Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Gender and the medicalization of inebriety (article)

Stephen Patnode, "'Their Lack of Masculine Security and Aggression Was Obvious': Gender and the Medicalization of Inebrity in the United States, 1930-50," Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 24/1 (2007): 67-92.

Angus Calder (1942-2008), historian, poet, Scottish republican, and alcoholic

Angus Calder achieved a reputation as a splendid historian while still in his twenties. His revisionist study of the "home front" The People's War: Britain 1939-1945 was published in 1969 and has remained in print. Sadly, drink complicated his subsequent career, and he died while still in his sixties. See a candid obituary here.

First enslaved poet to publish in the American South (article)

Carole Lynn Stewart, "Slave to the Bottle and the Plough: The Inner and Outer Worlds of Freedom in George Moses Horton's Poetry," Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 22/1 (Fall 2007): 45-64.

A desperate new generation driven to drink

Britons drink so much that they now have children admitted to hospital with liver disease. According to a survey by the Office for National Statistics, more 13-year-olds have drunk alcohol than not – that’s 350,000 13-year-old drinkers in England and Wales alone. India Knight reports on Britain's boozing culture for The Times (of London).

Alcohol and the diseased imagination in Philadelphia, 1784-1860 (dissertation)

Matthew Osborn, “The Anatomy of Intemperance: Alcohol and the Diseased Imagination in Philadelphia, 1784-1860” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Davis, 2007).

International harm reduction conference

IHRA’s harm reduction conferences have been key forums for the dissemination of harm reduction ideas and practice around the world since 1990. In 2008, over five days in the stunning Mediterranean city of Barcelona, the programme includes over 50 sessions and 200 speakers, as well as keynote addresses from:

• Paul Hunt (UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health)
• Antonio Maria Costa (UNODC Executive Director)

This is a truly global conference, with over 1,200 delegates from 80 countries – including policy makers, UN staff, people who use drugs and frontline workers. Translation will be available in four languages:

• English (the main conference language)
• Spanish
• French
• Russian – New Addition!
----------------------

http://www.ihra.net/Barcelona/Home

(this post is courtesy of David Trippel)

Prosecutions for drunkenness in York courts (article)

D. Carlisle, "'A Common and Sottish Drunkard You Have Been'--Prosecutions for Drunkenness in York Courts," York Historian 16 (1999): 32-44.

Before and much before AA

Volume 3, no. 5 (Oct//Nov./Dec. 2007) of CASQ: Culture, Alcohol and Society Quarterly Newsletter of the Kirk/CAAS Collection of Brown [University] was published in March 2008. Its principal focus is on the immediate predecessors of Alcoholics Anonymous, but there also is a brief installment in the continuing CASQ series on the Washingtonians, remote ancestors of AA. By the way, CAAS are the initials for Brown University's Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies. Brown's resources for the study of alcoholic drink, particularly anti-drink movements, were strengthened by the gift in the mid-1990s of the Chester H. Kirk Collection on Alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous. For more, see here.

Alcoholism among 18th-century Siberians (article)

A. Ch. Elert, "Russian Siberians of the 18th century and Alcoholism," Science First Hand 18/6 (2007): 102-117.

Community forum on student drinking at Ohio college town

A couple of interesting points were made at a community forum on student drinking in Oxford, Ohio, home of Miami University. For more, see here. A police sergeant argued that the image of fraternities and sororities being sites of especially heavy drinking was wrong. Concerned about collective punishment, they usually enforced moderation. A university spokeswoman said that incoming Miami students were more likely already to be drinkers than students at many other colleges. This encouraged the development of a drinking culture.

(Miami is known in the region for its Green Beer Day, more or less related to St. Patrick's Day, but it is NOT the university in Ohio reputed to be the hardest drinking. Finally, in a response to Green Beer Day, Miami has organized a Green Tea Day that promotes healthy living and not just drinking green tea.)

What is alcoholism? (article)

Spode, Hasso:
"Was ist Alkoholismus? Die Trunksucht in historisch-wissenszoziologischer Perspektive." In: Bernd Dollinger / Wolfgang Schneider (eds.), Sucht als Prozess. Sozialwissenschaftliche Perspektiven für Forschung und Praxis, Berlin 2005, pp.89-122
(What is Alcoholism? An historical-anthropological approach. Modifying his older findings, Spode insists in the physical components of addiction but pleas for a strictly limited disease model instead of the inflation of the addictions)

Prevention in history and today (article)

Spode, Hasso:
"Präventionskonzepte in Geschichte und Gegenwart." In: Gerhard Bühringer (ed.), Strategien und Projekte zur Reduktion alkoholbezogener Störungen. Präventionsfachkongress Alkohol, Lengerich 2002, pp.32-60.
(Prevention in history and today: alcohol research and control politics and the role of the temperance cultures in the discourse)

British campaign for moderation in drinking targets middle-aged women

The British government will spend ten million pounds on a campaign to urge middle-aged women to be moderate in their drinking. Among other things, there is concern that heavy drinking increases the chance for breast cancer. For more, see here.

Nearly 10% of older Americans are problem drinkers

Nearly a tenth of older Americans (65 or older) are problem drinkers, with this defined--for their age--as more than three drinks at a time or an average of more than seven drinks in a week. For more, see here.

Starving themselves, cocktail in hand

This is the title of a New York Times, March 1, 2008, article about Americans who combine eating disorders with alcohol abuse. For more, see here.

