,

Note 1974, 1975: Soder 1973), several writers refer to its

importance. Brakel (1971) lists evidence of drug or alcohol abuse as

one of three factors important to a judge's decision. Birns (1976),

analyzing a nationwide study of diversion programs, lists alcoholics

as one of four primary target groups. The NAC (quoted in McIntyre

4 6,1,
1

ALCOHOL. BLAME AND EXCUSE 451

1978, p. 29) states that "any likelihood that the offender suffers from

a ... psychological abnormality which was related to his crime and

for which treatment is available" should be an important factor in

favor of diversion. Alcoholism is clearly intended to fall within this

category. Agopian (1977) states that alcohol detoxification pro- grams are an important component of California's diversion

programs.

Probation decisions, which occur after a finding of guilt (either by plea or after a trial) also permit extraordinary discretion on the

part of the sentencing judge. His decision is based on a probation department's presentence report. Similar factors to diversion

decisions are crucial: the type of offense, the defendant's past criminal record, and his or her social and work status. Judges may handle cases very differently so that a defendant's sentence may

hinge to some degree on the identity of the judge. The existence of a

drinking problem will influence the decisionto incarcerate in many

cases.

Many States provide special proceedings for drunk driving cases,

Typically, the law attaches serious criminal consequences for the crime, but also permits special treatment and educational services

and extensive plea bargaining for most offenders (Gusfield in press). California's statutes are illustrative (Cal. Vehicle Code §§

11837 et seq.). After a finding ofguilt, a court may send a defendant

to a treatment center in lieu of criminal penalties, including license

suspension or revocation (except for some repeat offenders). The offender must agree to a number of restrictions. He or she must:

obey all rules of the treatment program; agree to consent to all subsequent BAC tests if stopped on the highway; begin and

complete the program promptly and satisfactorily. The judge's decision is discretionary and is to be based on presentence reports

similar to those used in both diversion and probation hearings. Most drunk driving cases do not reach the probation stage, however, as offenders are regularly permitted to plea to lesser offenses, such as reckless driving (Chatfield-Taylor 1980; Gusfield

1972, in press). Drunk drivers are seldom incarcerated, even if they

cause injury or death. As Gusfield notes, drunk driving cases

provide the primary interaction between working, middle, and

upper classes and the criminal justice system. Since diversion and

probation are defacto designed for these groups, drunk drivers are

especially likely to avoid criminal penalties.1'

A key element of diversion and probation decisions is often the

availability of some sort of treatment outside the penal system

relevant to the criminal act. Judges, for example, may require defendants to work for a community service or to undertake

465
452 MOSHER

psychiatric counseling (Birns 1976; Note 1975). Probation and

diversion rest on the concept of rehabilitation and, particularly for

probation where there is a finding of guilt, rehabilitation suggests

that some action is needed to show that the cause of the criminal

behavior is being corrected. It is here that alcohol and drug

programs play an increasingly important role. If a defendant can

argue that his or her crime was in some sense "caused" by an alcohol

problem, then the appropriate action under the disease concept of

alcoholism is treatment rather than criminal punishment. Unlike

the trial setting, where the focus is on alcohol's role in the criminal

act, the defendant's condition whether he has alcohol problems or

is an alcoholic becomes a potentially key issue. In fact, there may

be no reference whatever to the defendant's use of alcohol at the

time of the crime.

Criminal justice referrals to alcohol treatment programs have

become increasingly prevalent in recent years despite a concurrent

move to discredit the rehabilitation doctrine in penology. Many

articles and books have criticized the notion, and some States

(including California) have replaced indeterminate sentences with

definite sentence terms (e.g., Lipton et al. 1975; Orland 1978; Wilks

and Martinson 1976). Alcohol problems appear to be a notable

exception to this trend. They provide an officially recognized

explanation for crimes and a rationale for diversion and probation

(e.g., Soder 1973). The exception is particularly well illustrated in a

recent volume of the journal Federal Probation. A lead article in the

1976 volume argued that the rehabilitation doctrine is ineffective

and should be radically modified or discarded (Wilks and

Martinson 1976). An article in the next issue describes a program

which the authors claim "rebuts" this argument (Ziegler et al.

1976); their proof is a prison alcohol treatment program. Later

issues in the same volume also included an article on an alcoholrelated traffic offenders program (Huss 1976) and an article on the

new Federal alcohol abuse confidentiality regulations relevant to

probation departments (Weisman 1976).

Thus, as other forms of nonpenal rehabilitation have become

disfavored. alcohol treatment programs have become more

important. Formal recognition of this trend can be found in court

opinions, legislative enactments, and legal commentaries. The

purpose of the California drunk driving diversion program, for

example. is to assist persons participating "to recognize their

problem drinking and to assist them to recover" (Cal. Vehicle Code

§11837.4(5)). The cause of drunk driving. according to one

commentator. is "abusive use of alcohol" and "commonsense"

dictates providing treatment rather than punishment (Spirgen

4 6 0-
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCLSE 453

1978, p. 264). According to Granger and Olson (1978, p. 675), "the

traditional punitive approach to drunk driving has failed because of its inability to reach the core of the problem the disease of

alcoholism." Such language contrasts sharply with the moral

indignation and blame expressed in drunk driving statutes and

punitive damage court decisions. Courts have made the alcohol

excuse increasingly prevalent for various crimes and treatment has

been initiated in prisons themselves and in parole proceedings

(Weisner in press: Ziegler 1976). In virtually all cases, including the prison setting, the programs are viewed as beneficial for the participants a means to avoid punishment. The criminal system's increasing reliance on alcoholism

treatment is reflected in recent trends in the treatment community. A recent study of alcoholism treatment services in one California

county interviewed treatment personnel in 23 specialized

programs (Weisner in press). Of these, 10 listed criminal justice

referrals, particularly after diversion hearings, as one of their most

prominent sources of patients. and for many the referrals accounted for more than one-half of the clientele. Program

administrtors stated it was "not uncommon" for many of their clients to have court cases pending. Criminal referrals were

reported to be a particularly good source of middle class, paying

clients, a group in very high demand among the agencies. Some

services actually require that the patient be employed(or have ajob

available after treatment) before he or she can be accepted in the

program. Thus, there is a strong correlation between the agency's

"ideal" patient and the criteria for eligibility for diversion and

treatment status.

Treatment strategies have begun to incorporate the criminal

justice system into the treatment methods themselves. Providers

view the coercive arm of the law as helpful to their work. The threat of criminal prosecution serves to encourage a breakdown of the

"denial" of the problem, generally considered the firststep toward

successful treatment. The criminal law actually encoueages clients

to admit to an alcohol problem which needs to be cured, for

otherwise they may be found morally responsible for criminal

behavior.

In sum, there has been a recent trend toward ine.-nsed reliance

on alcoholism treatment in probation and diver:;ion hearings,

which has had a profound effect en treatment services themselves.

This trend con fl icts with both traditional legal concepts concerning

intoxication and recent criticisms of the rehabilitation model of

corrections. As Room (1979) has observed:

Recently, alcoholism treatment systems have been

4 6 1
454 MOSHER

moving, .into the area of court diversion for non-alcoholspecific crimes robbery, assault, etc. Ironically, this

latter development occurs just as the winds of neoclassic

criminology are eliminating treatment and rehabilitation as an aim of the general penal and probation system,

so that it has been said that in California alcohol and drug

diversion procedures are the last refuge of a treatment

ideology in the criminal law system (p. 220).

The existence of alcohol problems, however, is not the only factor

to be considered. As discussed earlier, the decision is discretionary

and is based on a judge's overall determination of the seriousness of

the crime and the defendant's likely "successful" participation.

Factors such as occupation, family status, age, past criminal

record, and social class are all instrumental in that decision, with

middle and upper classes most likely to benefit. Whether alcoholism is permitted as an excuse is not dependent on evidence of pathological drinking behavior; if it were, repeat and violent criminals

with alcohol problems might be seen as having a more serious form

of the disease and most in need of treatment.

Conclusion

There is, then, a curious coexistence in the criminal law of two

alcohol ideologies one of moral blame and another of disease

excuse. The two ideologies focus on different aspects of drinking

behavior and are presented to different finders of fact, At trial,

usually before a jury, evidence is limited to alcohol involvement in

the crime itself and is usually treated as irrelevant to the finding of

guilt. The disinhibitory qualities of alcohol are often stressed in

justifying such limits, with courts imposing a duty on defendants to

control their drinking as a moral imperative. This is particularly

relevant to certain crimes, such as drunk driving, public

intox :cation, and sex offenses, where evidence of drinking actually

exacerbates the degree of criminal misconduct. Diversion and

probation hearings, on the other hand, focus on the social condition

of the defendant with only secondary attention being placed on

alcohol in the actual criminal event. The defendant need not show

that he or she did not "intend" his criminal conduct. Rather, he or

she must demonstrate the existence of a compulsive disease.

Probation and diversion hearings do differ from trial proceedings in one major conceptual respect the former provides

sentencing relief and seeks rehabilitation while the latter

determines guilt. Alcoholism, it can be argued, cannot absolve guilt

4 6 Li
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 455

but can effect sentencing decisions. This explanation, however, is

overly simplistic. Probation and diversion decisions are crucial, an

escape valve in a system that actually incarcerates a very small

proportion of all criminal offenders. The rules regarding the

determination of guilt, as Gusfield argues, are significant on a

symbolic level, but they tend to mask the actual working of the

criminal system.

Alcohol's role in particular criminal cases illustrates this point.

The decision to grant or deny treatment-oriented diversion is

largely determined by factors unrelated to the actual drinking

problems social class, criminal record, etc. If a judge refuses to

grant relief, then the same drinking problems lose their "excuse"

character at least until the sentencing hearing. Juries are generally not permitted to evaluate the effects of alcohol problems on

criminal behavior, and even if they recommend treatment in their

verdicts their recommendations can be ignored. Thus, criminals

with identical drinking problems committing identical crimesmay

be treated entirely differently in the criminal system. One may be

diverted to treatment without any finding of guilt and the other

may be sent to prison without any opportunity to present his or her

alcohol excuse to the jury.

The alcohol ideologies, then,, are serving important roles in the

criminal law, but ones unrelated to any consistent view of alcohol's

relationship to crime. The alcohol excuse ideology forms an

important, "impartial" rationale to divert certain offenders from

ordinary criminal procedures and punishment those who are

vis,.ed by judges (rather than juries) as not likely to threaten

society in the future. Drinking behavior is only one factor to be

con iidered in that decision. The alcohol "blame" ideology serves to maintain the ideal of impartiality of the criminal system's

determination of guilt all defendants are treated equally at trial,

and juries are not permitted the discretion routinely exercised by

judges.

The ideologies also provide explanations for various antisocial

acts, thus at least indirectly absolving other forms of explanation.

such as racism and economic injustice. A poor man commits a theft

not because he is poor but because he drinks too much. If he

continues to steal, even after being given a treatment alternative, it

is because of his refusal to confront his drinking problems, thus

justifying incarceration. A rich and powerful man such as Robert

Bauman commits a sexual crime because of alcohol problems and

psychological pressures, not because he is a morally reprehensible

person. A poor man who commits the identical crime is likely to be

treated as an extremely dangerous and immoral person, particu469
456 MOSHER

laxly if he has a criminal record, regardless of his psychological or

drinking explanations. The social status of the two offenders, at the

core of the differing criminal treatment, is thereby ignored.

These observations do not negate the relationghip between

alcohol consumption and criminal misconduct. That relationship

clearly exists and must be recognized in the criminal law. There

are, however, underlying and largely covert factors which

determine when there is criminal guilt and when punishment

should be imposed. It will be impossible to implement a fair and just

alcohol excuse in the criminal law until these are acknowledged,

analyzed, and reformed. This should be one lesson drawn from the

recent rash of legislator-criminals seeking legal refuge in their

drinking problems.

Notes

'The commentator continues: The rule that voluntary intoxication is not a general

defense to a charge of crime based on acts committed while drunk is so universally

accepted as not to require the citation of cases. Apparently no court has ever

dissented from the proposition, and it is embodied in statutes in some jurisdictions"

(Annotation 1966. p. 1240). See, e.g., State v. French (Ohio, 1961) where the court

characterized the rule as a "truism." For additional case citations, see Annotation

(1966, pp. 1241-42). See also Hall (1960); Perkins (1969).

2Drunkenness may be so extreme as to be treated as insanity: however, such

insanity is viewed as distinct from alcoholism or alcohol addiction. According to one

commentator: "It is apparently only when alcoholism produces a permanent and

settled insanity distinct from the alcoholism compulsion itself that the law will

accept it as an "excuse" (Annotation 1966, p. 1239). As a practical matter, this

exception is extremely limited.

'For citations. see Annotation (1966, p. 1240, note 12).

'See Fingarette and Hasse (1979) for a thorough and excellent discussion of the

problems of the specific intent doctrine. Epstein (1978) and Hall (1944) also discuss

the issues raised here.

