I live in a city that was proud recently to vote in a new ordinance prohibiting the possession of open containers of alcoholic beverages in public places. It was argued that this would preserve some social ideal, denying rabble-rousers and itinerant panhandlers the opportunity to make a nuisance of themselves. Seemingly there was no thought given to the closing off of one avenue of contentment to the greater majority of people, i.e. those who enjoy a drink or two in accompaniment of a pleasurable all-round lifestyle. Those families and friends who enjoyed some conviviality over a bottle of wine or a couple of beers at the Farmers Market in Central Park were suddenly made to feel as if they were somehow socially inadequate. Legislators might ponder the work of Zarkin et al. (1998), which showed that men who consume alcohol enjoy approximately 7% higher wages than those who do not drink.
Alcohol, regrettably, is too often associated with antisocial behaviour. Starting with the observation that moderation can be associated with the use of any alcoholic beverage, what evidence is there for differences between drink type in their impact on social behaviour? And let us be careful when addressing matters of cause and effect. Thus football hooligans might be predisposed to beer consumption. That is quite different from saying that drinking beer causes all instances of football hooliganism. In just this same way, a wife beater is predisposed to domestic violence from a aw in his character. The fact that he may enjoy a drink is by no means causally linked. Somebody who will in ict physical harm on a spouse is not made into such a person by consuming alcohol, although we might accept that the alcohol may remove inhibitions to increase the likelihood of it happening. Approximately half of adult males in the US who are heavy drinkers do not display drink-related personal or social problems, while nearly a half of those adult males that do have the very problems generally associated with drinking are not heavy drinkers (Cahalan & Room 1974).
Many laboratories have demonstrated the Mellanby effect (Mellanby 1919): the concentration of alcohol in the blood rises more rapidly and to higher levels after the consumption of spirits as opposed to beer (see e.g. Gardiner & Stewart 1968). Takala et al. (1957) showed that these differences were manifest even when the spirits were diluted to the alcoholic strength of beer. The differences were displayed in respect of performance - for example, driving tasks were more impaired for people who had taken brandy rather than beer (Bjerver & Goldberg 1950). Takala et al. (1957) found that brandy drinking led to more argumentative and aggressive behaviour than did beer drinking, even though blood alcohol levels were similar. Boyatzis (1974) made comparable observations. Pihl and colleagues (1981) feel that the different impact of beer and spirits is due to different expectations about their effects, and not the different type of beverage per se. However, we assume that Siamese ghting sh don't have expectations, and Raynes and Ryback (1970) found that aggression in such creatures was decreased by alcoholic beverages, with beer and wine having a greater impact than spirits.
Klein and Pittman (1993) claimed that emotional state impacts on the beverage of choice. Thus beer drinking increases in response to negative emotions, such as loneliness, whereas the intake of wine coolers was increased in association with positive emotional states. Seemingly, married people drink more wine when they are sad and bored.
Of course, we must not ignore the fact that there are substantial differences between the drinking public in where and when they will consumer beverages of different types. Also the perception of the different types of beverages varies. Klein and Pittman (1990) surveyed more than 2000 American adults to nd that underage drinking and antisocial behaviour were regarded as being associated more with beer and spirits than with wine. Conversely, Gaines (1985) found that the black population in three cities regarded beer as a soft drink and unlikely to be harmful. Lang et al. (1983) determined that undergraduates believed wine to be the most positively regarded of the alcoholic drinks, while Harford (1979) found that wine was more likely than beer or spirits to be consumed with a meal. It seems that bar customers taking beer will do so with greater rapidity and to a greater extent than will those taking other forms of alcohol (Storm & Cutler 1981; Stockwell et al. 1992).
Surveys seem to suggest that wine consumption is less associated with problems than is that of beer or spirits (e.g. Adlaf et al. 1993). However, Evenson (1986) found that among more than 10,000 alcoholics in Missouri, those drinking beer alone had fewer alcohol-related symptoms and problems. Gronbaek et al. (2000) concluded that beer drinkers appeared to have more sensible drinking patterns than did wine drinkers.
Once again, I believe it to be important to distinguish cause and effect. The evidence seems to be that beer is perceived to be less healthful than wine even though the evidence (see also Chapter 6) does not support this contention. Beer is also more frequently associated with antisocial behaviour than is wine, though again good arguments can be made to say that either beverage is as good or bad as the other in this context. The simple truth is that 'high spirits' are more often associated with young men than with any other sector, and at the same time young men tend to be the fraction most likely to take in most beer (Single & Storm 1985). Without belabouring the point, it's rather like drawing a correlation between the absence of goatee growth and the predisposition to become a nurse. There are many more female than male nurses and (I assume) the majority of the former gender don't have goatees, and indeed, for reasons of hygiene, the male nurses won't either.