Bush says faith helped him beat drinking

President Bush is talking more openly lately about his old drinking habit, and on Tuesday he offered perhaps his most pointed assessment yet by saying plainly that the term "addiction" had applied to him.

Read the full story here.

(Thanks to Trysh Travis for the link).

Top ten drunk American writers

The blog Alternative Reel offers this list, with comments and alternative names. For more, see here.

South Africans heavy drinkers and drug users

According to the Central Drug Authority, nearly 30% of South Africans have an alcohol problem or are at risk of having one. In addition, South Africans use many drugs, a few at slightly below global norms but others at a higher level, sometimes twice the world average. For more, see here.

Alcohol puts over a half million in hospital each year in the UK

In the United Kingdom more than a half million people go to hospital each year as the result of drinking alcohol. For more, see here.

Attitudes toward intoxication in the UK (chapter)

Marjana Martinic and Fiona Measham, eds., Swimming with crocodiles: the culture of extreme drinking (New York : Routledge, 2008). Chapter by Fiona Measham, "A history of intoxication: changing attitudes to drunkenness and excess in the United Kingdom."

Canadians drink more

Canadians drink 11% more per capita than a decade ago. For an analysis why and with what consequences, see here.

International coffee shop chain enters Ukraine

In November 2007 the first international coffee shop chain established itself in Ukraine. It was Australian-owned Gloria Jean's. For more, see here.

Delerium tremens in Philadelphia, 1813-1832 (article)

Matthew Warner Osborn, "Diseased Imaginations: Constructing Delirium Tremens in Philadelphia, 1813-1832," Social History of Medicine 19/2 (2006): 191-208.

Inebriety and human nature in American society, 1855-1900 (article)

Michele Rotunda, "Savages to the Left of Me, Neurasthenics to the Right, Stuck in the Middle with You: Inebriety and Human Nature in American Society, 1855-1900," Canadian Bulletin of Medical History 24/1 (2007): 49-65.

Alcohol(ism) in the plays of Ireland's Conor McPherson

The Washington Post, 11 November 2007, includes an essay by Nelson Pressley on the work of the young Irish playwright Conor McPherson. The article is entitled "Spirits that Haunt an Irish Writer: Alcohol, the Church and Ghosts in Conor McPherson's Plays." A reformed alcoholic, McPherson has put much booze in his plays including one called "Rum and Vodka." For more, see here.

Allowing chronic alcoholics to drink in rehab

A new residence for chronic alcoholics in Seattle permits drinking. For more, see here.

Drunkenness in Norwegian merchant marine (article)

Dagmund Moldestad, "'What shall we do with the drunken sailor': alkohol og relaterte sosiale problem in den norske handelsflåten 1945-1965," Sjofartshistorisk Arbok (2005): 302-429. Subtitle translated as alcohol and related social problems in the Norwegian merchant fleet, 1945-65.

Drunkenness in the West Indies (article)

Claire E. Swan, "'A life of debauchery, vice and drunkenness': the journal of Jonathan Troup, or two years in the West Indies," Scottish Archives 12 (2006): 29-41.

Alcoholism in Australia (article)

Ruth McConnell and Steve Mullins, "'We had both been drinking since Christmas' – battered wives and dead abusive husbands in early colonial Rockhampton," Journal of Australian Colonial History 5 (2004): 100-19.

History of drinking in Britain and the contemporary alcohol epidemic (article)

David W. Gutzke, "The History of Drinking," (London) Times Online, 13 June 2004, is available here.

UK "safe drinking" standards lack scientific basis

The "safe drinking" standards established twenty years ago in Britain--21 alcohol units a week for men and 14 for women--were chosen arbitrarily and lack scientific basis. For more, see here.

England's middle classes drinking too much

According to the (London) Telegraph, a recent study identifies the middle classes as drinking in dangerous amounts but relatively invisibly: consuming wine at home, not ending up arrested by the police or at a hospital emergency room. A few Surrey suburbs were identified as the worst offenders, with a quarter of the households consuming several bottles of wine every week. For more, see here. The BBC gives more details in this story about how the affluent are drinking more than poorer people. For more, see here.

Southern Comfort: The Use and Abuse of Alcohol in Southern Literature (call for papers)

Cross-listed from two H-Net discussion groups, H-South and H-Southern-Lit:

Southern Comfort: The Use and Abuse of Alcohol in Southern Literature

Society for the Study of Southern Literature, Williamsburg, VA (04/18-20/08)

Several casks of beer and wine were among the cargo the original
settlers brought to Jamestown. Since then, alcohol has occupied an
important place in southern culture. This proposed panel at SSSL will
explore the representation of alcohol use and abuse in southern
literature. Possible topics include whiskey, bourbon, and moonshine;
alcoholism and southern writers; depictions of drinking; the temperance
movement and prohibition; race, class, gender, and drinking practices;
rum and the slave trade; and tension between alcohol and religion.

Please send a three hundred word abstract and a short CV to David A.
Davis (davisda@wfu.edu) by November 20, 2007.

Binge drinking and moral panics: historical parallels? (article with full text)

Peter Borsay makes comparisons between today's concern over binge drinking with the 18th century gin craze. For text, see here.

Missouri's Booze News

A satirical newspaper, the Booze News, has upset many people at the University of Missouri and at Columbia, the city where it is located. For more, see here.

Alcohol ravages South Africa's children

The poverty-stricken South African town of De Aar has the unenviable distinction of the world's highest reported incidence of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS).

Read more here.