'Compare liciton v. Stab. ((4)... 1951) and Stith. v. Orli His (Conn., 1963) with People

v. 0/ii:er (('al., 1961) and Stub, v. fohnsfor (Idaho, 1957). Five States (Georgia,

Missouri, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia) do not recognize any exception to the

general rule (Annotation 1966).

4NASADAD's (National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors)

special report provides an excellent overview of the current legal status of

drunkenness offenses. A recent California case (Sum/a/we v. Mini irima ri

.6infiies, 1978) concerned the crim i nal treatment of public inebriates in Los Angeles.

The Court ordered significant reform in criminal justice procedures. The case

illustrates the potential seriousness of drunkenness offenses in terms of deprivation

of freedom. See also Neier (1975) and Klein (196.1).

The California Supreme Court in Toy/or v. Sup, rim. Court (1979) recently

accepted this doctrine. overruling previous California law and ignoring strong

dissenting. opinions. The Court held that drunk driving formed the basis for punitive

damages regardless of circumstances, stating "drunk driverA are extremely

'r'U
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 457

dangerous people." For a discussion of the moral outrage expressed in these opinions see Gusfield (in press).

"See cases cited in Annotation (1966).

`Tor a general discussion of police and district attorney discretion prior to and

after arrest, see Goldstein (1960); Gusfield (1972, in press). Weisner (in press) found

that on at least one occasion a drunk driver was taken directly to a detoxification

center by the police without booking.

"For discussion of the history, theory, and operation ofdiversion programs, see

Birns (1976); Brakel (1971); and Note (1974, 1975).

"This bias is illustrated in the California drunk driver probation program.

Initially, only four public treatment centers were established in four counties. For

other counties. potential probationers had to locate private, often expensive, treatment facilities to qualify for court probation. A suit was filed on behalf of

indigent offenders who lived in counties outside those with State- funded programs, claiming a denial of equal protection. The Court denied the claim, stating that

"experimental" programs need not be made equally available to citizens despite

discriminations on the basis of income (McGlot hen v. Dept. of Motor Vehicles, 1977).

For discussion, see Granger and Olson (1978).

References

Aarens, NI.; Cameron, R.; Roizen, J.; Room. R.; Schneberk, D.; znd Wingard, D. Alcohol. Casualties and ('rime. Report No. C18. Berkeley: University of California, Social Research Group, 1977.

Agopian, M. Evaluation of adult diversion programs: The California experience.

Federal Probation. 41(3): 15-18. 1977.

merienn Jurisprndence. 2nd ed. Rape S91. 1966.

American Law Institute. Model Penal Code. (proposed official draft), 1962. Annotation. "Modern Status of the Rules as to Voluntary Intoxication as Defense to Criminal Charge." li A.L.R. 1236. 1966.

Birns, H. Diversion from the criminal process. American Bar Association Journal

62: 1145-1153, 1976.

Brakel, S. Diversion from the criminal process: Informal discretion, motivation and

formalization. Den rer Low Journal, 48(1): 211-238, 1971.

Bunce, R.: Cameron, T.; Morgan, P.: Mosher, J.; and Room, R. "California's Alcohol

Control Experience. 1950-1979." Report prepared for the Third Conference of

the International Study of Alcohol Control Experiences (ISACE). Warsaw, Poland, April 1980. Paper revised October 1980. Berkeley: University of California. Social Research Group. ( /mho/ and Deng Report. Complete summary of 1979 alcohol and drug

legislation. Special Report. November 15, 1979.

rabfiirnio Alrohol and Drily Report. Alcohol and drug legislation - 1980. The

N.rport. 2(8): 19-23. 1980.

Chatfield-Taylor, J. A crackdown on drunk drivers? San Froneisvo Chronicle,

December 29. 1980, p. 19.

Cohen. R. Bauman case: Victory of will or ignorance? Mishit/Om Post, October 5. 1980. p p. 01. 02.

Dooley. I).. and Mosher. .1. Alcohol and legal negligence. ('mitemporory Drug

Prohirws 712): 1.15.181. 1978.

Epstein. T. A sociological examination of intoxication and the criminal law.

'untymporury Probirs. 7(:0: 401-471. 1978.

471
458 MOSHER

Fingarette, H., and Hasse, A. Mental Disabilities and Criminal Responsibility.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.

Fingarette, H. The perils of Powell: In search ofa factual foundation for the disease

concept of alcoholism. Harvard Law Review, 83(4): 793-812, 1970.

Goldstein, T. Police discretion not to invoke the criminal process: Low visibility

decisions in the administration of justice. Yale Law Review, 69: 543-567, 1960.

Grangerm, H., and Olson, J. VASAP: A rehabilitation alternative to traditional

DWI penalties. Washington and Lee Law Review, 35: 673-694, 1978.

Gusfield, J. "A Study of Drinking Drivers in San Diego County." Report prepared

for the Department of Public Health, County of San Diego, September 1972.

Gusfield, J. The illusion of Authority: Rhetoric, Ritual and Metaphor in Public

Actions: The Case of Alcohol and Traffic Safety. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, in press.

Hall, J. Intoxication and criminal responsibility. Harvard Lau' Review, 57: 1045-

1064, 1944.

Hall, J. General Principles of Criminal Law. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960.

Herman, P. Whose responsibility? California Alcohol and Drug Report, October 31,

1980, p. 2.

Huss, S. The alcohol-related traffic offenders program. Federal Probation, 40(2): 13- 17, 1976.

Kirbens, S. Chronic alcohol addiction and criminal responsibility. American Bar

Association Journal. 54: 877-883, 1968.

Klein, L. "The Criminal Law Process vs. The Public Drunkenness Offender."

Institute for the Study of Human Problems, October 1964.

Lipton, R.; Martinson, R.; and Willis, J. The Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment.

New York: Praeger, 1975.

MacAndrew, C., and Edgerton, R. Drunken Comportment. Chicago: Aldine, 1969.

Miceli, K. Criminalization and punishment in the prevention of alcohol problems.

Contemporary Drug Problems, 7(3): 327-367, 1978.

McIntyre, D. Comparative Analysis of Alcohol Highway Safety Judicial Standards

and Existing Professional Standards. Volume IL Analysis of Standards and

Codes. Report prepared under the auspices of the American Bar Foundation and

the Fund for Public Education for the U.S, Dept. of Transportation, December

1978.

Moore, R. Legal responsibility and chronic alcoholism. Amt. wan Journal of

Psychiatry 22(7): 748-766, 1966.

National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NA SA DAD). The

public inebriate: A new look at an old problem. Alcohol and Drug Abuse Report

Special Report, July 1980.

Neier, A. Public boozers and private smokers. Civil Liberties Review, 2(4): 41 -56,

1975.

Note. Pretrial intervention programs An innovative reform of the criminal justice

system. Rutgers Law Review, 28: 1203-1224. 1975.

Note. Pretrial diversion from the criminal process. Yale Law Journal, 83: 827-854,

1974.

Orland, L From vengeance: Sentencing reform and the demise of rehabilitation.

Holstra Law Review, 7: 29-56, 1978.

Perkins, R. Criminal Law. 2d ed. Mineola. N.Y.: Foundation Press, 1969.

Perr, I. Alcohol and criminal responsibility. Journal of Forensic Science, 21: 932-

943, 1976.

Room, R. Treatment-seeking populations and larger realities. In: Edwards, G., and

Grant, M., eds. A/mho/is Treiitment in Tran.4ition. London: Croom Helm, 1979.

pp. 205-225.

4 7 2
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 459

Russakoff, D., and Diehl, J. Legislator's scandal gum constituents on Eastern Shore. Washington Post, October 4, 1980, pp. Al, A2.

San Francisco Chronicle. An emotional Jenrette resignsfrom the House. Associated

Press Dispatch, December 11, 1980a, p. 17.

San Francisco Chronicle. Wife tells of a drunken Jenrette voting in House. United Press Dispatch, September 23, 1980b, p. 11. Shaffer, R., and Weisner, B. Bauman pleads innocent on solicitation charge. Washington Post, October 4, 1980, pp. Al, A2.

Sinclair, W. A muddy stream. Washington Post, October 4, 1980, pp. 1, 9. Soder, E. The need for realistic treatment of alcohol and drug addiction. Federal Probation, 37(1): 40-42, 1973.

Spirgen, D. Deterring the drinking driver: Treatment vs. punishment. UCLA- Alaska Law Review, 7: 244-264, 1978.

Weisman, J. The criminal justice practitioner's guide to the new Federal alcohol and

drug abuse confidentiality regulations. Federal Probation, 40(3): 11-21, 1976. Weisner, C. The Alcohol Treatment System and Social Control: A Study of

Institutional Change. Berkeley: University of California, in press. Wilks, J., and Martinson, R. Is the treatment of criminal offenders really necessary? Federal Probation, 40(1): 3-9, 1976.

Wolfgang, M., and Ferricute, F. Subculture of Violence. London: Tavistock, 1967. Ziegler, R.; Costello.; and Howat, G. Innovative programming in a penitentiary

setting: Report from a functional unit. Federal Probation, 40(2): 44-49, 1976.

Case and Statute Citations

Collign v, Fero, 349 N.Y.S.2d 306, 309-10 (Sup. Ct. 1973)

Commonwealth v. Graves, 334 A.2d 661, 666 (dissenting opinion of Eagen, J.) (Pa. 1975)

Commonwealth v. Kichline, 353 A.2d 406 (Pa. 1976)

Gallegos v, People, 411 P.2d 956 (Colo. 1966)

Helton v. State, 66 S.E. 139 (Ga. Ct, of Appeals 1951)

McGlothen v. Dept. of Motor Vehicles, 72 C.A.3d 1005 (1977)

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)

People v. Barrow, 60 C.A.3d 984 (1979)

People v. Habecker, No. 101-828 (Superior Ct. of California,City and County of San Francisco, 1980)

People v. Haskins, 181 C.A.2d 541 (1960)

People v. Hood, 1 Cal.3d 451 (1969)

People v. Oliver, 55 Cal.2d 761 (1961)

People v. Rogers, 18 N.Y. 9 (1858)

Quinn v. State, 142 N. W. 510 (Wise. 1913)

Salzman v. United States, 405 F.2d 358 (concurring opinion of J. Wright) (D.C. Cir. 1968)

State v. Arsenault, 152 Me. 121 (1956)

State v. Dennis, 188 A.2d 65 (Conn. 1963)

State v. French, 171 Ohio St. 501, cert. denied, 366 U.S. 973 (1961) State v. Huey. 128 P.2d 314 (Wash. 1942)

State v. Johnson. 261 P.2d 638 (Idaho 1957)

State v. Noel, 133 A. 274 (1926)

Sundano. v. Municipal Court of i,N Angeles No. C.A. 000257 (Superior Ct. of California. County of Los Angeles, 1977)

473
460 MOSHER

Taylor v. Superior Court, 24 Cal.3d 890 (1979)

United States v. Cornell, F.Cas.No. 14868 (CCRI, 1820)

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Cal. Vehicle Code §§ 13201 et. seq. (West Supp. 1980)

Cal. Welfare & Inst. Code § 6325 (West 1972)

474
Presenter's Comments

ROOM: Jim Mosher is a lawyer who has worked on a number of

issues involving alcohol and the law although up to the point of

this paper, primarily not with matters that involved criminal law.

MOSHER: I woke up very early this morning wondering what I

was going to say, and went through my third or fourth version. As

we've gone along in the conference, we've had so many exciting

ideas coming out, and I've been rethinking many of my own ideas on

the topic we've covered. It's been really quite an exciting process, which I'd say is an advantage for me since I am the last formal

presenter of a paper. There are a couple of disadvantages, one being

that Robin suggested that Pat and I were going to bring some kind

of conclusion, and I'm afraid that I cannot even pretend that I'm

capable of that. We've really looked at a lot of trees in the forest, and

it would be nice to have a look at the forest, but I think I'll turn that

over to Mark Moore and Herbert Fingarette. So I will take a look at

some more trees.

Actually, I did find my introduction and conclusion this morning when I opened the Neu. Yorker to look at the cartoons, trying to get myself back to sleep, and found two in the most recent issue. The

first one summarizes the feeling I had about where we're at right now: it's a man who definitely looks like a professor talking to a

policeman in a New York City street and saying, "Excuse me, Of- ficer. I'm an academic: where am I?"

I'd also like to say. having mentioned Herbert Fingarette, that it

really is an honor to be here in front of him. Forme, he has definitely

provided tremendous stimulation in the field of alcohol in the

criminal law, and the paper that I wrote is heavily indebted to his

thought and the provocative things he's brought up in his writing. I also want to thank Harry. He made it okay for me to talk about

the research ideas I didn't put in my paper, which is what I'd like to

do here.

My original idea in writing the paper had to do more with civil law than criminal law. I had an instinctive feeling, having worked

in the civil law both as a practitioner and as a researcher, that alcohol intoxication is a mighty explainer of untoward consequences but that it does not permit excuses.

