Dangerous Drinking (Part 2)
I Drink Alone, With Nobody Else
The biological limits of natural fermentation, which have traditionally kept alcoholic beverages relatively weak (see part 1), have traditionally been supplemented by a cultural trick. Ancient texts and art, from Egypt to China, depict drinking as communal and socially-regulated.
The host of the Greek symposium, for instance, not only controlled the timing and ordering of the toasts, but also the ratio of water to wine being served, adjusting it as necessary. Similarly, at both ancient and modern Chinese banquets, one does not drink unless a formal toast is made, and who has the right or responsibility to make a toast is strictly dictated by ritual. Such stuffy practices may seem light-years away from a breezy, Happy Hour gathering, but beneath the casual surface of modern social drinking are forces serving an identical moderating function.
Even before our current covid-19 crisis, contemporary drinking too often occurred in a social vacuum, deprived of the safety net of these social constraints. This is especially the case in the suburbs, where people commute long distances from home to work and typically lack a social drinking venue within easy walking distance. Drinking has increasingly become something we do in the privacy of our homes, outside social control or observation. Knocking back a string of high-alcohol beers or vodka and tonics in front of the TV, even with one’s immediate family around, is a radical departure from traditional drinking practices centered on communal meals and ritually-paced toasting. It instead calls to mind the bottomless alcohol feeding tubes provided to overcrowded rats in alcohol and stress experiments.
Widely available distilled liquors and frequent solitary drinking are relatively recent developments that have fundamentally changed alcohol’s balance on the razor’s edge between usefulness and harm. A lifestyle where drive-through stores allow you to acquire cigarettes, firearms, Slim Jims, and enough alcohol to paralyze an elephant without having to leave the comfort of your SUV is one for which we may not be evolutionarily well-equipped, genetically or culturally
It is therefore not surprising that large-scale epidemics of alcohol abuse are invariably driven by one or both of these banes of modernity, distillation and isolation. Hard liquor becomes particularly harmful when the availability of spirits coincides with a breakdown of social order or ritual regulations. Both forces were at work, for instance, in the Russian vodka epidemic (1992–1994) that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union: life expectancy fell 3.3 years for women and an incredible 6.1 years for men, driven by a massive increase in vodka consumption. The restrictions on socializing caused by the covid-19 pandemic may present us with a similar public health crisis. There is debate about whether or not overall alcohol consumption has increased, rather than simply shifting from bars and restaurants to the home, but either way our drinking has become more solitary, isolated, and unhealthy.
The ancient Greeks viewed Dionysus, the god of wine, with a combination of reverence and trepidation. He inspired artistic creation and bestowed joy on humanity, but could also turn people into animals. The modern innovations of distillation and isolation only increase the dangers lurking in the bottle.
For most of us, the best response to these risks is not complete abstention, but moderate and communal enjoyment of beer and wine. They key word here is communal. Though we no longer have strict rituals governing our indulgence, ethnographic and experimental studies have shown that people — mostly unconsciously — adapt their consumption to conform with the group. This can go seriously sideways in pathological cultures, like university fraternities, but in most societies, the effect is one of moderation. This is why, for most of history, the consumption of alcohol has been a fundamentally and essentially social act.
With the pandemic passing and our return to ordinary life rhythms, the revival of social drinking should be embraced with euphoric gusto. The shared experience of music, happy chatter, effortlessly synchronized conversation, rising endorphin levels, and reduced inhibitions catalyzed by a few glasses of ethanol has been impossible to replace with Zoom chats, and it is something we’ve been desperately missing. Let us look forward to once again celebrating the ancient, distinctly human joy of sharing a pint or two among friends.
Just maybe hold off on the Jägermeister shots.
Edward Slingerland is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, and the author of Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization.
