Drinking Behavior Article Review

Human behavior around drinking alcohol has been detailed for millennia. Archaeological digs at Pompeii, Gobekli Tepe, Petra, El Zotz and other ancient sites have yielded cups and ritual chalices used for the imbibing of alcohol and other intoxicating drinks. From these items, we can glean a sense of the importance that fermented beverages have had for humans throughout history and, in comparing three recent sources on drinking behavior, we find that attitudes toward the consumption of alcohol can be very different, depending on one's agenda, personal proclivities, research methodology and curiosity about the subject. However, not all are interesting, relevant or valuable in determining how drinking behavior differs across various time periods.

Harry Gene Levine's "The Good Creature of God and the Demon Rum: Colonial America and 19th Century Ideas About Alcohol, Crime & Accidents" is part of a college research study, conducted at the University of California, Berkeley. It's intended to be published as part of conference proceedings and has the weight of scientific thought behind it. The author sets out to determine how history looked at drinking and drunkenness at two crucial times in history, Colonial Times and the 19th Century, including how the medical industry has traditionally looked at the problem of drinking through the lens of self-restraint.

Levine decided to focus on accidents that happened as a result of alcohol use, and crimes or acts of violence committed against people or property while under the influence of alcohol. In Colonial America, he found that people had a taste for rum in particular and that it was a very natural part of citizens' everyday lives. It was thought that rum raised spirits and helped to cure depression, and it was even given to children to help heal various ailments. Taverns, where alcohol was served, were commonly used as meeting houses, and the rise in the use of tobacco helped fuel the sale of alcohol. Though Levine found evidence of injury from drunkenness, and even a poem describing one man's death from alcohol during this time, it was usually the alcohol user himself who suffered. Colonial people, for the most part, viewed alcohol as a positive aspect of their lives, with the exception of the Puritans, who viewed it as a sin. Colonialists also viewed Indians as habitual drunkards and, even though they introduced alcohol to Indians in the first place, some refused to sell alcohol to them, for fear of violence.

During the 19th Century, however, Levine found that attitudes about drinking and drunkenness began to shift. From about 1776 to 1826, Americans were starting to see alcohol as a demon and began to shift behavior and political policy accordingly. During the first three decades of the 19th century, drinking was on the rise, particularly among people of the working class. As this happened, middle-class Protestants began to move toward abstinence. At the same time, taverns became more male as long workdays made drinking time structured in men's now-limited social time.

The Temperance Movement began to gain steam, quickly spreading throughout a network of churches. In 1826, the American Temperance Union was formed, to further the ideology of this movement. At this time, the U.S. began to move from an ambivalent stance about drinking toward a tipping point. Some felt hat this movement was a catalyst for the Second Great Awakening. Fueled by heavy-handed newspaper stories, Americans began to see the tragedy alcohol could cause. Dr. Henry Monroe, author of the pamphlet "The Physiological Action of Alcohol," even made the connection between drunkenness and murderer John Wilkes Booth. By the end of this period, many had willingly given up alcohol, believing it capable of ruining their lives.

Levine's methodology is sound in "The Good Creature of God and the Demon Rum: Colonial America and 19th Century Ideas About Alcohol, Crime & Accidents," and it's possible to learn a great deal from his work. What's best about what he's done is his neutrality. He writes without an agenda, other than to discover changes in attitudes toward alcohol consumption over time. This allows him to apply the scientific method to his research, and come away with some startling facts. Some of the cases he cites, particularly during Colonial Times, really surprise. I hadn't previously known that alcohol was considered a natural part of their lives, that rum was thought to cure depression, nor that intoxicating liquors were not sold to servants and apprentices for fear of promoting idleness, and taking away from their ability to completely serve their masters.

But these are just a few examples of the wealth of information Levine provides. His work is incredibly valuable to history, in that we're more able to understand it from a human perspective, and what it might have felt like to live during Colonial and 19th Century times. It's also really interesting and entertaining. Because his writing style is simple and down to earth, and he cites primary sources like documents, poems, pamphlets and newspaper stories, we have the sense of being there, gathering information, without someone trying to direct us toward their foregone conclusion. If I were researching either of these two periods, I would return to Levine's work to help flesh out the time period, on this subject and others.