As the conference has moved along. I have found this to be in

461

475
462 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

contrast to a lot of what we're saying around the table, which is that,

in fact, intoxication does provide excuses, that as B.B. King sings,

it's a way of explaining things, a way of getting away with

something. But the law fundamentally does not permit that, at least

in its formal symbolic form. So there's some contrast here with

popular attitudes that I'm not quite sure how to conceptualize.

What I'd like to do as is the wont of lawyers is to bring up

several legal cases, some actual situations of drinkers in action.

The first case I'd like to present came to me as a private

practitioner and helps explain my gut feeling that drunkenness and

alcohol play a role of blame rather than excuse in the law. A fellow

came to me and a senior attorney who I was working with at the

time. He had been barhopping in San Francisco, and, after having

gotten very severely drunk I think he said six to eight drinks

he decided to call a taxi rather than drive his car, a very responsible

decision. He called the taxi and it took him to the next bar, which

was about a mile away. The taxi driver then asked him for $20, and

he.refused to pay so much. Instead he said: "I want you to call the

police, and I want someone to arbitrate this dispute because I don't

owe you $20." And the cab driver pretended to call the police,

instead called four other cabs of the same company. and while the

four other cab drivers watched, beat the guy up and stole all his

money.

I believed his story; I don't think he was telling a lie. He was very

sincere and also very mad. And he wanted to get this cab company,

which I fully sympathized with. I was not the main attorney in the

case, and I'm not sure what my decision would have been as the only

attorney. But the senior attorney told him he didn't have a case. And

the reason was that he had been drunk. There would be no way to

successfully present his case to the jury because it was going to be

one man's word against another. Since he was drunk at the time, he

would be at a great disadvantage and the case was therefore not a

winner.

This is a subtle way in which drunkenness can come into the law,

and I think it's a very important part of the discretion in the legal

system that Liz Morrissey talked of. In these discretionary decisions, the fact that a participant in an untoward event, criminal or

civil, is drunk, weighs heavily on the type of decision being made.

I'd like to move on now to a couple of negligence cases, another

aspect of civil law which involves accidents where people have

injured somebody else unintentionally. If you've been negligent,

then you are liable for the injuries. As we were also discussing

earlier, it's a type of social negotiation between individuals in which

the state, through its courts, defines the rules under which people

have a duty of protection to each other.

1 7
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 463

In negligence law, there's a basic standard for determining

whether or not someone has been "negligent" i.e., been careless

called "the reasonable person" standard. This standard involves

asking the jury: Did the defendant in this case say the person

driving a.car who caused an accident act as a reasonable person

would have acted in like circumstances? The question is not how you would have acted necessarily, but rather how this fictitious

"reasonable person" would have acted. The standard is very similar

to other legal demands for rationality in determining moral and

civil responsibility.

The standard does allow for special excuses involving diseases

and mental conditions. When you have an illness for instance, if

you have pneumonia, a handicap, or a serious mental illness the

reasonable person standard is changed to reflect these presumably

unintended conditions. Thus the question becomes: Would the

reasonable person who has this particular condition have acted

differently? My favorite case illustrating this is a woman who was

driving along a freeway and saw God, thought she was flying to

Heaven and caused an accident. She pleaded temporary insanity. If

the jury were to believe that she was temporarily insane, she would

have been found not negligent because a reasonable person who had

been struck with this temporary insanity would have done exactly

the same thing.

Looking at drunkenness and alcoholism in the context of the

reasonable person standard, then, gives you an interesting, legal

view of just exactly how drunkenness is treated. Drunkenness is not

permitted as an excuse in the reasonable person standard. A drunk

is considered to have the same requirement of duty to other people

as a sober reasonable person. So, legally speaking, drunkenness

doesn't make any difference to your duty; it's notan issue in the case;

and you cannot plead, "I was drunk."

Alcoholism is also not applied to the reasonable person standard. This is a less clear area. Perhaps some of you know of some cases to

the contrary, but I've looked hard for a negligence case in which the

defendant would plead something to the effect, "Well, I'm an

alcoholic,. And, therefore, the reasonable person standard should be

someone in like circumstances who is an alcoholic." I could not find

a single case that even argued that and I think the argument would lose.

These are just the basic rules and they suggest that drunkenness

is not an excuse for harmful behavior, but rather a blame. What I'd

like to do now is look at a couple of negligence cases. Actually, my

talk so far is an excuse to look at niy drunken sailor cases. These are

477
464 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

situations in which drunkenness isn't officially part of the case, and

in principle can't be part of the case, but we'll see that in fact,

drunkenness is the crucial issue.

I therefore want to move to maritime law and, again, I'm afraid

that I have to give you some legal jargon in order to get started. In

maritime law, if a sailor gets injured on or off ship while on his tour

of duty, there are two types of recovery: one called "maintenance

and cure," the other called "damages." For a sailor to get damages,

he must prove negligence-type fault on the part of the shipowner.

Maintenance and cure, however, is different. The U.S. Supreme

Court has said:

Logically and historically the duty of maintenance and

cure derives from a seaman's dependence on his ship, not

from his individual deserts, and arises from his

disability, not from anyone's fault. We there refuse to

look at the personal nature of the seaman's activity at the

moment of injury to determine his right to award. Aside

from gross misconduct or insubordination, what the

seaman is doing and why and how he sustains injury does

not affect his right to maintenance and cure, however

decisive it may be, as he claims for indemnity or for

damages for negligence. (Farrell r, United States, 336

U.S. 511, 515-16 (1948))

This means that if the sailor is extremely careless in what he's

doing, he still gets this type of recovery. Maintenance and cure is

thus a type of workmen's compensation recovery. You don't really

look to see how careless he was; you don't see whether the shipowner

was negligent; if he gets injured, he is entitled to a recovery.

In 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court had the following to say:

So broad is the shipowner's obligation re maintenance

and cure that neither negligence nor acts forming

culpable misconduct on the seaman's part will relieve

him of the responsibility. Only some willful mistake, only

some willful misbehavior or deliberate act of indiscretion

suffices to deprive the seaman of his defense. The

traditional instances are venereal disease and injuries

received as a result of intoxication. Though on occasion.

the latter has been qualified in recognition of a classic

predisposition of sailors ashore. (Aguilar Stu nth, rd Oil

Cf)., 318 U.S. 724, 730-31 (1943)

Cases from lower courts which have implemented this general rule have drawn what I consider an odd distinction. If the

shipowner acts to protect the seaman who is drunk, actually

recognizes his predisposition to get drunk on shore and takes some

4 7 s
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 465

form of protective measure for example insuring that a sober

companion is present to carry the drunk back to the ship and

there is some mishap causing injury to the seaman, then the

shipowner is liable for recovery. If the shipowner takes no action

he just lets the sailors off the ship then he protects himself. So, in

effect, the law has devised a rule here which encourages shipowners

not to protect the sailors from their predisposition to get

intoxicated.

Two cases illustrate this point. The first is called the At lass case,

decided in 1965 (At lass P. Muth, 350 F.2d 592 (1965)). I believe it

illustrates both the shipowner's dilemma and the way drunkenness

acts to shift responsibility to the drinker. The crucial issue concerns

the safety of a yacht's two entrances one which required a three to

four foot jump over water and the other which required no special

effort. There were about six sailors involved in the case, and one of

them was termed the owner's agent. The entire crew left the yacht

and two came back extremely drunk. These two went to the wrong

entrance, fell into the water, and drowned. The court held that the

sailors had committed gross misconduct by being so intoxicated.

The shipowner had provided a safe entrance which fulfilled his

duty to the seamen. Recovery for both negligence and maintenance

and cure was therefore barred. Yet, if the shipowner had taken

affirmative actions to protect the sailors and the drownings had

still occurred, then the shipowner might have been liable.

The second case, Reyes P. Vantage Steamship Co, Inc, (558 F.2d

14.38 (1977)) involves a shipowner who kept stacks of 350 beer cases

on his boat, which he regularly served to his sailors. The court

termed this practice a measure of good will. A sailor on the ship got

very intoxicated (.185 BAL), decided to go swimming, jumped into

the water, swam too far from the boat and drowned. The boat did

not have on board a lifeline, which is required by federal

regulations and which could have saved his life. The lower court

called the sailor's drunkenness gross misconduct and found his

conduct the sole cause of the accident. The appellate court reversed

on two bases; first, that the ship was basically a floating dramshop;

and second, that given the large supply of liquor, the captain is

required to take some affirmative action to protect the sailors. The

court thus held that the failure to maintain a lifeline on the ship and

the large supply of liquor were the sole causes of the accident. This

is a recent case and perhaps suggests some changes in legal

thinking the lower court's opinion is fully supported under

previous decisions. What is surprising is that there could have been

any doubt in these circumstances, particularly given the breadth of

the maintenance and cure rules.
466 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

Both cases are interesting because, whether or not drunkenness

was found to be the sole cause, both courts held that the event never

would have happened if the sailors hadn't been drinking. The focus

was on the drinking, and, although the appellate court in the second

case shifted responsibility to the captain, the drinking really is the

explainer of the events. The opinions themselves are particularly

centered on the drinking behavior. What happened here is

somebody got drunk that explains the event. And in most

instances the Reyes case being somewhat of an exception perhaps

because of its extraordinary circumstances once you have that

fact, the drinker becomes the person who bears the cost of the event.

This parallels what I argue in my paper concerning the criminal

law that the drinker really is taking on the responsibility by

getting drunk. In fact, I remember that in an earlier discussion we

noted that the responsibility comes when the person decides to get drunk.

Let me briefly describe two more cases that I found absolutely

fascinating in my research, which involved insurance law. Again, I have to give a bit of background so the legal issues can be

understood. Health, accident and life insurances contracts very

commonly contain specific exceptions often called "standard

exclusion clauses." Two common exclusiono involve crime and

alcohol, our two main topics. This is how a typical exclusion reads:

"If a person has put into his body in any manner or nature whatever

and whether due to voluntary or involuntary or other act of the

insured any intoxicant" coverage is denied. In other words, if the

person has any alcohol in his bloodstream when he's injured, the

insurance coverage is nullified. A lot of contracts are less onerous.

providing that coverage will be denied if the insured is

"intoxicated."

The crime provision is similar. If you're committing a crime

when you get injured you are not covered. Indeed, you are usually

not covered in drunk driving accidents and other criminal actions

taken while drunk. There are two interesting cases out of Tennessee

several decades ago that illustrate the extent to which intoxication

is viewed as not just an explainer but a blame for events.

The first case involves a fellow who was very intoxicated in the bak seat of a car driven by somebody who was sober and who got injured when the car was in an accident. It was unclear from

reading the case who was negligent the driver of his car or of the

other car. The court held that there did not have to be any causal

connection between the intoxication and the injury. Thus, because

the insured was intoxicated in the back seat, even though the

intoxication did not lead in any way, shape or form to his injury, he
ALCOHOL: .3LAME AND EXCUSE 467

was not covered. Now, the courts disagree on this, but there are

many courts who would maintain the same position today.

The second case involves a bootlegger who was driving his illegal

booze to market along a Tennessee highway. His car had a gas leak

and the car blew up. The court held that there has to be a causal

connection between the crime and the injury. Thus since there was

to causal connection between the criminal act of taking the booze to

market and the gas leak, recovery was permitted. These results

suggest that, from an insurance perspective, being intoxicated is

more reprehensible than committing a crime. I found these cases in

an old "Harvard Law Review" article (Note 1949); the commentator

suggested that there is some anomaly concerning these insurance

law cases, a position I heartily support.

Those are the cases I wanted to present. I want in a few words to

give a sense of what I think is important about them. First, and I

have already mentioned' this drunkenness does provide a

tremendous explanation in the law. It's very prevalent, and it's

something we've talked about here. Alcohol can explain all kinds of

things it can explain aggression, sleepiness, clumsiness. When

drunkenness is involved in an accident or crime, the law looks at the

drinking very seriously, as a primary explanatory tool. This doesn't

mean, as I said before, that drunkenness excuses the event; in fact, I

would argue and this is why I wanted to bring the civil cases up

that in most instances it is a means for apportioning blame. In the

criminal area, as you read in my paper, drunkenness does

sometimes provide an excuse, a major excuse. I think it is important

to realize, however, that the circumstances in which an excuse is

permitted are extremely limited.

What is important about the law taking drunkenness as an

explanation? One of the main results is that it takes the onus off the

structural level and puts it on the individual. In looking at most of

the sailor cases, you don't look at the safety situation of the ship;

drunkenness somehow excuses the normal obligation of the

shipowner and the ship's master to protect his sailors. Ship safety is

a basic duty of shipowners except when a sailor is drunk. Joe

Gusfield, in his recent book (1980), powerfully raises this point. In

the drunk driving arm, the law symbolically puts the blame on the

individual. thus taking the emphasis off some of the other

structural issues.

