Getting wetter? - regulation of alcohol consumption

Reason, April, 1996 by Stanton Peele

There are signs of a healthy shift away from hostility toward alcohol in the United States.

A traditional anecdote tells of a congressman who answered a constituent's inquiry about his position on whiskey: "If you mean the demon drink that poisons the mind, pollutes the body, desecrates family life and inflames sinners, then I'm against it. But if you mean the elixir of Christmas cheer, the shield against winter chill,...then I'm for it. This is my position and I will not compromise!"

Unlike this apocryphal congressman, Americans and their government have staked out strong positions on alcohol. But these positions have fluctuated wildly from era to era.

There are signs that, after several decades of anti-alcohol crusading, the United States is swinging back toward a more positive attitude. The most conspicuous indicator of this shift was the federal government's acknowledgment in its 1995 dietary guidelines that alcohol has beneficial effects. Long overdue, this recognition marks a significant change from previous government decrees on the subject. Other signs of a thawing in attitudes toward alcohol are still preliminary: Several small pilot programs in the United States are challenging the dominant approach to alcohol problems, which offers abstinence as the only cure for the "disease" of alcoholism. And leading researchers, noting that the risks of fetal alcohol syndrome have been greatly exaggerated, are questioning conventional advice about drinking during pregnancy.

These positive signs should be regarded with caution. America's ambivalence about "demon rum" is deeply imbedded in our culture. For two centuries, we have fought about the role alcohol should play in our lives. Just as we turn in one direction, forces are set in motion that pull us back the Opposite way.

The colonial era was the golden age of American drinking. Americans consumed three to four times as much alcohol (mostly beer and cider) as they do today, with few social problems. Legislators drank while in session; communion wine was part of Protestant services; the tavern was a family-oriented gathering place; and tavern keepers were highly respected members of the community. There was no anti-alcohol movement in pre-revolutionary America. There were drunkards, but responsibility for excessive drinking was laid at their feet and not blamed on alcohol. The distinguished Puritan cleric Increase Mather warned against drinking too much but in the same breath referred to alcohol as "God's Good Creature."

Drinking became less benign following expansion of the United States after the War of Independence. Industrialization and the institution of regular work hours made heavy drinking less compatible with daily obligations. At the same time, the social forces that kept drinking under control in colonial America began to wane. In the fabled saloons and dance halls of the West, unlike in the family tavern, the only women present were prostitutes; drunken unruliness, fist fights, and gunplay were commonplace.

The temperance movement arose in the 19th century in response to growing problems related to drinking. Despite its name, the movement rejected the idea of moderation, maintaining that any drinking inevitably progressed to excess and ruin. Several states enacted - and repealed - alcohol prohibition. At the national level, the war between the "drys" and the "wets" translated into regional and group conflict - the South and Midwest versus the West and urban East, Protestants versus Catholics, native-born Americans versus new European immigrants.

When the nation embarked on "the Noble Experiment" of Prohibition in 1920, reactions were mixed, but there was little organized opposition to the 18th Amendment. Thirteen years later, wets and drys alike had become so disenchanted with Prohibition that few opposed repeal. The temperance promise that sin and poverty would be eliminated along with booze was simply not borne out, and the attempt to suppress alcohol consumption had brought a host of unintended costs. In the aftermath of Prohibition, drinking became acceptable once again.

But the feelings that gave rise to Prohibition remained just beneath the surface of the American psyche, and in the 1970s a new temperance movement emerged, manifested in the rapid growth of the recovery movement and Alcoholics Anonymous, of private alcoholism treatment a la the Betty Ford Center, and of government efforts to limit alcohol consumption. The United States quadrupled its hospital beds for alcoholics between 1978 and 1984, placed warning labels for pregnant women on alcoholic beverages, and made anti-alcohol education programs a staple not only for high school students but for children as young as six. Banners proclaiming that "alcohol is a liquid drug" appeared in schools nationwide, while "Just Say No" became a national slogan.

But the seeds of an opposing trend were being sown just as the new anti-alcohol movement flowered. Medical epidemiologists tracking health outcomes in large groups of people repeatedly found that abstainers suffered more heart disease than moderate and light drinkers. Since heart disease is by far America's leading cause of death, moderate drinkers had lower overall mortality rates (although mortality rates among excessive drinkers were higher than average). Such findings, which began appearing in medical journals by the 1980s, presented public health officials with a dilemma: How was it possible to tell children drinking was bad but that people who drank lived longer?