Start with alcohol

• Dates at least 6000 years – ancient Egyptians brewing beer – animals appear to pursue drink, as well – Greeks and Romans famous for wine
• Yeasts acting on vegetable sugars causes them to ferment, creating by-product of ethyl alcohol, a pyschoactive chemical. Definitely the #1 drug of choice of Americans.
• Depresses CNS, especially the cortex and reticular formation. Slows higher brain centers first, inhibiting function. Creates effect of stimulation – releases tensions and inhibitions. This is why we refer to "liquid courage" or "social lubricant." Peripheral nervous system becomes more active – vessels dilate, circulation increases, appetite increases. People generally feel more relaxed and sociable. Decreased inhibition correlated with increased impulsivity. Say more about this later. CNS increasingly depressed with more intake. Discrimination between stimuli falters, judgment impaired in general. Coordination, speech, vision, balance affected. Sense of one’s level of competence is – itself – impaired ("I’m alright, give me the KEYS!"). At very high levels, pain is blunted. Drowsiness and drift into sleep (passing out). Lethal in VERY high concentrations, though rare (passing out a "safety nap").
• Metabolize alcohol by weight (water/fat)
• Long term consequences of liver cirrhosis, brain damage, FAS.

Patterns of use

• Most US adults are light drinkers (35% abstain, 55% drink less than 3 drinks/week, 11% drink more than 1 oz. of alcohol/day or more)
• Drinking varies by age and sex: prevalence highest in 21-34 yr range; 2-5X more males than women are heavy drinkers, though different standards must be used due to metabolizing functions. Over 65 y.o., abstainers outnumber drinkers in both sexes, and 7% males and 2% females are heavy drinkers.
• Core: 50% alcohol consumed by 10% of people

Alcoholism:

• Three types: regular daily intake of large amounts, regular heavy drinking on weekends, long periods of sobriety marked by periods of binges of daily drinking over weeks or months. Some talk about gamma alcoholism (US, stereotype of AA addict): control problems – fine as long as sober, but cannot stop until out of money, health impaired. In France, however, compare need for drinking certain amount every day without compulsion to exceed that amount.
• Estimated 13% with alcohol abuse or dependence in lives at any time.
• Tolerance: inborn and acquired

Is alcohol use deviant? Is alcoholism glorified or stigmatized?

• Mayflower diary: Putting ashore, running low on supplies, especially beere.
• 2.5 gal/yr in 1790, 7 gal/yr in 1810, 10 gal/yr in 1829 (production/distillation improved) US figures
• Consumption decreased 1830 – 1850: 10 to 2.1 gal/yr. (in Wilson)
• Prohibition: failed effort of the Temperance movement (religiously based, felt that alcohol led to sin and crime) – had succeeded in passing 18^th amendment in 1919 – manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors was prohibited – the 18^th was repealed in 1933 by the 21^st amendment. Age of speakeasies, the untouchables, and tommy guns. The mob became more powerful through illegal regulation of prohibited substances. Consider modern parallels.
• Sense of mystique, connected to machismo (how much you can drink without losing control a proof of masculinity)
• Alcoholic writers: the "thirsty muse": Poe, Tennessee Williams, Robert Lowell, John Berryman, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway. Described in Jamison reading (in reader)
• Nick and Nora (Thin Man films: William Powell, Myrna Lloyd): "I’m hungry, let’s get a drink."
• Arthur (Dudley Moore) and Ab Fab
• Casablanca (Bogart’s famous scene as Rick – put up transparency)
• Barfly
• Charles Bukowski ("A radio with guts," p. 192 of Charles Bukowski reader)
• Certainly different views about more modest drinking
• 1950s suburban hero would come home to a martini and the paper, and driving with a drink or two was not an issue

• Changing views over time. Drinking and driving much affected by MADD and SADD.
• Greater awareness of alcohol abuse. Most of us know what talking about if reference to Betty Ford clinic or the Twelve Step Program (in reader so will have exposure).
• But alcohol consumption continues and attitudes vary by place (Wyoming drive up alcohol stores, also in Texas).
• Some alcohol still forbidden: Everclear forbidden in CA, okay in AZ. Absinthe forbidden in US, okay in Spain, Czech Republic, enjoying renaissance in UK.
• Alcohol advertising: Beer commercials indicate you’ll be popular, will interact with beautiful women (aimed at men), or will become a talking Budweiser lizard. Leads to mixed signals – on one hand, telling young people that they need to be responsible and say no, on other that they will be popular and attractive if they drink (hint: go into a bar and see if it resembles the commercials – generally a lot of tired old men)
• STUDY on low-consensus deviance: Alcohol use avg’d 1-2/wk, and was positively correlated with whites and income, negatively so with ethnic minority status: idea is that powerful groups participate more readily in low-consensus acts. [The Moral Minorities: A Self-Report Study of Low-Consensus Deviance, Intl J. of Off. Therapy and Compar. Criminol., 37(1), 1993, 17-27].

Correlates of alcohol use:

Tied (probably) to increased impulsivity and aggression:

Four models of drug-crime interaction:

• Spurious relationship. No relationship
• Directly causal. Swallowing alcohol alters behavior directly, without regard to other factors.
• Conditionally causal. Alcohol cause behavior (like crime) if some other condition also exists.
• Common cause. Factor (like personality trait) may lead some people both to drink and to engage in behavior (like crime).

• Aggression: shock studies found that no predicted correlation appeared, but that – once provocation introduced – higher BAC led to greater aggression (1979, Taylor et al). In experimental parties, men who drank were more aggressive than non drinkers.
• Auto accidents: often said that ½ of fatal auto accidents are alcohol related; more cautious studies have been done and find that risk of accident leading to property damage, injury, or death is 6-13X higher with a BAC of 0.15 or higher (legally drunk is 0.08); one estimate is 16% fewer accidents and 24% fewer fatal accidents with everyone having a zero BAC.
• Drunkenness charges: obvious that not occur without alcohol consumption
• Homicides: Wolfgang found alcohol tied (by assailant, victim, or both) to 2/3 of 588 Philadelphia homicides; of 28 studies tying alcohol to murder, 14 found alcohol involvement in 60%+ of cases, and majority found it in 1/3 of cases; studies have found alcohol used in 40% of rapes; ¼ of prisoners in CA interviewed said during 3 years before sentencing, had "got drunk and hurt someone"