There are many cases that illustrate this general point. Recently

several former alcoholics have brought various types of suits. They

have sued the industry, claiming that the alcohol industry is

responsible for their alcoholism. They have also raised safety issues.

For example, in one case an alcoholic climbed a telephone pole and

4s1
468 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

was seriously injured; he argued that the alcohol producer should

be held liable for not warning him that using alcohol increases the

danger of serious accidents. Now, I'm not arguing that in these

instances the alcohol industry should be civilly liable. What I want

to note is that the defense to this case is inevitably "this individual

did it; it's his fault."

Thus, civil law well illustrates the tendency in legal thought to

use drunkenness as a means of putting the blame on an individual

level. This may tie into Harry's talk, where he discussed an

historical change toward identifying the individual as the primary

source of social control.

Now just a few words about criminal law, so I can actually talk

about my paper a bit. Since alcohol is such a good explainer, it is not

surprising that it takes on such an important role in the criminal

law. It is an odd kind of importance, however, because officially the

legal position is to ignore drunkenness. The criminal is held to the

same standard as a "sober" person.

I want to make a parenthetical point which Professor Fingarette

mentioned to me during this meeting, that juries go along with this

legal doctrine. It is not only hard to make drunkenness a jury issue

but when it is, the jury is unlikely to acquit on that basis. The law is

therefore reflecting at least some segment of the population's

popular attitude.

Drunkenness takes on a different role in the diversion process,

however. Alcoholism treatment has become very important in the

diversion and sentencing system, providing an important means

for avoiding formal criminal punishment. It is a way of diverting

criminal cases into the medical system, as we were talking about

this morning. But with diversion we are asking a different question

from the issue of guilt. At the trial, we're asking: Is this person

morally guilty, morally responsible for his acts? Has he committed

a transgression against the state? At a diversion hearing Are ask

instead: Is this person really someone we want to put through the

criminal system? The diversion process is basically an escape valve

for certain people, and alcoholism treatment is becoming an

important means for triggering that valve. The problem is that

alcohol is not the real issue. Diversion decisions rest on such matters

as class, race, age, and the number of crimes the accused has

committed. You can argue from a treatment perspective that

someone who has committed several crimes while drunk is in the

most need of alcoholism treatment, but in fact just the opposite

happens in the diversion process.

This fits in with some of what Pat said this morning, that

drunkenness excuses certain members of society for certain crimes.

482
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 469

And I'll just note in passing that Dan White, the San Francisco

supervisor who murdered the mayor and another supervisor and

received a very lenient punishment, had an alcoholism-type

defense. Only someone in Dan White's position in society could

possibly have gotten away with that. Most others would have been

laughed out of court.

The tendency in law, then, is to treat drunkenness as a powerful

explainer and to apportion blame and excuse based on factors

largely divorced from the actual drinking behavior. Although I

have questioned this legal treatment of drunkenness, we should not

lose track of the fact that indeed alcohol in our society is associated

with serious accidents, crime and disease. It really is amazing how

often alcohol is involved in legal cases. Quite apart from whether

alcohol explains these untoward events, there's an association there

that involves incredible human suffering. The fact that alcohol is

not an adequate explanation or that the cross-cultural studies show

that our society is creating an explanation, does not negate the

reality of a serious societal problem that needs to be dealt with for

the sake of the individuals in society as well as for the society itself.

This raises a number of prevention-type issues that Larry Wallack

and I have been moving into. The main implication of my legal

research is the need to shift attention from individualized to more

structural types of solutions. The intoxicated sailor cases illustrate

this point one can find structural solutions to protect the

drinking sailor.

Residential fires illustrate this point still further. A very strong

relationship has been shown between smoking, drinking, falling

asleep, having a cigarette smolder in the couch, and starting a fire.

That's a very common scenario in our society, and a very serious

problem. Alcohol and Health IV (U.S. National Institute on Alcohol

Abuse and Alcoholism 1981) has recently labeled fire accidents as

one of the major alcohol-related problems in the country. The

solution, however, may not be in the individual. I raised this at the

Panel on Alternative Policies Affecting the Prevention of Alcohol

Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Academy of Sciences (Moore

and Gerstein 1981). I thought the best solution was to change the

structure of the cigarette, and there is considerable literature on

how you can design cigarettes so they don't smolder. There were a

number of comments, with panel members saying things like,

"Well, that's not the real problem; the real problem is the fire codes

or the materials in the walls or the couches." If you want to solve

that alcohol-related problem, you need to look at all these elements

in the structure of the situation. I think that ties into some of the

more abstract ideas that Pat brought up about the individual and

483
470 PRESENTER'S COMMENTS

the social structure. Within the context of legal problems and

accidents and crime, alcohol can and dues provide some focus in

practical situations, even if it is not an adequate explanation.

I want to close with my other cartoon, which shows three fish a

small one, a middle-sized one and large one. The middle-sized fish is

eating the small fish and the large fish is eating the middle-sized

fish. The little fish is saying "there is no justice in the world"; the

middle-sized fish is saying "there is some justice"; and the big fish is

saying, "the world is just."

48.4
Commentary

Mark Moore

ROOM: Mark Moore is Chairperson of that Panel on Alternative

Policies Affecting the Prevention of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

of the National Academy of Sciences which Jim just mentioned, and is at the Kennedy School of Governmentat Harvard

University. I think Mark has sometimes represented himself as

being an expert on hazardous commodities, having worked both on

heroin and handguns as well as alcohol.

MOORE: I was a little surprised but happy to be invited to this

discussion since I'm neither a lawyer nor a sociologist; in fact, it's

hard to characterize what I am. I guess the easiest way to think of it is as an empty vessel, disinhibited by the California climate, And what I've been learning over the last day with a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm is what may be called "sociological

comportment," and so for a while, I am going to try to look and

sound a little bit like a sociologist, and if I get it wrong, you've only yourselves to blame.

Jim's comments prompted me to preface my specific statement

on Jim's paper with a more general statement. Jim was pointing out

again that we all understand that causation in the world is quite a

complex phenomenon, and that when courts use words like "sole

cause" or "only cause" or something like that, we know that they

can't be speaking truthfully about the world. It simply doesn't make

sense to think about something as a sole cause or an only cause. It

seems to me that one of the important areas of tension between

people doing social science and people making public policy and

legal rules is that when theories of causation are brought into the political and legal world that is, a world in which the central

issue is how to allocate praise and blame to individuals they carry with them the freight of assigning liability; that is, of indicating where the finger of praise and blame ought to be pointed and where

the burden of additional work to ward off the evil ought to be

allocated, and who is to take care of whom and how much and to

what degree. And while as researchers we might think we have the

right way to decide that issue namely, what the correct theory of

471

485
472 MOORE: COMMENTARY

causation is we discover that the political and legal worlds

consider the scientific basis only part of the question to be

considered in their analysis of where to fix the liability. There are at

least two other things that go into their consideration, it seems to

me: one is they make a sort of utilitarian calculation and look

forward to the question of: If we were to fix liability in a particular

place and in a particular way and in particular dimensions, what

would happen to the distribution of work and burdens, on the one

hand, and benefits, on the other, as a result of placing the liability in

that particular way? And the standard notion would be if we put the

liability on somebody who can cheaply and easily do the protection,

that that would be better than placing the liability on someone who

could only expensively and with difficulty produce the protection.

But they would also ask the question: What's the distribution of

protecting and protection that's offered as a result of fixing the

liability in a particular area? This is a broader area that is now

developing in economics and the law that's concerned with that

particular subject, and to some degree, the courts worry about that

when they confront questions, and I think Jim's drunken seamen

cases illustrate wrestling with that. But, there's a competing consideration that goes into that

judgment, which is: To what extent does the assignment of liability

conform to ordinary social preferences about where we ought to fix

liability? Who's our favorite person to blame? Who's our favorite

person to try to protect? And to the extent possible, the courts and

the government try to conform to a notion of the kinds of people or

the kinds of characters who are going to be ordinarily blameworthy

or protectable. That consideration goes into the question of where to

fix the liability as well. So when we propose a theory of causation

and bring it into a political and legal world where blame, worth,

virtue and responsibility are allocated, it's by no means a neutral

matter. Great things turn upon people's conceptions of themselves,

what they're responsible for C. .ing their whole ideas of the social

order turn on the question of where liability and blame and

responsibility are to be fixed.

What I'm going to discuss with regard to Jim's paper are four

things. One is how the law regard:, alcohol abuse, and specifically

whether it's consistent or inconsistent in its view. Jim suggests that

its inconsistent. I think it's quite consistent and easy to understand

the law's view in this area. and its view is that it', unfailingly hostile

to the idea of drunkenness, for a couple of reasons that we will talk

about. The second is: What is the implication of whatever views the

courts happen to hold for the individually and socially held view of

drinking? The third is why the law as one special instrument of

4
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 473

social control is developing the particular form that it seems to be

developing. And the last question and this is where I was trying

to act most like a sociologist, and, therefore, venturing into an area

where a substantial liability may be attached to me is: What does

it imply for our perception of how social control operates; more

specifically, what are the instruments of social control? One of the'

things that I've learned from this conference is that I've

substantially broadened my view of how social control operates and

through what instruments. Let me take up each of those topics.

My first proposition is that the law has a quite consistent view of

alcohol use, and it's quite easy for people to understand. Let me first

develop Jim's view as he develops it in his paper. He notices that lots

of people charged with crime specifically aggressive assaults

and child molesting have often offered the excuse of

drunkenness. He also notes that the courts have responded to this in

two particular ways: one is by constructing a very limited excuse

which he describes as the specific versus general intent distinction.

It turns out that drunkenness can be relevant in rebutting an

assertion of specific intent, but not in general intent.

This turned out to be a very limited excuse for drunkenness for

two important reasons which I think are quite interesting. One is

that there are only small numbers of specific intent crimes, so it

doesn't come up all that often; and the second is that even where

there's a specific intent crime, it seems as if the defense lawyers

often decide that they would prefer to keep testimony about

drunkenness out of the conversation, for the reason that the jury has

to find two things in the case: One is whether the person committed

the offens( , and the second is what their intent was. Because the

defense la Aryers believe that the jury believes that alcohol is

disinhibiting, and therefore more likely to produce the bad effect in

question, they prefer to keep alcohol out of the conversation, relying

on their first line of defense, which is to refuse to admit that the

defendant committed the act. That would be one way of

interpreting it, but I've gone beyond Jim's evidence in speculating

there. In any case, it's a limited excuse that the courts have

developed, strikingly limited. And where they've been more

inventive is in changing what Don Black (1976) would call the

"style" of social control; that they have changed from a punitive

style of social control to a therapeutic style of social control.

Whether the quantity of publicly sponsored social control has

changed or not, I think is uncertain.

But Jim argues: Notice that to that degree namely, to the

extent that it's constructed a limited excuse and to the extent that

it's changed the style of social control the courts seem to have

487
474 MOORE: COMMENTAitY

reacted to defendants' claims of excuse for their action. And then he

goes on to notice that in other areas, specifically those areas where

drunkenness is itself part of the definition of the offense public

drunkenness and drunk driving that the courts have treated

drinking very harshly and considered it punitively. He then asks

the question: Well, for heaven's sake, where is the court on this

issue? Are they considering it an excuse or are they considering it

an offense? And that, it seems to me, is a very sharply posed

question. I'm rarely a defender of legal reasoning. I routinely spend a

semester fighting with a law professor on a variety of absurdities in

legal reasoning. But, still, in this particular case, the courts seem to

me to be quite sensible; in fact, maybe more sensible than we are.

And the way that I would resolve or dissolve the contradiction that

Jim identifies is to say that his first assertion namely, that the

courts have changed and admitted drinking is an excuse has not

really happened. What you see over and over in the courts is a

determined resistance to accepting alcohol as an excuse. Every

time the question has been raised, they have rejected it. And this

limited excuse, arising in a very small number of cases, and the

shift in the style of social control does not seem to me to be an

important accommodation to che view that alcohol might be part of

the problem. The adjusting/accommodating side of the dichotomy

really is not particularly adjusting or accommodating. If it hasn't

ever been allowed as an excuse in the courts, only as a reason for

shifting to a more therapeutic style, then we could propose the

alternative hypothesis; namely, that the courts have consistently

blamed drinking and see whether that holds up. And I think that

I can construct an argument that says the courts are consistent in

blaming drunkenness.

I'm going to speculate for a minute on two different reasons that

they might be so determined to keep blaming people for getting

drunk, and that has to do with the fact that in getting drunk, the

courts see two things going on and want to discourage both of them,

but one of them is much more offensive to the courts than the other.

The two things that are going on are, first, the fact that the person

deliberately puts himself in a position where he can disclaim

authorship of his acts where he can disclaim the responsibility

for what's likely to go on in the future because he wasn't himself or

he was under the influence of some substance or something like that

and second, the court is worried that having put yourself in that

position, some bad conduct will result, that you can do something

particularly dangerous.