Booze in Britain

The newspaper USA Today, 18 September 2008, summarizes British alcoholic drink problems that puzzle experts. For more, see here. Here are some details:

*90% of Britons over the age of 14 drink
*per capita consumption doubled between 1960 and 2005
*Britons are the third worst binge drinkers (five or more drinks at a sitting) in the European Union, with only Ireland and Finland worse
*70% of 15-year-olds in Britain say they drink to get drunk, double the percentage in the USA
*between 1991 and 2005 alcohol related diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver nearly doubled in Britain; during similar years the US death rate for alcohol-related liver diseases dropped
*44% of victims of violent crime believe that their attackers were drink-impaired

Study: Not rare for fourth-graders to try alcohol

The roots of alcoholism begin early in life, experts have found in a study that reveals experimentation with the hard stuff can commence as early as the fourth grade.

Newsday reports.

Sydney's Pubs (museum exhibit)

The Justice and Peace Museum in Sydney, Australia, will hold an exhibit starting February 2008 called "Sydney's Pubs: Liquor, Larrikans and the Law." In February 1916 a riot by military recruits prompted a reaction that led to the passage of a referendum to close pubs at 6 pm, a policy that remained until 1954. For more, see here.

British pre-teen binge drinkers

Almost 10% of British pre-teens (11 to 13) are binge drinkers who consume the equivalent of five pints of beer a week. The British Government blames cheap alcohol. For more, see here.

Bears eat man at Serbian beer festival

During a beer festival and apparently drunk or drugged, a young Serbian man climbed the wall into the Belgrade zoo's bear confinement area where he was killed and half-eaten. For more, see here.

Obituary of Minnesota minister who fought alcohol abuse

The Rev. David Hancock recently died at age 93. A Presbyterian minister, he was a pioneer in the fight against alcohol abuse in Minnesota. For more, see here.

British West Indies garrison, 1792-1815 (dissertation)

Robin Walter McCarter, "Johnny Newcome's poison: alcohol use and abuse in the British West Indies garrison, 1792-1815" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Connecticut, 2001).

Medicalization of alcoholism, 1850-1915 (thesis)

Margaret Arlidge, "'The medicalisation of alcoholism': changing approaches to alcohol and alcohol addiction from circa 1850-1915" (BSc. Dissertation, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 2000).

Alcohol-sensing anklets

Celebrities are among the tens of thousands of people required by the courts to wear alcohol-sensing anklets. The "Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitor," or SCRAM, is a sweat-sensing, electronically monitored device. For more, see the Washington Post story here.

Drunken wine tasters at Long Island wineries

The New York Times, 9 July 2007, discusses drunken wine tasters in New York State, particularly on Long Island. Especially on weekends and especially wine tourists arriving on buses and limos want to get drunk rather than to taste different wines. For more, see here.

Boozing 101: Cincinnati area colleges confront a national problem

The Cincinnati Post, 7 July 2007, reports on how area colleges in southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky deal with the national (international?) problem of student drinking.  For more, see here.   In the United States the legal drinking age is 21 which means that almost all student drinking violates the law, even if there are not related offenses.

One third of Americans have alcohol problems

More than 30 percent of Americans say they have had problems with alcohol, a new study shows.

Among those with drinking problems, 17.8 percent say they have alcohol abuse problems, and 12.5 percent are alcohol-dependent, according to the report in the July issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

"At some time in a person's life, 30 percent of the population in the United States will develop alcohol dependence or alcohol abuse," said lead researcher Bridget F. Grant, chief of the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Biometry at the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Read more here.

International alcohol policies (book)

Gerry Stimson, Marcus Grant, Marie Choquet, and Preston Garrison, with afterword by Norman Sartorius, Drinking in Context: Patterns, Interventions, and Partnerships (Routledge, 2006). Commissioned by International Council for Alcohol Policies.

Alcohol harm reduction strategy for England (short articles)

The journal called Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy 11/5 (2004) offers several short articles about the alcohol harm reduction strategy for England. John Foster and Betsy Thom wrote the introduction while John Greenaway, Jean Coussins and Kate Winstanley, T.J. Peters, and Thomas F. Babor wrote commentaries. Greenaway's was subtitled "An Historical Perspective."

Off the Wagon

On June 23, 2007, Turner Classic Movies presents Off The Wagon: a 5-film roundup of the screen's most famous alcoholics, including Susan Hayward's Oscar nominated performance in I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955), The Lost Weekend (1945), starring Ray Milland, and 3 others.

Read more here.  (Thanks to Brian Herrera for the link).

Celebrity Rehab

Optimism, it turns out, is one of the main things offered at rehabilitation centers like Promises, the luxurious Malibu retreat for patients suffering from alcohol and substance abuse...Much harder to come by is evidence that these programs work.

The quiet truth in the upper-crust rehabilitation industry is that $49,000 a month may buy lots of things — including views of the Pacific, massage therapy and blue-ribbon chefs. But whether it buys sobriety is very uncertain.

The New York Times reports.  (Thanks to Trysh Travis for the link).

More women in England and Wales guilty of drink or drug impaired driving

According to the (London) Independent, 18 June 2007, the number of women in England and Wales guilty of drunk or drugged driving has increased by almost 60% since 1995. For more, see here.

UK government targets "booze culture"

According to the BBC, 5 June 2007, the United Kingdom government has decided to attack the "drinking culture" that costs the country 20 billion pounds sterling a year. For more, see here.

Brazilian brewer ordered to pay $49,000 to alcoholic beer taster

A Brazilian court has ordered a brewer to pay $49,000 to an alcoholic beer taster who said he drank more than 3 pints of beer a day.