Thus the population drinking wine generally tend to be older (and wiser?) than those drinking beer. They are less likely to drink and drive for this very reason (Perrine 1970, 1975), and not on account of the beverage they drink. Berger and Snortum (1985) suggest that the problem is the beer drinker's culture, with the positioning of much beer advertising being one that appeals to gung-ho masculinity. Snortum et al. (1987) discovered that male students declaring a preference for beer regarded themselves as more 'drunk' than did those claiming to prefer wine. It was predicted that this self-concept would lead to an actual likelihood of increased drinking.
Booth (2003) points out that many effects of alcohol on mood and social behaviour are as much to do with the situation in which the drink is consumed as with the direct impact of ethanol on the neural system. He says:
Merriment and perhaps sexual predation are what is expected at parties; personal aggressiveness and vandalism become a norm for soccer fans, and gloom is natural for the lone(ly) drinker. All these effects have been seen in experimental studies, but there tend to be large 'placebo' or expectancy effects, too. It seems that ethanol contributes some disinhibition or incapacitation but a participative spirit achieves the rest.
Diverse social pressures and norms can play an important role in conditioning individuals' approach to drinking. Religion is naturally high on the list (Single et al. 1997) and the reinforcement of standards by family and friends may be more effective than legal and regulatory controls (Heath 1990).
Grivetti (1985) reminds us that young people invariably start off by disliking the avour of alcoholic beverages, including beer. They pass through subsequent stages
of tolerance, acceptance and savouring. Impacting factors are peer impressions and adult mimicry. At rst they stand in bars, saying 'boy, this stuff sure is great', when in fact they nd the avour challenging, to say the least. The same pressures lead to the impression that smoking is mature and socially sophisticated.
There are two possible reactions to such observations. Some would argue that the response should be to scare young people from the 'evils' and educate them so that this mimicry of adults is seen as futile and ill advised. The converse attitude, particularly when armed dispassionately with the facts in support of a very real positive impact of moderate alcohol consumption, is to educate with a more balanced approach. Sure, excessive consumption of alcohol is stupid, detrimental to health and antisocial. Restrained consumption, though, can be a boon. Schools in America teach 'Driver's Ed' to develop good road skills in young people. The person who advocated the banning of the automobile in response to the numerous instances of speeding, accidents (far from all traceable to drunkenness) and atmospheric pollution caused by such machinery would be viewed as eccentric at the very least.
Sutherland and Willner (1998) investigated problems of alcohol, cigarette and illicit drug use in English adolescents. They found that instances of drug use and smoking were lowest in those young people who drank beer or wine, was intermediate in those consuming 'alcopops' (nowadays the terms 'malternative' is in vogue for this type of product) and highest in those who drank spirits.
Schweitz (2001) made some very perceptive observations regarding beer drinking in Sweden. He says that many Swedes have been inculcated with a feeling that even very modest consumption of beverages of relatively low alcohol content (e.g. most beers) is morally wrong. He claims that the unjusti ed reaction of shame and guilt in turn leads to feelings of 'let's do something to feel guilty about', with attendant episodes of binge drinking. Such drinking patterns of over-indulgence separated by lengthy periods of abstinence are more prevalent in Sweden than in other countries. Schweitz also says that the proportionately higher taxation rate (on an alcohol basis) on beer as opposed to stronger products (wine, spirits) encourages people to consume the higher-alcohol products.
There is a strong appreciation that the most acute health and social consequences are most frequently associated with those who indulge in light drinking but then binge (Poikolainen 1995; Stockwell et al. 1996; Grant & Litvak 1998).
Understandably there is great concern from the medical profession in the face of the burgeoning evidence for the bene cial impact on the body of moderate alcohol consumption (which we will address in Chapter 6). To actually recommend that people drink is considered beyond the ethical pale. As W. Castelli, a principal in the famed Framingham Heart Study (see Chapter 6), wrote in 1979, 'With 17 million alcoholics in this country we perhaps have a message for which this country is not yet ready.' And Criqui said in 1997: 'Alcohol is too dangerous to be employed as a pharmacological agent except in highly selected situations.'
How, then, to deal with observations like that of Sesso et al. (2000), who nd that, among men with low alcohol consumption (e.g. one drink per week or less), a subsequent moderate increase in alcohol consumption will lower their risk of cardiovascular disease?
Might I suggest that the sensible approach is to accept that a product such as beer can be a safe, pleasurable and even nutritious component of our diet, properly balanced against all other elements of our daily intake? It is not a medicine to be prescribed by doctors but rather a foodstuff that should be approached within social environs that are mature, considerate and reasonable. As was written in the Wall Street Journal on 13 January 1988:
Drinking tends to be unproblematic when it is a normal, wholesome, enjoyable aspect of everyday life - not an unwholesome, dangerous and mysterious activity to be done in peculiar contexts that are set apart from friends, family and the normal routine of living. Drinking is much like eating, in the salutary view of Italians and many others, a view that contrasts markedly with the special quest for relaxation, relief of psychic stress, delusions of power or escape that prevail in much of Northern Europe and North America.
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