The first idea is offensive to the court because it denies the duties

4 8s
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 475

of citizenship. The individual says to himself, "I'm going to escape

my ordinary duties under the law by getting drunk and pretending

that it wasn't really me that was acting, and I will then be safe."

And the court finds that offensi-e, since it undermines its authority

and control over the citizen's conduct. The second is offensive for the

usual reason that things are offensive; namely, that the risky

behavior that results from disclaiming authorship is dangerous for

others. For both those reasons, the court has been relatively hostile

to the concept of drunkenness. It's important to note that the courts

have not been unlimitedly hostile; that is, they have restricted or

focused their greatest hostility on drunkenness in situations where

there is some public interest, specifically in the area of public

intoxication and in drunk driving. What they're doing there is

saying, "This is not bad in itself, but it's bad because it's likely to

produce some things that are bad in the same way that driving too

fast or carrying a gun in a central city is bad; that is, it increases the

conditional probability that a bad act will occur, and, therefore, as a

preventive measure, we will discourage the conduct."

With respect to those offenses, the courts often stay in a punitive

style rather than a therapeutic style because the claim is that the

person voluntarily puts himself into this dangerous situation and,

therefore, is vulnerable to blame and punishment in a punitive style

rather than the therapeutic style. It's easy to think of these as

analogous with illegal possession of guns or driving too fast, and to

understand that the court is punishing them because they are acts

which, although maybe not bad in themselves, are sufficiently

conducive to bad acts that they are worth discouraging.

My answer to the question of how to deal with the anomaly of the

courts apparently giving some license to action in the case of

substantive offenses such as assault and child abuse would be to say

the courts are really treating drunkenness in those cases not as an

excuse, not even neutrally, but as a crime that is a lesser included

offense, just as courts punish people primarily for armed robbery

and include carrying a handgun in that as a lesser included offense,

and they punish people for burglary and carry under that the

possession of burglary tools as a lesser included offense. So, the

crime of domestic assault includes the crime of inappropriate

drunkenness, but it doesn't have to be stated because of the

magnitude of the offense. The courts would see drunkenness as so

small relative to the dominant charge that it's a matter of

indifference whether it's included in the formal statement of the

charge or not. So, I would argue that the courts, with respect to

substantive offenses, could be seen as treating the associated

drunkenness not only not as an excuse, but as an additional lesser

489
476 MOORE: COMMENTARYincluded offense. I'm masquerading as a lawyer there, and running

some substantial risk of error as well.

So, the court is consistently hostile to drinking, and it's

consistently hostile to drinking primarily because it believes in the

disinhibition theory. That is, what it says, is "We believe that it is

true that if a person drinks, he puts himself and others at risk, and

he does so voluntarily, and he does it in two ways: One, by

disclaiming responsibility; and two, by increasing the probability

of certain kinds of inappropriate acts. Because we believe in the

disinhibition theory of drinking, we are going to push the point of

responsibility in these offenses involving drinking back further

than would be the case at the moment of the crime; that is, we're

going to push the point back to the moment the person decides to

drink." I'm following Larry Wallack's remarks in this area.

That, then, raises the interesting question, which is: How much

voluntary control does the individual have over the decision to drink

in the first place? And that is the argument that the alcoholism

movement has tried to make; namely, since the person has no

voluntary control over the decision to take the first drink, fixing

responsibility at that point is inappropriate for the court to do.

Notice that even if we were to accept that view namely, that

alcoholics do not have control over the decision to drink that

would not mitigate all criminal offenses or traffic accidents, etc.,

because alcoholics figure in only a small minority of such offenses.

And it would still turn out to be true that occasionally drunken

people got into trouble, and we would understand that the excuse "I

was temporarily drunk" was not tolerable; and only the excuse "I'm

a chronic alcoholic, and, therefore, I can't control myself when I'm

drunk" would be the excuse. But the courts have said explicitly,

when asked about this, that "We do not believe that alcoholism"

that is, the first decision to drink "is an involuntary act. We

believe that that's a voluntary act; and therefore we reject not only

the alcohol excuse, but the alcoholism excuse, and, therefore, we're

going to continue to hold people who get drunk improperly as liable

for their actions."

So, the courts seem to me to be saying the following: One, it's

dangerous to drink because of the disinhibition effect. It's not only

dangerous to individuals but also of public concern in special areas;

namely, public drunkenness and driving. Since it is dangerous to

the social order to drink at certain levels and certain places, we will

discourage that conduct by punishing people who do that and act as

though they're responsible for the decision to drink as well as for

what comes after that. They reject the view that people do not have

voluntary control over the decision to drink. Still, they will adjust

490
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 477

the quantity and style of social control to accommodate a little bit

the concern that a person, even if not being compelled to drink, may

have some difficulty controlling drinking. And in any case they

make a utilitarian calculation that it might be in the society's

interest to handle these people through therapeutic means rather

than the ordinary means of the criminal justice system.

What does this say to individuals in the' society about

disinhibition and drinking? Well, the courts reinforce the widely

held public view that drinking is disinhibiting. As such, it makes

available to individuals the possibility of capturing excuses from

people not in the legal system. There's no particular reason that the

legal system has to assign blame r '3 liability in the same way that

all the other parts of the society do. And when we see defendants

reaching out and saying, "It was the FBI bourbon that did it," they

may be not so much asserting a defense against the inevitable

outcome in the courts as pleading for understanding among

colleagues and other people, who, after all, are also part of the social

control system and whose actions and postures toward them they

care about.

So, to some extent, the courts reinforce the disinhibition idea and

make it available as an excuse to individuals in talking to other

private individuals. Now, it's interesting to ask the question: Why is

the law developing in this particular way? The most distinctive

feature of the posture of the courts in this area seems to me to be that

while it's giving way on the question of the style of social control, it is

not giving way on the question of moral culpability of actions. A

question we can then ask ourselves is why is the court behaving in

that particular way? One possible answer that seems to me

intuitively less than obvious is that from the point of view of the

courts, particularly in our society, they need to know where the

moral authorship of acts is; that is, they need to know where to

assign liability, as we've pointed out, and need to know that because

it is of moral significance as well as analytic and causal

significance. They prefer to assign liability to individuals, and they'

like the idea that individuals are responsible for their acts; they

believe that that's a very important ideology in general throughout

this society, one that ought to be protected and preserved: That

people are responsible for what they do. It makes it possible for

them to do their job of judging individuals, and, probably in the

view of many people in the courts, it provides one of the fundamental underpinnings of our society. So, they'll give up an awful lot

in terms of the right way to respond to public drunkenness but

they won't give up on the idea of individual responsibility. That's

what they want to cling to in all circumstances.

491
478 MOORE: COMMENTARY

This suggests to me something about social control. Often people

think about social control in terms of public agencies punishing or

sanctioning people who behave outside the bounds of established

roles. That's one kind of social control. We also understand that

social control can operate by regularly deciding which position a

person is going to be in. That is, I was a high status person once, but

I behaved in a particular way, so I get shifted to a lower status

position.

The third way that it operates, though and in many respects

this seems to me to be the most interesting but the least obvious is

by defining what are the available positions and statuses in society.

So, not only does the social control apparatus take certain status

positions and compare acts relevant to the norms in those positions

and punish for transgressions; not only does social control move

people in and out of certain positions from high status to low

status positions but it also operates by defining certain social

positions. And the question throughout the history of this issue has

been: Are the courts prepared to accept and create in the society a

new position called that of "alcoholic"; that is, a person who is

incapable of controlling his drinking; to accept that he's incapable

of controlling his drinking, in a position to do damage, and not be

responsible for it?

On this the courts differ from the way they responded to the claim

of mental illness. They have said, "We are not going to recognize a

special status called 'alcoholic." I'm going well beyond what I know

to be true. They might be saying something like "We are tired of

giving exceptions; we are tired of creating new positions in which

people can offer excuses for their conduct."

I sometimes wonder whether the politics of the current day, and

to some extent the anger at social scientists, couldn't be understood

in terms of whether and how many special statuses involving

excuses there are to be within the society. I just would point out that

it's analytic theories of ..!ausation that cause us to move responsibility away from individuals to other places. and that runs against

a very strong ideological trend and long-term ideological feature of

the society.

4Q (-
Discussion

MORGAN: What I'd like to do is bring Joe Gusfield into the

room for a minute. Even though Joe is in India, for many of us he's

been here all along.

The commentary especially reminded me of the dangers involved

when we attempt to analyze reality in terms of constructing

typologies or models of formal systems of social control. We know

that the law and the courts operate on moral grounds based on

concepts of equality and reason. However, in Joe's most recent book

(Gusfield 1980), he has suggested that some of the dimensions

involved in formal definitions, such as those used by the law, are

perhaps hidden behind particular kinds of technological covers or

scientific cloaks which, in essence, are masking political choices.

He says: "...that these, in fact, deny that a moral decision has been

taken; that a political choice among alternatives had been made. So,

the ownership and responsibility for social problems and their

solution are given as a matter of fact and not of value."

I would like to use that to remind people that the recent

developments in terms of alcohol-related diversion programs,

especially, involve more than just processes within the court. The

law is, in fact, much broader than the court process because

diversion happens before these decisions reach the court. The

purpose of diversion is to keep people from, in fact, entering into the

court system and thereby entering into the criminal justice system.

ROIZEN: I'd like to echo one comment made, which is that from

the social scientist's side, responding back to the legalistic side,yes,

yes, we do not see these theories as bases for moral decisions, and if

someone reads this conference as being a conflict between the

neomoralistic blamers and the physicodeterminist excusers by

means of drinking, my advice is don't do it. It's the citizenry's

responsibility to make moral decisions, and the sociological and

other sorts of scientific evidence will not free the citizen from that

moral responsibility. I think it's a terribly important point much

confused on the part of social scientists themselves: To make clear

that what we impart to you, you may not be able to escape, because it

reflects a part of the knowledge system of our culture you may

not be able to escape those causal ideas. But when you come to use

those causal ideas and the authority of the status of scientists who

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480 DISCUSSION

promote those ideas as a basis for deciding whether somebody's

responsible or not, you had better go and read Herb Fingarette's

(1974) book because you can't do it.

DUSTER: In Mark Moore's comments, he said that the courts

were consistently hostile to this conception of alcohol as a way of

getting around culpability. That may be theoretically true. I don't

know. But at.the empirical level, that can hardly be true. The single

most imnortant determinant in disposition of criminal cases,

whether one has pled guilty or not guilty, is whether one has a

private attorney or a public defender. It's consistently the case

across all crimes. If that's the case, then the notion of individual

culpability is mooted, quite problematic.

WINICK: There's been a legal development in the last decade

that, it seems to me, has important possible consequences for how

people are exposed to drunkenness and how they may view it. That

is, in the last decade, the decriminalization of public drunkenness

and the elimination in most states of the public inebriate status as

an offense has turned loose at least in some cities like New York

very large numbers of persons who are drunk or who are unable

to cope, or weaving and bobbing, or lying in the street and so forth.

In New York City, there less than 100 beds available at

sobering-up stations for the purpose of providing emergency

assistance for such persons; and, as it happens, the State, which

funds them, has said it will not fund them after next year, and the

city has said it will not fund them at all because it doesn't have the

money. But I would say that in the five years since New York State

decriminalized public inebriate status, the number of persons

visibly drunk on the street has increased at least a thousand

percent. I would say, though not to as great an extent, the same

thing is true in other places wherever decriminalization has

occurred, thus providing a new perception of and greater visibility

to people who are drunk, perhaps with a variety of consequences for

how people growing up will view the drunkenness context.

ROOM: I think it's easy to overestimate the amount to which

public drunkenness has been decriminalized in the country, despite

places like New York City. It's a partial decriminalization in many

states. I would, in fact, generalize your point a little to say that I

think the decriminalization solution of public drunkenness has

always been unstable and is about to break down in the U.S.

SPEIGLMAN: One of the questions that obviously keeps

coming up is this question of discretion in the courts. I was

interested in Mark Moore's characterization of the courts as taking

two positions: One that they don't want to allow people to disclaim

authorship: and the other that, simply. they don't want to see the

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ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 481

bad conduct resulting. In trying to think about this in some

terminology I was more familiar with, I came up with Jim

O'Connor's book, The Fiscal Crisis of the State (1973). O'Connor is

concerned with the notion that the state has an interest in

legitimacy, which seems to tie in with Moore's first category that

individualism really has to be retained as a kind of legitimate

function in the state apparatus. Moore's second category fits with

O'Connor's notion of the state's concern with accumulation. The

state doesn't want people going around ripping apart capital; they

don't want people running around de$troying things that are

needed for productivity, be they buildings, or families that are

reproducing workers. From that perspective it's not surprising

that people are treated differently in the courts and elsewhere,

precisely because some people are not treated as capital or as

important to the capitalist system. The huge numbers of people in

this society who are marginal members of the political economy can

be treated quite differently: they can either be ignored or they can

be treated overly repressively, depending on which is the more

effective and cheaper response.