The unidentified employee alleged that the company did not provide the health measures needed to keep him from developing alcoholism, a labor court in the Rio Grande do Sul state said in a statement Friday.

The employee said in his lawsuit that for more than a decade, he drank 16 to 25 small glasses of beer during his eight-hour shifts at the company.

Find the full story here.

Dickens character in American temperance movement (article)

Gareth Codery, "A Special Relationship: Stiggins in England and America (Part One)," Dickens Quarterly 22/3 (September 2005): 135-52; "A Special Relationship: Stiggins in England and America (Part Two)," Dickens Quarterly 22/4 (December 2005): 225-41. Adaptation of a red-nosed character in The Pickwick Papers in the American temperance movement.

(In)temperance in Jekyll and Hyde (article)

Lisa Butler, "'That Damned Old Business of the War in the Members': The Discourse of (In)Temperance in Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Romanticism on the Net: An Electronic Journal Devoted to Romantic Studies, Nov. 2006.

Female drunkenness in England, 1870-1920 (dissertation)

Bronwyn L. Morrison, "Ordering disorderly women: female drunkenness in England, c.1870-1920" (Ph.D. thesis, Keele University, 2005).

'It's part of our lifestyle now,' says LCBO manager

A feature story in Saturday's Globe and Mail examines Canada's alcohol dependency:

In 2005, Canadians downed the equivalent of 7.9 litres of pure alcohol for every drinker and teetotaller over age 15. And many of us drink often -- consuming about 30 per cent more than the world average.

The social cost of our new lifestyle is staggering: $14.6 billion in 2002, and no doubt more in the years since. The health care bill alone is $3.3 billion -- higher than the price tag to treat cancer. We spent 1.6 million days in the hospital because of illnesses and accidents caused by people under the influence of alcohol.

For the first time, more people died from liver cirrhosis -- regarded as a benchmark of a country's problem drinking -- than on the roads in drunken car crashes.

Find the full story here.

Spirituality increases as alcoholics recover

For decades, recovering alcoholics and those who treat them have incorporated spirituality into the recovery process — whether or not it's religious in nature. But few research studies have documented if and how spirituality changes during recovery, nor how those changes might influence a person's chance of succeeding in the quest for sobriety.

Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Addiction Research Center sheds light on this phenomenon. In the March issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, they show that many measures of spirituality tend to increase during alcohol recovery. They also demonstrate that those who experience increases in day-to-day spiritual experiences and their sense of purpose in life are most likely to be free of heavy drinking episodes six months later.

Find the full story here.

Drunkenness at Cape of Good Hope in the 1870s (article)

Edna Bradlow, "Drunkenness at the Cape of Good Hope in the 1870s: a case study of a colonial ruling class and its philosophy," Kleio 30 (1998): 11-27.

Alcohol and the colonial cricketer (article)

Gregory M. de Moore, "The Sons of Lush: Tom Wills, Alcohol and the Colonial Cricketer," Sport in History 25/3 (2005): 354-374.

Study says practical skills training keeps college kids sober

Practical advice and training may work best in getting college students to cut down on problem drinking, a new Swedish study finds. The study, which is published in the March issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, analyzed 556 students living in 98 university residence halls in Sweden.

Asbury Park Press reports.

Drink, deception and the death of an MP

Dave Trippel sends the following link:

Fiona Jones was a bright New Labour MP who had been tipped for a ministerial post. But her short-lived Westminster career was blighted by ruthless infighting, allegations of election fraud and, finally, alcoholism. Last week she was found dead. What happened? Patrick Barkham reports for The Guardian.

Doctors warn: don't drink the hand sanitizers

At least two people have become intoxicated by drinking hand-sanitizing gels, a potentially deadly habit, doctors reported Wednesday. A prison inmate and a hospitalitzed alcoholic both were treated for poisoning from the gels, which contain alcohol -- but not the same kind as found in beverages.

Evidently people misunderstand the labels that show the gels, foams and liquids contain alcohol, the doctors said in separate letters to the New England Journal of Medicine. Cases of people drinking the hand gels because of their alcohol content have not previously been reported in major medical journals.

Read more.

Shock survey highlights terrible toll of drinking on Scots

BOOZE abuse kills one Scot every six hours, Scottish health officials have said. Find the full story here.

Alcohol and alcoholism in the history of American health and medicine (article)

Victor B. Stelberg, "A Review of Perspectives on Alcohol and Alcoholism in the History of American Health and Medicine" Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse 5/4 (2006): 39-106.

Martin reviews Tracy's Alcoholism in America (review)

Scott C. Martin, "From Temperance to Alcoholism in America," Reviews in American History 34/2 (June 2006): 231-237. Review of Sarah W. Tracy, Alcoholism in America: From Reconstruction to Prohibition (2005).

Spotlight on drink and drugs blight

MORE than 250 experts will meet in Edinburgh today for a major conference on alcohol and drug use in Scotland.

The one-day gathering of senior police figures, academics and health experts at the Scottish Parliament will mark the launch of a year-long study on the subject by Holyrood's think-tank, Scotland's Futures Forum.

Read more here.

University of Chicago researchers study drinking habits after Chicago rates worst among US cities

Andrea C. King of the University of Chicago is leading a five-year project to study why alcohol affects people differently.  Read more here.

Ethnic differences in the use of alcohol help services

A study published in the January issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, analyzed data from the most recent U.S. National Alcohol Surveys (1995, 2000). They tracked how whites, blacks and Hispanics with alcohol problems differed in their use of services for alcohol problems.

Read more here.

