Yesterday I took a poetical look at alcohol. Today I am going philosophical. My starting point was going to be “I drink therefore I am”. This turns out to be a book on wine by the philosopher Roger Scruton – I drink therefore I am: A Philosopher’s Guide to Wine. The original phrase is attributed to W. C. Fields. In Latin it is Bibo Ergo Sum. Pipped at the post again! Never mind…
Ancient Greece and Rome are the places to go for a good dose of philosophy. And fortunately, according to Ye Ancient Trip Advisor, they also had an abundance of beer and wine. A major concern of early philosophers was how humans should conduct their lives. There were conflicting schools of thought about, for example, the roles of courage, virtue and pleasure. At one end of the spectrum was Diogenes living a life of poverty in his ceramic wine jar and the exhortations of others to get maximum pleasure from life. The name of the beer shown in the title image is a slang term meaning something along the lines of enjoying great pleasure. Proponents of this view were the Hedonists, who believed that pleasure should be the highest good and proper aim of human life. The party-poopers were the followers of Ascetism who believed that the way forward was abstinence from worldly pleasure. The Stoics were somewhere in between – they advocated drinking but not to the point of drunkenness. Their 40th birthday parties were quite staid affairs, so nobody stayed.
Aristotle seemed to steer a middle course. He valued the pleasure that could come from wine and beer, but advised moderation. Plato believed that 18 was the youngest age you should start drinking but not until the age of 40 should you get drunk – after then, just go for it! There must have been some wild 40th birthday parties back then. He noted…
Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to man.
The other side of the denarius was noted by Lucretius when he wrote of wine that it…
…disturbs the soul, debilitates the body, and provokes quarrels.
The negative physical, mental and social consequences of excessive alcohol consumption have been well documented and explain why in most cultures its production and use is controlled by laws. Islam strictly forbids the use of alcohol because of its harmful consequences, but Muslims have drunk alcohol throughout history. Rudi Matthee explores these paradoxes in his book Angels Tapping at the Wine-Shop’s Door: A history of alcohol in the Islamic World (2023). Wine of course play an important role in Christianity, symbolising the blood of Christ in communion.
From the above, it seems clear that morality and religion shape the way we view psychoactive substances. Every culture has its prescribed (in the wider sense of the word – sanctioned and accepted) drugs and its proscribed drugs. In Islam there was widespread use of opium. In England, opium and laudanum (a mixture of opium and alcohol) were commonly used – see Victorian Drug Use for an interesting description. Mescaline, an hallucinogen from the peyote cactus, plays a role in the religious ceremonies of North American Natives.
From ethics and morality, we now turn to semantics. I have consistently used the term use of alcohol. This is a neutral description of behaviour. Other descriptors include misuse and abuse. These terms carry a judgment about the behaviour. Our understanding of addiction has moved over the years from seeing it in terms of moral failings, of personal weakness or debauchery, to our understanding of it in terms of illness. This has been a very positive shift, suddenly being able to frame help as “treatment” within a medical model. It paved the way for substitute prescribing in opiate addiction and the development of improved treatment for severe alcohol problems.
But I do not believe it is a complete switch of polarity. There are still many people who view those with drug and alcohol problems (or those who are obese because of eating disorders) as being personally responsible for their problems. Maybe that is the wrong terminology – there is clearly a degree of responsibility for their behaviour and their attempts to recover, but no-one chooses to become addicted. The problems do not arise in a vacuum, they arise because of a complex mix of factors such as genetics, early environment, life events, trauma, and co-existing physical and/or mental health problems. Substance use is purposeful in the beginning – for mood management, for acceptance by peers, to escape a horrible reality, to communicate loss, distress, alienation, for excitement and on and on. In time, the reasons for starting become overtaken by the reasons to keep going – part of lifestyle and identity, coping with tolerance, dealing with negative consequences – i.e., getting stuck in a vicious circle. Blame is uncompassionate and unhelpful.
Moral outrage can be seen in relation to drinks such as Absinthe, White Lightning, Carlsberg Special Brew and Buckfast Tonic Wine – as we saw in earlier posts. The problems are not with the specific drinks, more with the aspects of society that lead to heavy drinking (social deprivation, loss of opportunities, poverty – throughout history, it has been the disadvantaged in society who carry the heaviest costs of addiction). Such outrage need not be all bad though. The hell of Gin Lane led to controls on the production of gin, concern about widespread opium use in late Victorian times led to stricter controls on drugs. This feeds into the debate about legalisation of drugs, but that will be for another day.
It was also of course moral concerns that led to the development of temperance societies and teetotalism in the early to mid-nineteenth century. The former preached moderation in the use of alcohol while the latter championed total abstinence. I use the term “preached” advisedly because many religious groups were involved in these movements. In fact, The Church of Latter Day Saints arose from this background, advocating total abstinence. It is said that the term teetotal arose from the practice of putting a capital T by the names of people who had pledged total abstinence. It has nothing to do with tea. While doing my research for this post, one of the questions I found on the search engine (OK, let’s name the beast, I’m an inveterate Googler) was “Can teetotallers drink tea?”
Well, this January teetotaller is just about ready for his cup of tea now. Until the last post tomorrow, keep safe and well.
Alcohol Trivia Quiz
Yesterday’s questions:
1. The Rover’s Return.
2. Brendan Behan
3. To protect from the damaging effects of UV light.
Today’s questions:
1. What is “lightstruck beer”?
2. Who said “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you”.
3. What is veisalgia?
Understand Yourself Better 