MARLATT: Just another point to illustrate some of the peculiar

paradoxes that we get into when we compare legal concepts of

responsibility and the alcoholism movement's concepts of responsibility. In Seattle, we attempted to set up a program for drunk

driving offenders that was based on self-control skills, problemsolving, controlled drinking practices and so forth, aimed not so

much at the alcoholic offender but at the social drinker, young male

drinkers in particular who had a very high risk. As soon as the

recovered alcoholics in the community found out about this, they

did everything they could to terminate the program and change the

funding decision, because the recovered alcoholics handle the

drunk offender which includes the alcoholic and everybody else

through an alcoholism-oriented approach, which means, of

course, that the person isn't really responsible and has to accept the

fact that he has this disease. So they insisted, for example, that we

screen out all alcoholics or we couldn't proceed with the program.

As a result we were only getting about two names a month that's

all the people that they didn't think were alcoholics. Finally some of

the judges in the area found out about this they were very

sympathetic to what we were doing because we were trying to teach

people to have more responsibility, how to increase their selfcontrol and they did a back-door number and referred people to

us without going through the usual alcoholism referral centers. I

kept wondering "Why are we getting such friendly allyship from

the courts?" I think the papers this morning have really helped me

to understand where they're coming from.

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482 DISCUSSION

LEVINE: I think Pat Morgan is really on the right track in the

questions she raises. It seems to me that the issue of domination is

central to what we're talking about. It's in the old Nineteenth

Century version with the human above the animal. Bringing that

back to the social level I think really opens up a whole way of

conceptualizing and putting together some of the stuff we've been

talking about.

It seems to me that the ideology of inhibition is central to the

question of domination as I think Pat was saying. If you take a

number of subordinate groups and dominant groups, the ideology

of inhibition is part of the traditional justification for domination.

For example, it's claimed that men are more rational, logical,

reasonable, self-controlled than women, that Europeans are more

so than Indians, whites more so than blacks, adults more so than

teenagers or youth, English or WASPs more so than Irish, AngloSaxon more so than Mexicans, the upper class more so than the

lower class, and bosses more so than workers. In each case some

part of the justification for the domination is that the people on top

are more self-controlled, more restrained. The interesting thing is

that when you plug alcohol into this, you get a real double standard.

Those groups which are regarded as normally more inhibited, to

some extent either have more access to disinhibition, to out-ofbounds or drunken behavior, or it's excused more often as in the

case of the congressman who takes a bribe versus perhaps the bank

teller, when each claims that alcoholism is the reason for deiiig it.

This system of privilege in the access to the power to claim alcohol

as an excuse is clearly distributed by racial, class, sexual and age

systems of hierarchy or domination.

FINGARETTE: I just wanted to say a couple of things about the basic scheme that Jim Mosher presented in his paper

distinguishing between the way in which alcohol is treated in the

trial situation and the way it's treated post-trial in terms of

sentencing and probation and so on; and pointing out that there is a

remarkable difference. One can find similarities in terms of

different styles of control, as Morrissey points out, but nevertheless

there are obviously differences between the punitive approach in

the trial and the therapeutic approach in the medical system.

I think that kind of analysis of the legal structure is very

important, and one can't understand and talk about these matters

unless one does something like that. I think that it's the right tack to

realize that in the trial situation, one is raising the question of

individual responsibility, and that calls for a certain kind of method

and we've talked about some of the questions, assumptions

49f;
ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 483

involved in that; a certain procedure; and a certain kind of result

namely, assign guilt, condemnation and so on for a particular past act. Whereas when you talk about the sentencing situations,

the court is explicitly defining a different question; namely, the

utilitarian one: What, on the whole, will produce the most benefits

for society, including, perhaps, this defendant? What will produce

the best benefits, the most benefits, the least cost-on-the-whole

future? That's a radically different question from the question of culpability for a particular past act; consequently, the whole

method, the whole approach is different, and the results are very

different.

I think that the analytical scheme that Mosher presents is very

important. I don't agree that there is an inconsistency in the pattern, though. I think it's quite consistent, as we were saying the other day; that, in fact, because there are these two very different

questions, the approach in each context is, quite logically, very

different also.

The question about whether alcoholism is a disease, and whether

that is likely to be used more as another basis for excusing which Mark Moore particularly discussed is an interesting one because

it raises the question, as he did: Why is it that the courts are so

sympathetic to mental disorder as a form of excuse? And why is it that they are resisting, as they are, the idea that alcoholism is a

disease and is a form of excuse? And I'd like to just suggest in a few words a possible answer. This answer is in terms of legal reasoning, in terms of doctrine. It is not an answer on the empirical level of what's going on in the courts at the lower levels which is another

complicated story about which I know very little, and I don't know

that any people do know very much about it.

At the level of doctrine, I think the reason is this: The courts have

been very interested in and sympathetic, increasingly, toward

accepting and trying to build in the results of science, what they

take to be enlightened scientific knowledge. In the early Twentieth

and mid-Twentieth Century, and even before that, scientific

knowledge seemed to be reporting that there are people who have

mental diseases. Medicine discovers this, and these mental diseases

affect the brain or something else that is scientifically determinable, and lo and behold, people are crazy. They can't behave the way we do. .That notion that mental disease was a scientific

conception led to the acceptance of the mental disorder concept and

the insanity defense in the form that we have it.

But increasingly during the mid-Twentieth Century, the courts began to become uneasy especially at the higher doctrinal levels, the appellate courts. They began to see more and more that while

497
484 DISCUSSION

you could perhaps objectively describe some particular patterns of

symptoms or syndromes, it seemed less and less plausible that there

was a general medical conception of mental disease. The general

concept was hardly used within the psychieric profession; there

were no agreed-on definitions. And the more suspicious the courts

became, the more they began to fiddle around with the notion and to

say, "Well, mental disease is really a legal conception, not a medical

one; and so we're going to define it." And, of course, that introduces

great confusion, because the whole point of introducing the notion

was that it supposedly was a scientific term, a concept applied by

means of scientific criteria.

Now, along comes this even more recent "scientific"notion:

alcoholism is a disease, too. By now the courts are getting suspicious

about, this. They're much more resistant to saying, "Well, if science

says it's a disease, well then, fine, drinking is involuntary in that

case." Once bitten, twice shy. So there's a much greater resistance.

The main theme of the courts in connection with alcoholism has

been very consistent and very pertinent to this conference, as both

speakers brought out in a different way. The theme, I think, is this:

The courts have been absolutely consistent in accepting what they

took to be the scientific view of intoxication; namely, that it's

disinhibiting. And all of their decisions, whether in the trial

contexts or whether in the other context, pretrial orsentencing, are

based on the assumption that we all know it's disinhibiting.

Moreover, not only do we that is, the courts know it, but we

know that everybody in the public knows it. For so goes this line

of thought it's a well-known scientifically established fact.

So that in regard to intoxication per se the whole thrust of legal

doctrine and procedure whatever the detailed complications and

inconsistencies and confusions the deep movement of it has been

toward acceptance of the "disinhibition hypothesis," whatever that

may be. But the "alcoholism is a disease" concept has met with

fairly decisive resistance in the criminal law area though it has

been increasingly acceptable of late in the job-disability and

insurance areas.

MOSHER: I think you're absolutely right in terms of the

different questions being asked. I want to follow that point up a

little bit more, however. When you take a broader look at legal

control of behavior, even within that subset there are two different

questions. one being what's best for the society and the other being

what is the moral guilt. There are two very distinct processes, in

terms of what the law is trying to do. In the trial it's a very symbolic

process. as Gusfield (198(11 points out. And concerning what's best

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ALCOHOL: BLAME AND EXCUSE 485

for society, there really is a shifting and sifting of people who have

gotten caught up in the legal system.

The problem I have with the way the courts handle that second

question is that the colitext is really unlike the trial setting, which is

trcmendously controlled the defendant has to be shown to have

had a fair trial in lots of different ways; the second process is very,

very discretionary. There's discretion at all stages of the process. In

the second process you find that very different analyses and very

different assumptions are being used depending on who the

individual is. And that's something I think we need to focus on more

in legal analysis how treatment decisions are being made.

499
Implications for Research and

Action

Herbert Fingarette

ROOM: Let me now introduce Professor Fingarette. I think at

this point he really needs no further introduction. We were talking

briefly about his role at this moment, and I was saying that maybe

he might be thought of as a clean-up hitter in baseball. There are

certainly plenty of people on base, plenty of trees on the bases at this

point that the clean-up hitter can attempt to assist home. Dr.

Fingarette, of course, has written on the insanity defense, but to

those in the alcohol field, he's most known for a paper called "The

Perils of Powell" (1970), which was specifically a discussion of the

split decision in the Supreme Court that did not accept alcoholism

as a defense for public drunkenness.

FINGARETTE: The idea that I would present something of a

clean-up spot presentation, something of a bringing together or

summary of the things that were said and done here at the

conference is an interesting one because, it seems to me, on its face

it's impossible in any really deep sense. The thought that it is

impossible strikes me in several ways; first of all, there's been so

much material, and one could look at it from so many angles and

must look at it from so many angles. It's so provocative. That's one

reason why it's impossible to do anything in the way of a conclusion.

Another one is that we've been going at this for two and a half days

steadily, including a long and wonderful banquet last night, And so

I found that this morning I woke up in a state of altered

consciousness from what I'm used to. And the combination of

knowing that the task is impossible and that I am also in an altered

state of consciousness assures me that you will excuse me for the

failing.

There's a Zen Buddhist story that's very commonly told. Some of

you who follow that sort of thing probably heard it. The Master, the

Roshi, the Enlightened One says, "Before I started studying Zen, I

thought that mountains were mountains and forests were forests.

Then I began to study Zen and went deeply into meditation and so

486

500
IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND ACTION 487

on, and then I saw that mountains are not mountains and forests are

not forests, But then, at last, I reached Enlightenment, and then I

saw that mountains are mountains and forests are forests."

Well, I think we can look at this conference somewhat in this

perspective. We started out with the sense that mountains are

mountains and forests are forests; and that alcohol disinhibits or

that it doesn't. There is a picture here, and it's a very important

picture which defines initially the scope of the Cling: The idea that

alcohol has some kind of chemical effect, probably on the brain,

probably on some specific portion of the brain, and this part of the

brain is the part that inhibits us, keeps down the more primitive,

unruly, unsocial impulses and inclinations. And alcohol affects this

part of the brain, depresses it, anesthetizes it, decreases its power,

and so, of course, the unsocial, the unusual, the repressed impulses

come forward; and, being the kind of creatures that we are, these

are often troublesome, trouble-causing, destructive, or at least

inappropriately licentious.

That picture or something like it is out there in the world, andone

of the very influential portraits of it was finally brought together in

an explicit way, in the classic MacAndrew and Edgerton work.

That picture has to be kept in mind here. And when we think about

it, and see what an important picture it has been in the social life of

our society, our culture, then it becomes strikingly interesting to see

some of the reports that are coming in from psychological

experimentation, from anthropology, from sociological studies. We

start with the anthropological materials, surveys and analyses

showing that in many cultures the people react differently to drinking. Here we have, then, the first, explicit, systematic

development of the disinhibition picture, in Drunken Comportment

and the first major, systematic attack on it. That sets the stage.

Then come the psychological experiments, in which it turns out

that the question whether the chemical, ethanol, is present in the

body has much less influence on whether the subject chose some

kind of aggressive response or increased sexual interest than does

the subject's het ief as to whether he has received alcohol.

That kind of experimentation is very striking, especially against

the background of the previous suspicion about the supposedly

uniform chemical-behavioral effects of drinking alcohol. That

establishes in a very clear way, though in a very limited context,

that whatever the effect of the chemical, far more important from

the standpoint of this aggressive and sexual behavior is the person's

belief. Then we say. "Well, isn't that a very limited context? After

all, it's only these few people; they're especially selected; they only

are drinking at moderate levels, if they're drinking anything,

501
488 FINGARETTE

because it's in the laboratory; and, after all, the aggression is mild;

or it's just a report of increased sexual interest." And one sees that,

crucial as it is in refuting some completely universal theory about

the uniform chemical effects of alcohol, still it's limited as far as the

total practical impact.

But then we look back again to the anthropological study, and

that begins to fill out now. We see again and again that people in

various cultures indeed do get drunk but they don't engage in

aggressive behavior, or they don't seem to violate the norms, or the

norms are different from ours. The whole original picture of the

disinhibited drunk begins to lose its force. And if we worry about

the question whether, perhaps, in these other cultures there are also

factors of genetics, so that the differences are due to the fact that these are different breeding populations, then we turn to

anthropological and sociological studies of one kind or another that

have been reported here. And we see that the very same individual

behaves differently with the same amount of ethanol in the body;

and that so much of it depends upon the setting in which the

individual drinks, or the set of the individual, or the experience of

the individual. And this weakens our suspicion of the

anthropological evidence against disinhibition the concern that

maybe it has some crucial genetic component.