Celebrity guide to detox

The (London) Independent, 6 January 2007, features an article by Helen Brown, " The celebrity guide to detox: Pass out, check in, and dry out." It looks at a resort clinics in the USA, the UK, and Thailand patronised by celebrities. For more, see here.

Betty Ford will again be in the spotlight

Betty Ford will mourn her husband this week the same way she confronted many of her own personal demons and struggles - on America's public stage.

The quiet and reserved former first lady will again be in the nation's spotlight, as she was when she battled breast cancer and drug and alcohol addiction.

Her highly publicized personal struggles, which occurred during and after her husband's presidency, turned her into an accidental activist.

Read more here.

Every day more than 70 victims seek help after alcohol-fuelled attacks

A new report warns that violent incidents as a result of alcohol are increasing in Scotland.  The Scotsman reports.

MADD mad at Miss Teen USA

Mothers against Drunk Driving (MADD) will not use the current Miss Teen USA as a spokeswoman because of reports that the 18-year-old drank alcohol with, among others, a controversial Miss USA (who allegedly retained her title by agreeing to go into alcohol rehab). Both titles are part of the Miss Universe organization owned by billionaire Donald Trump. For more, see here.

Brain repairs alcohol damage

Recovering alcoholics might be able to repair some of the damage drinking has done to their brains if they quit soon enough, European researchers say.

The CBC reports.

Cheap booze makes for an alcoholic Christmas in Britain

Supermarket price wars, combined with public house special offers, have reduced the price of alcoholic drinks in Britain, so an article in the (London) Independent , 17 December 2006, predicts heavy drinking during the twelve days of Christmas: typically, "18 pints of beer, three bottles of wine, one bottle of spirits and four glasses of fortified wine." Health experts are especially concerned about binge drinking by young women. For more, see here.

Alcohol becomes leading killer in Finland

Alcohol is now the leading killer of Finnish adults, with consumption reaching an all-time high last year in the Nordic nation, officials said Friday.

Find the full story here.

Lindsay Lohan in AA

According to CNN, 20-year-old actress Lindsay Lohan has been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous for a year and claims that she has not had a drink in a week. Lohan is usually counted among the young partying female celebrities. For more, see here.

Drunken bishop in England?

According to the (London) Independent, 10 December 2006, the bishop of Southwark staggered from a reception at the Irish embassy, collapsed into the backseat of a stranger's Mercedes automobile, and threw a child's toys out of the car. The article by Matthew Beard is entitled "'Drunken' bishop faces battle to save his job." For more, see here.

Alcohol deaths in Finland

According to AP, in 2005 alcohol killed more adult Finns than heart disease or any form of cancer. Alcohol consumption in 2005 set a record for Finland and 14% more than in 2003 when the government slashed alcohol taxes to discourage "booze cruises" to Russia and Estonia where alcoholic drink is cheap. For more, see here.

The bottle and the damage done

Maclean's magazine reports on the tragic life of John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister:

"Far more than his virtues, Macdonald's character flaws," writes Brian Bethune, "are the very stuff of mythology in Canada, making him a kind of anti-George Washington."

"Even by the standards of the alcoholic 19th century, Macdonald was a notorious binge drinker, a man who would take himself to bed for days, downing bottle after bottle of port. (The sister-in-law of governor general Francis Monck -- Queen Victoria's representatives all soon learned they had to keep close tabs on Her Majesty's first minister -- once reported to Monck that Macdonald had been found in his nightshirt, drunkenly reciting Hamlet before his bedroom mirror.)"

Find the full story here.

Robin Williams: 'Every day I'm grateful'

Gill Pringle, for The Independent, talks with actor Robin Williams after his latest two-month stint in rehab.

Address substance abuse recovery on the job

A national survey [in the US] on drug use and health indicates that 77.6 percent of adults with substance use disorders were employed in 2004.

Moreover, alcohol and drug abuse was found to be the most common problem for employees, accounting for 20 percent of voluntary employee assistance referrals to treatment and 50 percent of supervisory referrals.

Because the effects of alcohol and drug problems are so pervasive in the workplace, employers play a critical role in steering people toward recovery.

The Boston Herald reports.

Britain and the bottle

"No one who saw Tuesday's BBC2 documentary, Rain in my Heart, could have been left in doubt about the destructiveness of alcohol," writes a commentator from The Guardian.  "By exposing the personal stories of four alcoholics, two of whom died during filming, the programme made the point more powerfully than statistics ever could."

Find the full commentary here. 

Britons in denial over alcohol

According to the insurer Legal and General, the British people are in denial over alcohol. Binge-drinking is most common for 16 through 24 year olds. For the BBC story, see here.

Devices in cars that detect alcohol use

The New York Times, 20 Nov. 2006, reports on a trend to require drivers who are alcohol offenders to install a device in their automobiles that makes the cars inoperable if the device detects alcohol. In 2005 the state of New Mexico, which had a serious problem with drunk driving, made the use of such devices mandatory for first offenders. For more, see here.

Cash award delivers college hopes to recovering addicts

HUNDREDS of recovering drug addicts and alcoholics are to be offered college courses and job training thanks to a £600,000 grant from the National Lottery.

Edinburgh-based charity Access to Industry has been awarded the cash for its Transition project, which is designed to help former drug and alcohol abusers become accustomed to working life.

The Scotsman reports.

alcohol half-measures in Scotland?

In the (London) Sunday Times, 5 Nov. 2006, columnist Jenny Hjul complains that Scottish politicians offer only half-measures to fight the alcohol problem. Alluding to recent anti-tobacco legislation, she argues that passive drinking is more dangerous than passive smoking. For more, see
here.

