IV There have been major historical variations in drinking patterns in the U.S.

1. In colonial America, alcohol was viewed as benign and even as a blessing. Drinking and occasional drunkenness were tolerated as part of everyday life--the workplace, elections, social gatherings. Antisocial drinking, on the other hand, was held in check by strong social sanctions.

   "In the late seventeenth century the Rev. Increase Mather had taught that drink was `a good creature of God' and that a man should partake of God's gift without wasting or abusing it. His only admonition was that a man must not `drink a Cup of Wine more than is good for him'.... At that time inebriation was not associated with violence or crime; only rowdy, belligerent inebriation in public places was frowned upon.... Control was also exercised through informal channels. One Massachusetts minister insisted that a public house be located next to his own dwelling so he could monitor tavern traffic through his study window. If he observed a man frequenting the place too often, the clergyman could go next door and escort the drinker home." Rorabaugh, W.J., The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition, Oxford University Press, New York, 1979, pp. 26-30.

2. A special site for appropriate drinking was the colonial tavern, where (as in church) people of all ages met. It was like a public lecture hall and meeting place.

   "The tavern was a key institution, the center of social and political life. Frequently located 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." Levine, H.G., "The Good Creature of God and the Demon Rum," pp. 111-161 in National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Research Monograph No. 12: Alcohol and Disinhibition: Nature and Meaning of the Link, NIAAA, Rockville, MD, 1983, p. 115.

3. Children were regularly exposed to alcohol and taught how to drink.

   "White males were taught to drink as children, even as babies. `I have frequently seen Fathers,' wrote one traveller, `wake their Child of a year old from a sound sleap [sic] to make it drink Rum, or Brandy.' As soon as a toddler was old enough to drink from a cup, he was coaxed to consume the sugary residue at the bottom of an adult's nearly empty glass of spirits. Many parents intended this early exposure to alcohol to accustom their offspring to the taste of liquor, to encourage them to accept the idea of drinking small amounts, and thus to protect them from becoming drunkards." Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, p. 14.

4. The 19th century saw the breakdown of the colonial consensus about alcohol and the rise of the temperance movement.
   

   "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." Levine, "The Good Creature of God and the Demon Rum," p. 127.

   "Any drinking, [Lyman Beecher] argued, was a step toward `irreclaimable' slavery to liquor; people simply could not tell when they crossed the line from moderate use to inebriety -- could not tell, that is, until too late. Look out, he said, if you drank in secret, periodically felt compelled to drink, and found yourself with tremors, inflamed eyes, or a `disordered stomach.' `You might as well cast loose in a frail boat before a hurricane, and expect safety,' Beecher explained, `and you are gone, gone irretrievably, if you do not stop.' But most could not stop; the power of alcohol was too strong." Lender, M.E., and Martin, J.K., Drinking in America (rev. ed.), Free Press, New York, 1987, p. 69.

   "Politicized morality thus seemed well on its way to rolling back the tide of over two hundred years of American drinking habits. By the mid-1850s, many dry reformers were congratulating themselves on having destroyed the old consensus on drinking as a positive good.... The Reverend John Marsh...proclaimed the days gone `when drinking was universal; when no table was thought...properly spread unless it contained a supply of intoxicating drink; when no person' was held respectable who failed to `furnish it to his guests,' when no man thought of refusing liquor or of working without it, when `Ministers of the Gospel...were abundantly supplied by their people; when drinkers and rumsellers were unhesitatingly received as members of Christian churches." Lender and Martin, Drinking in America, pp. 84-85.

5. The result is the ambivalence toward alcohol we see in the U.S. today:

   "...`Americans drink with a certain sadness,' a sadness probably rooted in their culturally derived ambivalence toward the social and individual character of drinking. This cultural ambivalence has been forged and reforged during each historical period, each social and economic upheaval, and each era of immigrant assimilation. The resulting negation of alcohol use has led to a curious worship of abstinence, which is little practiced and, when practiced, little respected." Zinberg, N.E., "Alcohol Addiction: Toward a More Comprehensive Definition," pp. 97-127 in Bean, M.H., and Zinberg, N.E., eds., Dynamic Approaches to the Understanding and Treatment of Alcoholism, Free Press, New York, 1981, p. 99.

   "Our society lacks a clear and consistent position regarding the scope of the excuse [of drunkenness] and is thus neither clear nor consistent in its teachings. Because our society's teachings are neither clear nor consistent, we lack unanimity of understanding; and where unanimity of understanding is lacking, we would argue that unanimity of practice is out of the question. Thus, although we all know that in our society the state of drunkenness carries with it an `increased freedom to be one's other self,' the limits are vague and only sporadically enforced.... [As a result], what people actually do when they are drunk will vary enormously...." MacAndrew, C., and Edgerton, R.B., Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation, Aldine, Chicago, 1969, p. 172.