Losing one’s inhibitions and judgments has been ingrained into our culture as natural and inevitable effects from consuming alcohol. We teach our young people these things, and coincidentally, they end up displaying them as they grow older and begin experimenting with alcohol.
The idea that alcohol takes control over people and forces them act certain ways has not always been the prevailing idea. In fact, before the temperance movement picked up steam in the mid 1800s, alcohol was seen as a healthy, necessary and nutritious part of a rugged frontiersman lifestyle. However, strong and radical religious groups began to campaign against alcohol itself as the migration into cities that occurred around the industrial revolution broke down the social controls around behavior and the importance of being sober when using new machinery took hold in the workplace. Before then alcohol was seen as pretty much entirely beneficial.
Now, due to modern temperance political organizations, alcohol still has the same intense stigma that was attached to it leading up to prohibition. The idea that (a) once someone drinks they will most likely not be able to stop themselves from becoming alcohol-dependent and (b) once someone drinks they are no longer in control of their actions or emotions are puritan-based ideologies that in fact have no roots in medical science.
Just this week, more research from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions shows that people may in fact be much more in control of their drinking habits than originally believed. In fact, about 70% of those who experienced serious alcohol-related dependence problems entirely recovered on their own and, more importantly, cut back to responsible consumption patterns, and did not give up alcohol entirely. Dr. Mark Willenbring, director of treatment and recovery research at NIAAA, said in the LA Times that "It can be a chronic, relapsing disease. But it isn't usually that.”
The controversy around alcoholism wages on as the medical and scientific community is not in agreement as to how alcohol-dependence can manifest itself into a physically addictive condition. This research however, which is the largest alcohol-related study ever done in the US, suggests that we are moving forward to a better understanding of alcohol and behavior.
The idea that all people loose control with alcohol is a commonly accepted, though incorrect, assumption. It has, however, become totally ingrained in our society. Throughout the country, it is actually the bartender’s personal responsibility (and legal liability) to not serve anyone who is visibly intoxicated (a rule rarely, if ever, followed). The idea being that once someone begins drinking, they can no longer control whether they continue drinking. The excuse “Well I was drunk, what did you expect?” is a frustrating phrase heard all to often where people, rather than taking responsibility for their actions, blame the alcohol, much as was done during temperance.
Just this week, a trending topic on Twitter was “patrondidit,” expanded to Patron (a brand of Tequila) did it, i.e. alcohol being blamed for whatever the person might’ve done. Tequila itself actually takes the position of the most often quoted alcohol to relieve one of responsibility, even though its effects, and actually this goes for all types of alcohol of comparable alcohol content, are exactly the same, and the difference in behavior between different types of alcohol are entirely influenced by social expectations. Throughout history, there have even been nations that grant legal immunity to people who are drunk, while there are cultures, some that still exist, that do not accept intoxication as a social excuse for any social misbehavior.
The landmark study by acclaimed Brown University Anthropologist Dwight B. Heath in 1958 on the Camba of Eastern noted that “None of the stereotypes that are often applied to heavy drinkers was salient for the simple reason that behaviour while drinking was so little different from the normal behaviour during the long intervals between drinking.” The information from the recent NIAAA study reinforces the idea that the effects of alcohol on behavior (note: alcohol has serious effects on motor coordination and in some cases memory) are far more influenced by social expectations around acceptable behavior than anything biological or inherent in consuming alcohol.
I have mentioned the word responsibility multiple times, and it is a very important theme regarding how we educate, propagate cultural norms and set our state and national policies.
Instead of creating legislation that seeks to forward a moral stance, and is ignorant to the massive unintended consequences that are a degrading culture around responsibility, rising alcohol problems among our youth and rising incidents of drunk driving, we need to focus on creating policy that accurately sets standards of responsibility in our culture. By changing our current culture of repressive irresponsibility around alcohol into a socially-accepted and controlled culture of responsibility we can have positive lasting impacts on the safety and health of our young people.
Note: I do not support lowering the drinking age, but rather comprehensive enhanced alcohol policies that are based off of the fundamentals our successful graduated drivers license programs. Yes that means a graduated drinking age. Read more here.
The idea that alcohol takes control over people and forces them act certain ways has not always been the prevailing idea. In fact, before the temperance movement picked up steam in the mid 1800s, alcohol was seen as a healthy, necessary and nutritious part of a rugged frontiersman lifestyle. However, strong and radical religious groups began to campaign against alcohol itself as the migration into cities that occurred around the industrial revolution broke down the social controls around behavior and the importance of being sober when using new machinery took hold in the workplace. Before then alcohol was seen as pretty much entirely beneficial.