What's happening then, as I see it, is that as we put together the

different facets, the anthropological, sociological, and the

psychological, the alcohol as a chemical disinhibitor picture seems

less and less plausible. Then we turn to the physiological and

pharmacological research because, after all, that was where the

original hard information supposedly came from: The scientists

were telling us, so we thought that it acts on certain portions of the

brain as a disinhibitor of certain kinds of behavior. But now we

discover that, far from this picture having been based on hard

scientific evidence, it's very difficult even now, with focused

attention on the problem, to produce pharmacological, physiological, neurological evidence that anything of the kind is happening.

The most that can be shown so far is that certain significant effects

occur in the body as a result of ethanol, but these significant effects

are highly generalized or highly unspecific with regard to the

things we're talking about.

Yes, there can be connections made between the physiological/pharmacological information, and certain kinds of reactions to

ethanol. The links can be shown where it's a matter of impaired

motor performance, impaired perception, impaired cognition. But

what we begin to see is that the disinhibition picture doesn't have so

much to do with the impaired execution of a specific performance,

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IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND ACTION 489

but rather with the selection of what to perform the selection of

intentions, the shaping and forming of intentional conduct, which

intentions I choose. And that's a very different matter from

whether, having adopted an intention, in trying to execute that

intention, I fail in terms of the motor performance, perception and

cognition. So that the very general physiological/pharmacological

picture, insofar as it tells us anything about behavior, tells us about

the wrong kinds of behavior as far as the disinhibition picture is

concerned.

Now we find that the scientific basis we supposed was there in

physiology is gone; the behavioral descriptions and the psychology

are gone or losing their hold, and we begin to wonder: How did

people ever get this idea of chemical disinhibition, if, indeed, as

seems so obvious when you reflect on it, individuals react

differently to alcohol depending on prior psychological set, the

social setting of the drinking, the past drinking experiences of the

drinker, and the cultural traditions and expectations. Now we have

to wonder about how the picture of alcohol as automatic chemical

disinhibitor ever made sense to so many of us. But it did and now

this needs explaining.

So we turn to the historical and historical/sociological kinds of

explanations. The historical studies give us some sense of changes

in attitudes to the reactions that we have to alcohol, and how

radically those attitudes have changed. Again the picture of alcohol

as disinhibiting becomes localized to a particular time and place;

and we see that history tends to support anthropology and sociology

here. People didn't always react this way; they didn't picture their

reaction this way; no one thought of this kind of reaction.

Then we turn to sociological studies to try still to account for why

people should hold these beliefs, and we have interesting and

provocative theories about the role that the disinhibition hypothesis

can have in maintaining systems of power and of domination, in

allowing people to excuse themselves, to account for their failures

in life. Thus, in a variety of sociological and psychological ways, we

can see important sources of support for the disinhibition idea.

By this point, it seems to me, we're in a position where the

mountains and the forests are still with us, but now we think it's a

picture that's false. The disinhibition hypothesis, which we start out

with, is a picture that still governs as far as I've gone. It's still there,

but now we have cumulating evidence from all these dimensions

that somehow it's a very false picture. But to think that there's

something very wrong with the picture. or false about it, is notyet to

be free of it. Wittgenstein said, "a picture holds us captive." And

here we are still captive to it even though we're now opposed to it,

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490 FINGARETTE

perhaps, or think that there's much less truth in it than we thought

originally.

Yet, as we examine still more closely the links between the

evidence, the data that have been presented, the reports, the

theories, and the picture, we begin to find that the picture itself

dissolves before our eyes as we ask, "Well, now, what was the view

that we had then what is disinhibition?" And we begin to try to

specify it instead of accepting this pseudotechnical term. We find

that sometimes the facts have to do with whether a person behaved

aggressively. But, of course, aggressive behavior per se is not

necessarily disinhibition. Some people perhaps value aggressive

behavior, and it may be that what looks norm-violating or

disinhibited to one, may be quite norm-conforming to another, very

positive and very important. We find there are problems with

categorizing these kinds of behaviors as positive or negative; as

disinhibited or not. The norm-status of aggression varies widely,

even among sub-cultures; and the specific form of aggression is

important here. We look at the experiments which deal with

sexuality; and, again, the question is whether this has to do with a

specific kind of conduct, or whether it has to do with disinhibition

does disinhibition really mean sexuality or increased sexuality?

There is a sense that, no, that isn't quite it; that's too narrow. Then

we go back again to the anthropological evidence, and we see, well,

there are kinds of deviations from social norms which do not

necessarily involve sex or aggression. It's been brought out, for

example, that it could involve deviations from norms having to do

with one's behavior in regard to social relationships of one kind or

another the proper comportment in regard to others in other

respects than sex or aggression.

The question then arises in regard to the anthropological

evidence: Are we getting an adequately specific account of what

this 111111118 to the people when they act in what we call a "drunken

form"? In terms of our values, they may engage in disinhibited

behavior; but do they, see it as disinhibited? Do they see it as

disinhibited in the sense that it's sexually more licentious or freer,

or do they see it as disinhibited in the sense that they have lost

control? We need specific anthropological evidence on this. Does

any of the psychological evidence bear on disinhibiton as "losing

control" as distinguished from being more aggressive, which is

simply a specific kind of behavior that's intensified. and is not

necessarily a "loss of control" at all? Where does disinhibition lie on

this range between losing control, of being less responsible, being

excused, and simply being more aggressive, or acting and looking

around in a peculiar way and laughing and giving out war cries and

so on?

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IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND ACTION 491

The notion of disinhibition, then, begins to dissolve. The evidence

doesn't seem to bear on one thing so centrally, in a focused way, as

the picture represented it to us. We see now that the evidence bears

on a variety of different questions about quite distinct forms of

behavior, and we come to the point, I think, where we sense that

mountains are no longer mountains and forests are no longer

forests, because the basic concepts in terms of which we drew the

picture have now lost their hold over us. We wonder at a certain

stage: Where are we? What are we talking about? Is there anything

is there any actual specific topic here, or should we merely talk

about the specific effects of alcohol on people and generalize it that

way rather than in terms of the disinhibition hypothesis?

Well, what can we then do, in trying to understand, in trying

desperately to get back to the picture, to keep that picture before us

and ask: What was it that bothered us, that we were arguing pro

and con about? Again, I think we turn back to the sociological and

historical analyses to see what were the kinds of ideas and

ideologies that were in the background of this notion that alcohol

disinhibits. Is it a Calvinist tradition that's very important here? Do

we have an idea of a conscience and then of a will which is unruly?

Do we have some political notion that governments restrain, in a

Hobbesian way, naturally unruly and bestial human beings, and

civilize them? The historical and sociological analyses, then,

perform this other function of giving us another way of focusing on

what disinhibition meant to people rather than trying to causally

explain how people came to have this idea. But, still, the problem is

too complex. To redraw the picture, to find what it was that

captured us, now becomes so much more complex as we see tho

complex variety of the historical and sociological roots.

Why should we worry about a picture that's dissolved? Why

shouldn't we just set about trying to find out what the specific ways

are in which alcohol affects people? Ethanol, the chemical how

does it affect us and how doesn't it? Well, I think that's a most

eminently worthwhile project, but also it can be treacherous,

because there must have been reasons why we had that picture, why

it 80 dominated and still largely does dominate our views on

alcohol, and why we thought that it was worth studying. For one

thing. the picture dominates and inspires some of our most

important and expensive social institutions: important areas in

both commercial and civil law, the whole set of institutions, private

and governmental, devoted to treatment of alcohol problems.

Furthermore, the picture acts as a kind of thought-stopper in the

sense that if once we see alcohol, we don't look further. Often. to see

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492 FINGARETTE

alcohol was present in a trouble situation is to think that we know

what the source of the trouble was, and so we don't analyze the

various other components of the situation, which a number of

people here have been stressing need to be analyzed. Difficulties at

work, domestic problems, traffic injuries, health problems, crime

we think we understand the problems as soon as we see alcohol in

the picture: "alcohol disinhibits." Further analysis of the problem

stops. Then this picture becomes a driving force in terms of

resources used, in terms of capturing public attention and money;

it's a thought stopper and a public conscience easer. We feel we are

taking care of the problems now as best we can. Perhaps if we could

free ourselves of this picture that holds us captive, we could see

better into these problems and maybe even do better in handling

some of them.

So, I do think that it is really very important to get finally to that

stage where we can in a more sophisticated way reconstitute the

picture and understand its role. One way of looking at this, I think,

is to view it as the attempt to get free of an old paradigm, while still

understanding its social and political force, and at the same time to

try to construct new paradigms. And we're doing this, I think, in

this kind of conference all at the same time, which complicates

things enormously. There are vague suggestions of new paradigms;

in the meantime we're struggling to try to get free of, and get to

understand the role of the old paradigm in our life. That is a very

complicated task; and everyone here, of course, is aware of this.

There are so many interweavings of these various threads.

Somebody said this morning to me, "You are in a very good spot as

final speaker because you have the power to put things together

here the way you want." That is certainly true for the moment. And

I'm sure.' have failed to put some things into the kind of focus that

some of you would want them put into. I have certainly omitted vast

amounts of material. I know that this is just one way of trying to

speak about what has been going on. I have no illusions about its

being just the way anyone else would put it. So, I did have the power

to say this here and now. but it is just the power to say something

here and now; and that isn't very much power. The real power here

belongs to the further scientific work and the studies that come

forward from this group, and from other people who are working in

the area; so. I have no fears about my own ha ..ing muddied the

waters too much.

Thank you.

506
Discussion

MARSHALL: Well, I'd like first to congratulate you on what I

thought was a rather masterful summary, and perhaps hitch

another car to the train that you sent chugging down the track.

During our break this morning, I was trying to think in terms of

how we might pull things together. I came up with a number of

scribbles -vhich I thought I would try to project at least verbally if

not visually in front of you.

The title of this conference was "Alcohol and Disinhibition: The

Nature and Meaning of the Link." And it seems to me now that

we're at this stage in the conference we ought to change the subtitle

to "The Natures and Meanings of the Links," or something to that

effect. It seems to me that we're talking about a whole lot of

different things. But we still come down to the issue of alcohol as

drug, on the one hand, and a certain kind of behavioror a certain set

of behaviors which we've chosen to label as "disinhibition," even

though we haven't always agreed on exactly what that is, at the

other end. And. somehow, we're trying to understand how we get

from ingestion of the drug to these behaviors.

It seems to me, then, we start with a problem right at the

beginning. We start out with the drug ethanol, and not only do we

have the problems to which Herb just pointed, but we have to take

account of a whole host of things concerning the drug before we

even talk about the link with behavior. What kind of beverage are

we drinking? Several people have pointed out the possibility of

congeners in the beverage also having an influence on behavior.

What possible influence might the metabolic by-products of

ethanol, rather than ethanol itself, have on our behavior? This

remains a fuzzy area; it's somewhat unclear. The amount people

drink, the rapidity of intake, the presence or absence of tolerance,

all affect that human animal that we're trying to look at behaving in

the environment.

We've also got the problem that we're all aware of possible

individual biochemical or metabolic differences; that is, that just

from person to person, there may be different ways in which we

process any drug, ethanol included. We're aware there may be sex

differences in the way people react to alcohol, and possibly racial or

ethnic differences. All those are possible at this point. We don't

k now.

493

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494 DISCUSSION

So, to assume that we've got humans and that that's a uniform

category or single thing which then automatically leads to some

changed behaviors, that already is problematic right at the

beginning when we introduce the drug. But to get to the behaviors,

it seems to me we focused on a series of filters or selective processes

between the drug and the behavior. That's where all this scribbling

is.

The first filter, it seems to me, that we come up against after any

human being has ingested the drug is that of the cultural context in

which that individual is operating, or the filter of possible cultural

meanings at a particular point in history, since we know that those

meanings shift through time, sometimes rather quickly. And this

would include all sorts of things like set, setting, context, time and

circumstance, the legal system, the laws, values, moral codes, and

what have you. Now, in some cultural systems, particularly small

social systems such as anthropologists are wont to have studied in

the past, at least the consensus around a certain set of meanings is

usually consistent from person to person. But, as we've seen in this

conference, in pluralistic societies like our own, there may be very

different sets of cultural meanings operating, so that the filter may

not even be the same when we go from the human to this first

selective process.

Once we get by that hurdle, then it seems to me we get to the level

of individual personality, and at least the way I'm using it that incorporates a whole lot of things, both psychological and

sociological; namely, idiosyncratic personality characteristics,

particular problems or personal experiences that an individual

might have had that influence a person's attitude toward anything,

including alcohol. Child-rearing, the person's socioeconomic

position, age, sex, religion, and a host of other things all enter in

here. That's another filter, another selection process affecting what

happens after the drug goes into the body if it even goes into the

body before the behavior comes out.

