Getting Wetter?

There are signs of a healthy shift away from hostility toward alcohol in the United States.

Stanton Peele from the April 1996 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

This cultural difference reflects a larger battle in American alcoholism treatment. For many years, behavioral psychologists have claimed considerable success in teaching problem drinkers to reduce their intake. A.A. members and others who subscribe to the medical model of alcoholism, including the staffs of innumerable private treatment centers, insisted that this was impossible. But in 1992, the World Health Organization announced the results of an international study of "brief interventions" in both developed and Third World countries. Brief interventions are carried out in a general health care setting, rather than at alcohol treatment centers. A physician or other health care worker inquires about a patient's level of drinking, then informs heavy drinkers about healthy levels of drinking. In subsequent visits, the doctor asks about the patient's progress in reducing his or her drinking. The WHO study found that brief interventions are substantially more effective than standard alcoholism treatment of the kind practiced in the United States. They reach more drinkers with less folderol, and they avoid the conflicts associated with reformers-cum-therapists accusing heavy drinkers of being alcoholics in denial.

Despite these promising results and some success at offering controlled drinking as an alternative in pilot programs at several American universities, the U.S. alcoholism treatment industry is not likely to wither away any time soon. For the foreseeable future, recovering alcoholics and expensive private hospitals will continue to hold sway over how Americans deal with problem drinkers.

Another manifestation of temperance-movement thinking is the advice given to women about drinking during pregnancy. Predictably, the 1995 U.S. dietary guidelines confirm the instruction that appears on every bottle of beer, wine, and liquor: "According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects."

Americans started hearing about the dangers of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) beginning in the 1980s. But subsequent investigations have revealed that FAS is exceedingly rare, even among alcoholic women. In 1995, Ernest Abel, a pioneering FAS researcher at Wright State University, performed a meta-analysis of 59 studies in various countries that looked at the relationship between maternal drinking and birth weight. Not only was there no evidence that light drinking harmed the fetus, but mothers who consumed up to one drink per day actually had heavier babies than mothers who abstained. (However, pregnant women who average two drinks a day tend to have lighter babies.) Those findings led Abel to question the wisdom of public health efforts to discourage all women from drinking during pregnancy. Once again, the evidence does not support an official U.S. health proclamation about alcohol.

American attitudes toward alcohol are aberrant even when compared to those of cultures, such as Britain and Scandinavia, that share elements of the temperance tradition. Consider: Among the NATO soldiers in Bosnia, only the Americans are forbidden to drink. According to TheNew York Times, "the Norwegian soldiers here can drink in moderation, as can the French, the Danes, and the British." Apparently, other nations accept the logic that adults who are allowed to fly large aircraft and fire heavy artillery can also be trusted to consume alcohol moderately. We do not. But then, the Danes, French, British, and Norwegians have never enacted national prohibition.

Comments

discount|3.27.10 @ 5:53AM|#

Thank you very much for posting Look very interesting. Discount Cordless Screwdriver: Keurig Coffee Maker Shop

nfl jerseys|11.16.10 @ 9:51PM|#

tdghfrg

قبلة الوداع|8.16.11 @ 10:51PM|#

ThaNk U