Now, due to modern temperance political organizations, alcohol still has the same intense stigma that was attached to it leading up to prohibition. The idea that (a) once someone drinks they will most likely not be able to stop themselves from becoming alcohol-dependent and (b) once someone drinks they are no longer in control of their actions or emotions are puritan-based ideologies that in fact have no roots in medical science.
Just this week, more research from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions shows that people may in fact be much more in control of their drinking habits than originally believed. In fact, about 70% of those who experienced serious alcohol-related dependence problems entirely recovered on their own and, more importantly, cut back to responsible consumption patterns, and did not give up alcohol entirely. Dr. Mark Willenbring, director of treatment and recovery research at NIAAA, said in the LA Times that "It can be a chronic, relapsing disease. But it isn't usually that.”
The controversy around alcoholism wages on as the medical and scientific community is not in agreement as to how alcohol-dependence can manifest itself into a physically addictive condition. This research however, which is the largest alcohol-related study ever done in the US, suggests that we are moving forward to a better understanding of alcohol and behavior.
The idea that all people loose control with alcohol is a commonly accepted, though incorrect, assumption. It has, however, become totally ingrained in our society. Throughout the country, it is actually the bartender’s personal responsibility (and legal liability) to not serve anyone who is visibly intoxicated (a rule rarely, if ever, followed). The idea being that once someone begins drinking, they can no longer control whether they continue drinking. The excuse “Well I was drunk, what did you expect?” is a frustrating phrase heard all to often where people, rather than taking responsibility for their actions, blame the alcohol, much as was done during temperance.
Just this week, a trending topic on Twitter was “patrondidit,” expanded to Patron (a brand of Tequila) did it, i.e. alcohol being blamed for whatever the person might’ve done. Tequila itself actually takes the position of the most often quoted alcohol to relieve one of responsibility, even though its effects, and actually this goes for all types of alcohol of comparable alcohol content, are exactly the same, and the difference in behavior between different types of alcohol are entirely influenced by social expectations. Throughout history, there have even been nations that grant legal immunity to people who are drunk, while there are cultures, some that still exist, that do not accept intoxication as a social excuse for any social misbehavior.
The landmark study by acclaimed Brown University Anthropologist Dwight B. Heath in 1958 on the Camba of Eastern noted that “None of the stereotypes that are often applied to heavy drinkers was salient for the simple reason that behaviour while drinking was so little different from the normal behaviour during the long intervals between drinking.” The information from the recent NIAAA study reinforces the idea that the effects of alcohol on behavior (note: alcohol has serious effects on motor coordination and in some cases memory) are far more influenced by social expectations around acceptable behavior than anything biological or inherent in consuming alcohol.
I have mentioned the word responsibility multiple times, and it is a very important theme regarding how we educate, propagate cultural norms and set our state and national policies.
Instead of creating legislation that seeks to forward a moral stance, and is ignorant to the massive unintended consequences that are a degrading culture around responsibility, rising alcohol problems among our youth and rising incidents of drunk driving, we need to focus on creating policy that accurately sets standards of responsibility in our culture. By changing our current culture of repressive irresponsibility around alcohol into a socially-accepted and controlled culture of responsibility we can have positive lasting impacts on the safety and health of our young people.
Note: I do not support lowering the drinking age, but rather comprehensive enhanced alcohol policies that are based off of the fundamentals our successful graduated drivers license programs. Yes that means a graduated drinking age. Read more here.
Wonderful piece - and I'm interested to hear more about how a graduated drinking age program would work and what it would look like. But...psst - you might want to proofread this piece a bit, there are quite a few typos (loose should be lose and polices should be policies at the end). :)
ReplyDeleteWas one of your recent FB status messages alluding to the fact that current students are following up on your work? That would be great if so!
Thanks! I would be happy to fill you in on some more of the details of the what a graduated drinking age would look like. I'll actually be at Hampshire in a couple weeks!
ReplyDelete(thanks for the proofreading tips... if you think this is bad, you should've seen it before I edited it once!)
I don't know of anyone studying this... I was more eluding to how amazing div 3 is. I was leafing through mine and (tears start now) swelled up with hampshire pride about how cool it is we get to take with us such a project like this.