What lifts people out of addiction?

Pittsburgh's Post-Gazette reports on the dilemma of resorting to medication to ease the pains of addiction.

Why do the Irish abuse alcohol?

Poll research released in October 2006, reports that the Irish place the blame on alcohol abuse as follows:

31% 'drinkers themselves'.
27% parents.
23% publican.
22% young people.
12% Government.
7% alcoholic drink advertisements.
3% sports sponsorship by alcoholic drinks companies.

There were also a few people polled who cited other reasons such as prosperity.

For more, including solutions to the problem, see here.

British women world's worst binge drinkers

An article is the (London) Independent, 22 October 2006, is headlined, "Drunk & disorderly: Women in UK are worst binge drinkers in world." A key sentence: "One in three 17- to 30-year-olds is now classed as a heavy drinker, bingeing on four or more drinks in one session at least once a fortnight." This is 11 times worse than the situation in Germany and Italy. Only in Ireland is the situation worse than in the United Kingdom. Nearly two thirds of young Irish women are heavy drinkers. Although men in the UK are heavy drinkers, they aren't the heaviest drinkers in the world. In Britain 26% of men are heavy drinkers, a statistic not as high as that for men in Belgium, Colombia, Ireland, and Poland. What is striking about the British Isles is that drinking has increased in England, Scotland, and Ireland, while it has declined in Western Europe with the exception of Denmark. The article is not clear about the age of the men being compared. For more, see here.

Restrictions on drinking by designated individuals accused of domestic abuse in Canada (article)

Mariana Valverde, "A Postcolonial Women's Law? Domestic Violence and the Ontario Liquor Board's 'Indian List,' 1950-1990," Feminist Studies 30/3 (2004): 566-588.

Tripping your way to sobriety

Erika Dyck, an assistant professor at the University of Alberta, Canada, researches and teaches the history of medicine.

Recently, she studied a series of LSD tests of alcohol-addicted patients carried out in the 1960s in Saskatchewan. The tests were done by British psychiatrists Humphrey Osmond and John Smythies.

She told ABC News that two-thirds of the alcoholics stopped drinking for at least 18 months after receiving one dose of LSD, compared to 25 percent who stopped after group therapy, and 12 percent after individual therapy.

According to Dyck, even Alcoholics Anonymous endorses the LSD research.

Read more here.

College drinking today

The Cincinnati Enquirer, 7 Oct. 2006, looks at college drinking with nearby Miami University (Ohio) as a case study. For more, see here.

Alcoholism in the City of London

The (London) Sunday Times, 1 October 2006, reports on alcoholism in the City of London (financial district). For more, see here.

Former congressman Mark Foley in alcohol rehabilitation clinic

According to AP, disgraced former Florida congressman Mark Foley declared himself an alcoholic and entered an alcohol rehabilitation clinic. For more, see here. In a curious parallel, when Ohio congressman Bob Ney resigned as a result of involvement in the Abranoff lobbying scandal, he too declared himself an alcoholic and entered an alcohol rehabilitation clinic. Other recently disgraced congressmen who seem to blame alcohol for their downfall include Randy “Duke” Cunningham of California, once a war hero and now convicted of corruption. These three ex-congressmen happen to be Republicans, but current members of Congress who acknowledge their alcoholism include Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, a member of the famous Democrat family. He has joined a support group of Republican and Democrat members of Congress who battle their alcoholism.

Did Shakespeare write when suffering from a hangover?

In the (London) Guardian, 26 September 2006, John Sutherland ("is this a pint I see before me?") suggests that Shakespeare often wrote with a hangover (which explains some of his uncharacteristically bad lines). His contemporary Ben Jonson suggested as much. As for Jonson, he sometimes had to be brought home in a wheelbarrow. For more, see here.

Noah's drunkenness (article)

J. David Pleins, "When myths go wrong: deconstructing the drunkenness of Noah," Culture & Religion 5/2 (July 2004): 219-227.

Alcoholism and recovering alcoholics in US Congress (article)

The New York Times, 19 September 2006, reports on alcoholism and recovering alcoholics in the US Congress, a problem and a reform that crosses party lines. The story's lead deals with Patrick Kennedy (D) and Jim Ramstad (R), both members of the House of Representatives. For more, see here.

Ann Richards, former Texas governor and recovering alcoholic (obituary)

Maura J. Casey, "Ann R., Alcoholic," New York Times, 16 September 2006.  Ann Richards became sober in 1980 and later was elected governor of Texas.

For more, see here.

alcoholism in America (book review)

Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 20/2 (Spring 2006)

Sarah W. Tracy. Alcoholism in America: From Reconstruction to Prohibition. Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. xxiii, 357 pp. Cloth. $48.00.
isbn 0801881196. Reviewed by Thomas R. Pegram, Loyola College.