By contrast, "It Was Like This" paints a picture of Jim Brincker's Nepenthe Room in New York (while quickly claiming that this is not the man's real name, nor the real name of the club in question). Written by New York Herald Tribune reporter Stanley Walker, the book details what it was like to live among the people and places of New York's nightlife during Prohibition. Stanley's style is lively and poetic as he introduces us to Brincker, owner of the Nepenthe Room, O'Malley (his partner who never quite made it back from France), and assorted habitués. From the opera singers to the lawyers who frequent the place, to the racetrack fanatics, drinkers and the women who love them, it's an engaging portrait of the time.

What's most special about "It Was Like This" is its deep humanity. The piece reads like fiction, but Walker is able to get very close to these very real people. He discovers their hopes and dreams, their histories and plans for the future. He shows their relationships with police and prohibition agents, some of them once friends and now tasked with shutting the Nepenthe down. Walker even gets close enough to conjecture about the strong-arm techniques employed by bootleggers and mobsters who sometimes took a percentage, or forced Brincker to buy their liquor at inflated prices.

In the middle of all this is Jim (not his real name), who's just trying to survive in a tough economic time. Walker paints him, and many of the others, with true compassion, which makes this not only entertaining to read but also really useful and valuable as a source. Though Walker does have an agenda, to humanize and even elevate the Everyman bartender and his customers in Prohibition New York City, he does it with a great deal of wit and intelligence. By the end, Brincker is frustrated by the limitations of Prohibition, and having to sell his customers 3.2% beer, when he knows they want the harder stuff. In Walker's eyes, he's a hero for wanting to deliver his customers the best.

Lastly, The Drunkard's Looking Glass: Reflecting a Faithful Likeness of the Drunkard, by Mason Locke Weems, begins with the "Golden Receipts against Drunkenness" [sic] on the copyright page of the printed book (Weems). Weems was a parson, book agent and author, who gained fame as the man who published apocryphal stories about George Washington. As might be expected from his position, Weems spent his time trying to find ways to instruct younger men in particular how to live exemplary lives. The Drunkard's Looking Glass is hyperbolic in tone and includes horror-provoking stories of trying to attack and rape one's sister while drunk, deals made with the devil, suicide, and other dark aspects of human life.

Weems breaks drunkenness down into three stages: The Frisky, or Foolish Stage, the Frantic, or Demonic Stage and the Stupid, and Torpid Stage. As he describes each one, he paints a sicker and more embarrassing portrait of a person becoming more beastlike. He makes comparisons with apes, centaurs, horses, cows, calves, pigs and monsters in making his case that drinking leads to self-destruction, non-personhood, and ruin. Each case he cities details another deadly aspect of drinking and ultimately leads to the subject's humiliation, nudity, sexual shame, financial destruction, or death.

Weems' work was adopted by the Temperance Movement of the 19th Century, where it joined other alarmist literature of the time. Unfortunately, this document doesn’t have much value or relevance to contemporary audiences. Our country has lived through Prohibition as a failed experiment. Every day, people manage to drink alcohol without ruining their lives. While issues of addiction are serious, we have developed programs like Alcoholics Anonymous to assist people in their healing. Rarely, in our age, do we see people losing everything as a result of drinking alcohol, so there's not much to learn from this piece. Weems clearly had an anti-drinking, pro-God agenda in publishing it, and perhaps his work helped people at the time. But to a modern audience, this comes across as somewhat hysterical, with capital letters used frequently, as if he's screaming at us. Though it may be entertaining, in that we can laugh about it now, the author surely didn't mean that to be the case.

Works Cited

Levine, Harry Gene. "The Good Creature of God and the Demon Rum: Colonial American and 19th Century Ideas About Alcohol, Crime, and Accidents." Alcohol and Disinhibition: Nature and Meaning of the Link. Berkeley/Oakland, California. 12th ed. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1981. 111-85. Print. Research Monograph.

Walker, Stanley. The Night Club Era. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1933/1960. 26-50. Print.

Weems, M. L. The Drunkard's Looking Glass: Reflecting a Faithful Likeness of the Drunkard. N.p.: Printed for the Author, 1818. Print.