And then we've got this person, who's already been constrained

by a set of cultural meanings and further constrained by his or her

own set of characteristics and genetic make up and soon, operating

generally in some sort of environment in which there are

significant other persons present and this gets us back into the

matter of context and the context involving other human beings

who also bring their personal problems, social positions, age, sex,

religion, and everything else which influences and further

constrains the behaving individual. We end up, then, with a person

ingesting a drug and all these different sets of what I'm calling

filters operating before we even get to the behavioral outcome.

508
IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND ACTION 495

Now, we've been talking about disinhibition, and yet Herb

pointed out the possibility, while not losing sight of the picture

that's dissolved or dissolving, of just talking about alcohol and

behavior. I happen to like that idea better because disinhibition is

not one thing; we've already established that; it may or may not be

present, we know that; it's merely one subset of the total possible

range of behaviors that comes out at the other end and which may or

may not be what we would label as "drunken." I mean, a person may

ingest a lot of alcohol and behave in a very sober manner; or a person

may act drunk and suddenly sober up, as we've noticed.

By way of summing this up, then, it seems to me that we've got all

these different levels of analyses that we have to take account of

before we can adequately deal with the drug going into the body

and the behaviors that come out of the acting organism at the other

end. And it clearly points out to me the importance of something

which has become very trite in meetings of this sort: Crossdisciplinary research. We need to be doing more of what we're

doing here: Talking to each other. And by the way, I think we've

really talked "with" each other. I think there has been a lot of

communication here. I've certainly learned a lot about other fields

about which I've really felt ignorant before.

ROOM: On that last point I've given up introducing people in

terms of their discipline here, since they have consistently taken the

position they're not really that.

MORGAN: I'd like to put in a plug for at least attempting to find

the forest and the mountains; that is, not throwing the baby out with

the bath water. I was reminded of a couple of years ago, after the

labelling theory had been around for a while and people had

accepted trying to find out different ways to account for deviancy. It

became very popular to debunk the whole term, to throw deviancy

away deviancy only applied to certain groups in the population,

and we should be looking at other groups, and that the whole term

"deviancy" really should be thrown away.

Well, I didn't like that, even though it appealed to me on some

level. I didn't accept it, because deviancy, like disinhibition, is also a

social phenomenon, and as a social phenomenon, it holds a lot of

importance. I think we haw. a responsibility, as Professor

Fingarette has so eloquently stated, to find out why and how people

carry these beliefs and how these beliefs impinge upon and help

construct the social relations which result from them.

And so, I think it's too bad. I was hoping that you would tell us that

we had reached enlightenment and that we had found the forests

and the mountains; but the reality is that we haven't. So it's

509
496 DISCUSSION

important not to give up the voyage just yet, to perhaps spend a little

more time and a little more energy in examining the social

phenomenon that we've been discussing for the last few days.

LINTON: There's a phenomenon that's puzzled me over the

years about social scientists studying drug use of any kind. There is

something that continually gets forgotten, that people get "high" or

"down" or something. There might be a way to think about that and

in a broader form than disinhibition, for certain.

But I'd be willing to accept the proposition that if I'm snorting

cocaine, this alters my relations with the world in some way or

another; and it's different from if I were smoking grass or drinking

or whatever. Now, the kind of meaning I might attach to that sort of

experience is quite another thing. I may like it, not like it, whatever.

But I think to pretend that drugs don't differ or that drugs don't

alter your relations with yourself and with the world is gross

oversight. We need to recognize and describe how a person's states

are altered by the ingestion of certain kinds of drugs. It seems to me

plausible that people might become comfortable with an altered

relationship, come to like it or not like it, find it more or less

comfortable in different kinds of settings.

Some of this you can see in discussions with drii7, users who might

be described as connoisseurs, who take drugs in a very systematic

and deliberate manner. They are able to cantilever certain kinds of

effects: "I will take this. Now I've gone too far. I'll have to take this to

counteract that because I'm a little bit bent out of shape here." They

deliberately play a kind of balancing game as though they had a

tremendous cabinet full of different kinds of drugs and were toying

with them. I think there's something instructive in looking at

people who are willing to do that, in trying to see not only whatever

terrible things might happen, but the kinds of things that the

people find beneficial, benign, a good high, a comfortable one, or

that sort of thing.

MARLATT: One of the things that I found most fascinating in

this conference is the relationship of our topic to our perceptions of

internal control mechanisms that have evolved historically over the

last couple of hundred years, ti e idea that there is some sort of

control system that keeps another part of us under control, whether

it's the cortex controlling the lower brain, or the left hemisphere

dominating the right cerebral hemisphere; whether it's the

superego controlling the id, etc., etc. It's a very Western way of

conceptualizing control.

I was very happy to hear Professor Fingarette start off his very

stimulating review with a Zen parable because I think that studies

of other cultures and particularly I'm thinking of Buddhism and

510
IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND ACTION 497

so forth would show that they have a very different

conceptualization of control from their perspective it's all really

a joke; we don't really have it anyway. But in this society, we feel as

though we do, and we've also learned that there are certain ways

that we can get out from under it and be able to be a little freer in

some way, or at least perceive ourselves to be freer, and alcohol has

become a really ubiquitous elixir for doing that. You don't really

need the ethanol itself, just the whole belief system that alcohol does

produce those effects, and that has a large determining effect on our

behavior. So, I'd like to ask Professor Fingarette if he would be able

to tell us what the Roshi would say about this whole issue of

disinhibition?

FINGARETTE: Well, I would agree with the spirit of your

remark. The conceptions of human existence, and, therefore, of the

human person are very different in Buddhism and in the various

lines of Indian thought, and Confucian thought; and it's very

difficult for me to see how you would translate the disinhibition idea

into some of these. I don't think it translates; if you were going to

have some analogous theory about alcohol's deleterious effects, it

would be very different from disinhibition.

ROOM: We have about twenty minutes, and so people should keep their comments short. I would like to tilt the discussion

slightly toward the future in terms of what people see this implying

for the future, both at the level of policy and research.

ROIZEN: There seems to be a kind of reaction and protectior of

the old picture emerging after Herb's talk, some of the comments

telling us what we need to know in order to really know somethii g

from the old picture; other comments saying that what we really

need to know about that old picture is whether it's true or not; others

saying that we need to readdress the issues of the truth and relative

contributions of different territories to that picture, and so on.

I'm worried about these attempts to recapture the picture that

Herb has dissolved for us, and I don't want it to come back. I think it

makes a lot better photography to be concerned with other pictures,

and it would be too bad if as a result of this experience we simply

turn back to the very same materials and subjects and try to draw

our pictures a little better this time to use a little better film and

to use all these critiques as a means of sharpeningour ignorance. I

think the area needs a much more subtle and high-level analysis

from here on in.

MACANDREW: Herb mentioned that a paradigm is somehow

hopefully aborning, and I'd like to address that just for a moment. I

rather think that what we are seeing is the beginning of the demise

of an illusion of some consequence. If this is so, unless at the same

511
498 DISCUSSION

time we (both individually and collectively) bring an end to the sorts

of conditions whose maintenance requires illusions, there may be

hell to pay.

LEVINE: I've always been fond of that particular Zen parable,

and I have my own version of the process of the last few days. I came

here thinking I understood what the relationship was between

alcohol and disinhibition, which is really the relationship between

alcohol and inhibition or alcohol and individual inhibition this is

really what we've mainly been talking about. I understood

individual inhibition, in the sense that we have been discussing it, to

be a theory of social order, and essential to our contemporary

understanding of how social order is possible. To some extent it has

been the answer given to the question "How is social order

possible?" the Hobbesian question for the last 200 years or so.

A number of different contemporary views and answers to the

question of how social order is possible still fundamentally come up

with the inhibition model as an answer. A different understanding

and different answer to that question is not fully developed, not yet

aborn.

Over the course of the last few days, I began to doubt whether that

was in fact so and to wonder what I thought. But now at the end I

discover that I still think that inhibition is a theory of social order

and that alcohol is seen as dissolving that social order, or making

more chaos, and sometimes that is labelled good, and sometimes

that is labelled bad. So, the mountain is the mountain again, and the

valley is the valley.

I always thought of the Zen parable as teaching us to understand

the fragility of the image, of the illusion, and to understand. onc.?

you've been through that transformation from believing to not

believing to understanding again, that there is a sense of reality as a

construction; it is a fabrication, and it has a certain fragility to it.

And I think that that's the sense in which we have come further.

So I'm left with the question of what would be a different theory of

social order, what would that look like, and what would be,

therefore, the relationship to alcohol in that different view of social

order. What I come up with is understanding social order as being

produced, as something which people create. Thus drunken

comportment is something which people create, elicit, draw out.

require and demand. In this view, the various things that we fit

under the category of disinhibited are, in fact, not breakdowns of

social order, but rather the production of a different kind of social

order. And the answer to Robin's question of where do we go from

here is to follow out that set of questions and that set of problems.

MOORE: As I've been listening to this, I sympathize enormously

512
IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND ACTION 499

with the great burden that social scientists must carry in trying to

construct universal truth. And it seems to me that what we're now

doing is standing back in awe of that task, and worrying about our

solemn role as keepers and producers of truth. I have a slight

temptation to say, "Don't worry so much about your solemn role, and don't worry so much about this crushing burden to create the

universal truth, because truth is really a guide to action, both for

individuals and for the society." An interesting alternative question

to ask, as affected as I have been by our conversations, is "How

would I carry the particular set of ideas or changed views, the sense of enlightenment, back into action in a variety of roles?"

I'll describe a couple of roles. One, I'm a drinker. Is this new

perspective going to shape my comportment with respect to

drinking? Probably not. Itseems to me I'm wedded to my particular

habits, my particular ideas about it, etc. Second, I'm a purveyor of

ideas about what drunken comportment is like. I explain it to my

children; I explain it to my colleagues; I act in response to their comportment when I see it. Is this likely to change my particular views about what constitutes normative drinking as opposed to non- normative drinking, wherever they come from? Answer: No, not substantially.

Now, the next question: I'm in the business of recommending to

policymakers opportunities that exist in the world for shaping the

character of the alcohol problem where there is some objectivd

reality and some distortion associated with our conceptions of it. Does this importantly shape my activity in that area? The answer is

yes, quite importantly; and, in particular, what I've now understood

is that it is likely that the conduct that we observe associated with

drinking is importantly affected by individually- and collectively- held views of what constitutes appropriate drinkingconduct as well

as by the drinking itself. Therefore, I am curious about the

possibilities of altering that set of views in directions that would

mitigate the current damage that is associated with alcohol

again, understanding that the damage has both objective and

subjective references. Ana, having said that, you also all quickly persuaded me that we have really remarkably imperfect and

diverse conceptions of what constitutes drunken comportment and

relatively little apparatus for homogenizing these. Even if we were

to have apparatus for homogenizing them, we would all feel guilty about blotting out the cultural diversity and insisting on the

particular view that was "most beneficial" to society, and that would restrain us. So, while I retain the idea that maybe this is an

avenue for approaching the problem, I'm pessimistic about its

potential efficacy and anxious about using conceptions of "alcohol

5.13
500 DISCUSSION

as a tool of domination," even if they are well-intentioned and

designed, for example, to change the quantity of assaults that

emerge from any given pattern of drinking practices in the general

population. It seems to me that there's some clarity that comes to your

thought when the task ceases to be: What can I say that is

unambiguously and universally true about concepts which are

essentially hard to pin down, and one turns to the question of: What

do I currently believe to be true about the world, and how does that

shape my action? One can dabble at the possibilities of believing

something else, just to see whether it would matter. But don't be

overwhelmed by the conviction that truth rather than belief has to

be a guide to action. That's the liberation of the policy analyst and

he carries, then, the burden of frequently being wrong.

DUSTER: I want to respond to the request that was made that

we look a bit toward the future with respect to research agendas. I

wanted to reiterate and say rather clearly now, that when Mr.

Levinson was preparing his summary of studies, he said that there

have been hundreds and hundreds of studies of aggression and

youth, the South, and ethnic groups, So, I'm not suggesting that we

stop studying youth, ethnic groups, the South, but that when one

examines the hundreds of studies on the issue of aggression, we tend

actually to have looked empirically at those groups which have less

access to power. It would make sense in the future to even up the

score, that is, to do a balancing act, where alcohol research

consciously invoked the notion of a study of power, with alcohol as a

vehicle for the illumination of power and power- relationships. On

the narcotics side, the studies which are done are usually of heroin

use on the streets of New York, and very rarely do we study the

pharmaceutical industry in New York. Yet the allocation of

resources, the distribution of drugs throughout the society is

clearly, on balance, in the direction of the New York pharmaceutical dispensation. I think the issue of alcohol research is no less

vivid: scores of studies of ethnic variation but very little on the use of

alcohol again, as this blue dye at the top of the structure as well

as at the base, so that we can illuminte the power relationships.

514
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