Historians of alcohol are well aware of the influential disease concept of alcohol-
ism that came to dominate the social analysis, medical diagnoses, and treatment
options for problem drinkers in the United States in the mid-twentieth cen-
tury. Recent scholarship, such as John W. Crowley and William L. White’s
Drunkard’s Refuge: The Lessons of the New York State Inebriate Asylum (Am-
herst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004), however, has documented a
late nineteenth-century drive to promote the disease concept and medicalize
the treatment of habitual drunkenness in state-sponsored inebriate asylums.
This once neglected episode in the history of alcoholism has now received thor-
ough and sophisticated treatment by Sarah W. Tracy in Alcoholism in America.
Tracy’s central thesis is straightforward. Beginning in 1870 with the formation of
the American Association for the Cure of Inebriates, a dedicated body of professionals
struggled to establish the treatment of habitual drunkenness as a medical
specialty. Slowly persuading the public and government officials alike that al-
coholism was primarily a medical problem that required skilled care, disease
advocates prompted state governments to separate alcoholics from the insane
and build state hospitals specifically devoted to the treatment of inebriates. Yet
neither doctors, legislators, nor the public had divorced their understanding of
alcoholism from moral constructs. A medico-moral approach to treating alco-
holism and restoring manhood and citizenship to inebriates instead prevailed
in both private and public treatment facilities. Public interest in medical treat-
ment for inebriates waxed when local prohibition laws and sentiment waned.
The passage of the Volstead Act and commencement of national prohibition
led to the dismantling of state inebriate hospitals and the eclipse of professional
aspirations for the early disease concept advocates. The modern alcoholism
movement revived these themes without acknowledging the efforts and experi-
ences of these pioneers.

Yet the medical and institutional focus suggested by this summary under-
states the depth—and the difficulty—of Tracy’s analysis. She strives to portray
the cultural, political, and social complex that influenced the development of
the disease concept of alcoholism. Rather than accepting a structural model of
professional authority dominating the discourse on problem drinking, Tracy
stresses the negotiated, layered nature of the process. Not only doctors (who
disagreed among themselves), but also judges, politicians, temperance activists,
families of inebriates, and the patients themselves influenced the definitions and
treatment of habitual drunkenness. The disease concept operated in institutions
alongside competing penal or custodial approaches (Iowa’s Board of Control
suggested that mining coal would be a suitable occupational therapy for inebri-
ates and Massachusetts officials committed chronic, untreatable drunkards to
the Foxborough hospital against the wishes of the staff); anxious families and
penurious legislators often demanded short-term care over doctors who en-
dorsed long-term rehabilitation; the budding profession of psychiatry initially
welcomed the opportunity to treat “curable” inebriates, but the presence of ine-
briates in insane asylums proved disruptive, as drunks, once sober, sought to
escape or contact attorneys.

Tracy is most effective at analyzing the late nineteenth-century cultural, class,
and gender underpinnings of the dual medical/moral outlook embedded in the
disease concept of alcoholism. She presents a highly instructive history of the
shifting terminology of habitual drunkenness between 1870 and 1920. Intemper-
ance was the initial, morally-charged designation that emphasized the drinker’s
failure of will as much as susceptibility to disease. Dipsomania suggested that
habitual drunkenness was a form of insanity, a step toward a disease orientation
of drunkenness. But dipsomania also had a class dimension. Doctors considered
it a middle-class affliction that could be reversed through skilled intervention.
Working-class drinkers were more likely to be regarded as incurable sots. In-
ebriety became the term of preference, but its contested meanings reflected the
imprecise, negotiated state of the art in treatment between Reconstruction and
Prohibition. Finally, by the early twentieth century, alcoholism emerged as the
favored term for disease-concept advocates, separating alcohol-related afflic-
tions from other forms of addiction. Gender as well as class was reflected in
the tendency to regard alcoholism as both a vice and a disease. Practitioners
assumed that inebriates were men. Treatment, even in the institutions staffed
by disease-concept advocates, stressed restoring proper masculine qualities
to inebriates. The recovered alcoholic was supposed to be physically robust,
economically productive, attentive to his family obligations, and possessed of
a manly willpower capable of resisting temptation. These characteristics also
reflected the goals of legislators and regulatory boards that oversaw the inebri-
ate hospitals and expected them to transform wards of the state into productive
citizens. Even the most famous quack alternative to mainstream medical care,
the Keeley Gold Cure franchises, built up the manhood of patients with mascu-
line camaraderie and a formidable regimen of injections and emetics. Female
inebriates endured the harsher consequences of gender assumptions. They were
assumed to be profoundly diseased and were segregated from inebriate men.
Even after men were treated in inebriate hospitals, drink-troubled women were
consigned to insane asylums.

Adept as medical, cultural, and institutional history, Alcoholism in America is
less surefooted as political and social history (signaled by the misspelled names
of reformers Jacob Riis and Lincoln Steffens). The place of inebriate care in the
late nineteenth-century expansion of state responsibility could be clearer. Tracy
asserts that a large Irish population of drinkers prompted the construction of
inebriate hospitals, but later remarks that inebriety was an “Anglo-American
problem” in Massachusetts (189). Since few states funded Prohibition enforce-
ment, perhaps the closing of inebriate hospitals at the outset of the dry era
followed economic rather than reform logic. Indeed, one may suspect that the
hostile relationship Tracy sketches between drys and alcoholism professionals
was more complicated. Why, for instance, did the Anti-Saloon League name
its international branch the World League Against Alcoholism? Tracy finds a
remarkable source in letters between doctors and former patients of inebri-
ate hospitals, but she uses the letters to determine if patients subscribed to the
disease concept and to document the self-sustaining relationship between doc-
tors and patients. The letters also reveal a remarkable (unexplored) pattern of
former inebriates working as attendants in insane asylums. The patient pro-
files show more unmarried men than the family dynamics of alcohol problems
would suggest. Still, Tracy has written the best book yet on alcoholism in the
pre-prohibition period.

alcohol and first nations in Canada (book review)

Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 20/2 (Spring 2006)

Richard W. Thatcher, Fighting Firewater Fictions: Moving Beyond the Disease
Model of Alcoholism in First Nations. Toronto. University of Toronto Press,
2004. 358 pp. Paper. $35.00. isbn 0802086470. Reviewed by Greg Marquis, Uni-
versity of New Brunswick, Saint John.

Richard Thatcher is a clinical sociologist who is an experienced health and so-
cial policy advisor and researcher for Canada’s First Nations communities and
has been involved in community health surveys of dozens of reserves. These are
largely isolated, rural and poor communities inhabited by “status” Indians who
live in official “bands” recognized by the federal Department of Indian Affairs
and Northern Development. By the mid 1990s, Canada had roughly 500,000
“registered” Indians living on more than 2,000 reserves. In recent years these
communities have been experiencing a transition to self government, notably
in education and social services, but they remain heavily dependent on federal
transfer funds, and the social, economic and health indicators for reserve dwell-
ers are more problematic than those of off-reserve aboriginals.

Fighting Firewater Fictions is a complex and ambitious work that attempts to
explain the genesis and continued resiliency of the “firewater complex,” a set
of beliefs about alcohol consumption in aboriginal communities. It also argues
that the traditional disease concept of alcoholism, government policies and the
power structure of reserves help perpetuate social and medical problems related
to excessive drinking. According to Thatcher, things will not improve simply by
increased self governance. The simplistic disease concept of alcoholism, based
on abstinence as the only response, has to be re-evaluated, as do the real causal
factors behind disruptive and unhealthy drinking. Reforms will only take place
when the current passive model of reserve government, dominated by chiefs,
band councils and influential families, is replaced by community-based ap-
proaches and genuine economic development. Until then, reserve populations
will continue to suffer from risk-taking behaviours such as drinking, drug tak-
ing and gambling.

Reserve communities are associated with higher than average rates of family
violence, child abuse and neglect, suicide, arrest and incarceration. Despite of-
ficial assumptions, most problem drinkers on reserves are not alcoholics and
the rate of abstinence among First Canadians is higher than the Canadian av-
erage. The incidence of high-risk drinking is linked to gender, education and
employment: women, those with more schooling and those in the workforce are
less likely to be affected. The most visible form of problem drinking, group or
binge drinking, meets with two responses: tolerance, due to the forgiving nature
of reserve communities, or disease concept treatment (DCT) programs based
on abstinence, referral to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and a standardized
rehabilitation regime. Although DCT programs have adopted some cultur-
ally-appropriate aspects, such as sweat lodges, sweet grass ceremonies and the
involvement of elders, Thatcher views these as “politically correct” add-ons to
a flawed model.

The book is a good barometer of the state of the debate on alcoholism and its
treatment in North America. It discusses recent criticisms of “therapy” and the
tendency of research and service delivery to pathologize the poor and minorities.
Although the author is open to recent neurobiological evidence on addiction, he
is less comfortable with psychological or psychiatric explanations and is trou-
bled by the non-scientific influence of AA and fatalistic attitudes on reserves
that tend to blame all major problems on outside forces beyond personal or
community control. These include the decline or loss of shamanism, the need
for social cohesion in the face of colonialism, and dysfunctional personal and
family relationships caused by the residential schooling of native children prior
to the 1970s and child welfare interventions that resulted in large numbers of
children placed in foster care or adopted by non-native families.

The author offers a number of factors to explain how alcohol developed into
such a problem on reserves. These include the fact that drinking brings short-
term pleasure, that “out-of-control” drinking is learned behaviour and not the
result of genetic factors, and that group drinking reflects traditional aboriginal
ethics such as sharing scarce resources. He attributes First Nations’ tendency to
forget or excuse excessive drinking, or seek leniency in terms of legal sanction,
to the power of the disease theory, which views alcoholism as a sickness, not a
weakness or moral failing. The problem is exacerbated by the historic influence
of externally-imposed “total institutions,” the loss of traditional social controls
and periods of official prohibition that reinforced binge drinking practices. He
also attributes much out-of-control drinking behaviour and violence to male
status anxiety. The most important factor of all, however, was “the displacement
of the adult male economic role.” (161) These conditions were all created
by historic and outside forces, but the situation is reinforced by reserve band
governance, federal agencies, the culture of dependency and a crude reliance on
DCT models.

The second part of the book offers a series of strategies for reorienting al-
cohol prevention strategies in First Nations communities. The first necessary
step is developing a holistic approach to the problem that includes meaningful
economic development, community participation and expertise and individual
responsibility. Thatcher argues that because of the lack of normal career/life cy-
cle trajectories for most aboriginals, many literally do not outgrow risk-taking
behaviour such as binge drinking. Band governance itself, with its emphasis on
consuming resources and creating parallel institutions, will have to be reformed.
Programs should be measured for their effectiveness. Intensive, community-
based intervention programs for children are specifically highlighted.
This reviewer can find few faults with the book, although as an historian I
would have liked to have seen more attention to how and when problem drink-
ing became an actual, as opposed to an imaginary, problem on reserves. The
suggestion that prohibition, either under the federal Indian Act and provincial
liquor legislation or band policy, exacerbated the problem is not backed up
with research references in a book that otherwise is extremely well documented.
Finally, despite the logic of Thatcher’s reform suggestions, and recent acknowl-
edgements by native leaders that people should take greater responsibility for
their problem drinking, it is unlikely that either reserve governments or the fed-
eral government will, in the short run, enact radical reforms in areas such as self
government, service delivery and economic development.

alcoholism in America (book review)

John W. Crowley, "Alcoholism in America: F