HISTORY AND CULTURAL USE OF ALCOHOL

Alcohol is a classic depressant of the central nervous system. In small amounts, alcohol can cause an apparent stimulation in some people.

This results from unrestrained activity on various parts of the brain that have been freed from inhibition as a result of the depression of inhibitory control mechanisms.

Alcohol exerts its first depressant action upon the cortex and reticular activating system.

As a result, various thought processes become jumbled, and smooth operation of movement becomes disrupted. Then finer grades of memory, concentration, and insight are dulled and lost as the blood alcohol concentration is increased.

Throughout history, most culture have used alcohol in one form or another.

Alcoholic beverages were probably discovered accidentally when mixtures of crushed fruits or honey were left exposed in a warm atmosphere to airborne yeasts that converted the natural sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide by fermentation.

The making of wines and beers has been reported from hundreds of preliterate societies, and these beverages were used for religious ceremonies, celebrations, and the treatment of illnesses.

The oldest known code of laws, that of Hammurabi of Babylon (in about 1770 B.C.), regulated drinking establishments, and Sumerian physicians prescribed beer in 2100 B.C.

Egyptian doctors in about 1500 B.C. included beer and wine in some of their prescriptions.

References to the drinking and the making of wine are found in abundance in the Old Testament of the Bible and in writings of other societies.

Alcohol was used copiously in the Greek and Roman civilizations, by the gods in myth and legend as well as by the people of all classes.

Wines fermented from rices were widely used by Oriental cultures, and the Arabs first distilled alcohol in about A.D. 500-. All of these cultures, however, gave warning of the harmful effects of excessive drinking.

In Europe, during the Middle Ages when the water supply was often polluted, beer and wine were commonly drunk in place of water. Although many church leaders denounced drunkenness, they seldom criticized the daily use of wine and beer, as they were considered a necessity for maintaining good health.

This attitude was brought to North America by the early settlers, and the use of beer and wine was common among the Pilgrims. However, severe penalties were imposed for drunkenness.

In New England the production of rum became an important business, and the trade of rum, molasses, and slaves flourished for many years in the colonies.

As the early American settlers pushed farther West, whiskey making became common as the pioneers found it easier to transport whiskey made from corn than bulky containers of wine and beer.

During the frontier days, a number of people became concerned about the heavy drinking of the pioneers and began to question the health-giving qualities of rum, gin, and whiskey.

Church leaders began to plead for temperance, which meant moderate and responsible use of alcohol.

But later these leaders urged people not to drink at all and started lobbying for laws against drinking, as they felt that alcohol caused too many social problems. Among the most militant of the temperance groups was the Women's Christian Temperance Union, which was part of the second social reform or clean living movement.

They launched an intensive educational program and began to support or reject candidates for election based on their attitudes on drinking. In 1919 the movement gained enough momentum to cause the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, which forbade the production, sale, and distribution of alcoholic beverages in the United States.

This law produced great social problems, as many individuals, particularly Italian and German immigrants, believed that it took away their individual freedoms. These immigrants also saw nothing morally wrong with their traditional use of beer and wine and decided that if they could not buy these beverages legally, they would make them themselves or obtain them illegally.

Bootlegging became a profitable business, and underworld gangs fought and killed each other to gain control of various territories to sell bootleg liquor. At the same time, the price of alcohol went up and the purity of distilled beverages went down. In the early 1930s, the flaunting of the law by many otherwise law-abiding citizens and the halfhearted program of enforcement of prohibition laws sparked the movement for and eventual repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment.

Prohibition of substances that are part of a culture rarely works.

During the later 1970s and early 1980s, a mass movement - on a national level in the United States - to increase the legal drinking age to 21 years of age began to gain momentum as a preventive measure for drunk driving accidents. In 1985, Congress passed a law that would ban federal highway funds to states that permit drinking by persons under 21 by 1987.

Most states have increased their drinking ages (some after initially, in the 1970s, decreasing them), as there appeared to be some evidence of increased alcohol-related automobile accidents among teenage youth when the drinking ages had been reduced.

Although per capita consumption has decreased since 1980, problems related to alcohol consumption have risen with the exception of drinking and driving behavior.

Alcohol beverages are now consumed by about 70 percent of all American adults and by about 80 percent of all college students. On a per capita basis, Americans consume about 8.7 liters of ethanol per year.

Canadians consume a slightly higher among - approximately 10.8 liters per person per year - while 73 percent of Canadians over 18 years of age drink occasionally. In other English-speaking countries over 90 percent of university-age students drink.

About 30 percent of North Americans do not drink because of religious convictions, illness, the adverse effects of alcohol, because they are recovering alcoholics, or because they do not like the taste. In some communities there is still controversy as to the "morality" of drinking.

However, for the most part, North Americans are alcohol users, and alcohol is our most frequently used mind-altering drug, with the exception of caffeine.

Manufacturing

Alcohol (ethanol) in beverages basically comes in three forms: wines, beers, and distilled beverages. Wines are made from fermenting the juices of a variety of fruits, honey, and some grains such as rice.

Beers are made by fermenting more complex sugars such as grains, hops, corn, and potatoes after the starch has been broken down by such substances as malts. Distilled spirits such as gin and whiskey are made by distilling the alcohol from the wines and/or beers.

Fortified wines such as sherry and port are wines in which some distilled alcohol has been added. Liqueurs (cordials) are made in a similar way, with the addition of sugar and spices to give them a thick and syrupy consistency.

Most beers in North America contain from 2 to 6 percent alcohol by volume; wines contain from 12 to 21 percent alcohol by volume; and distilled spirits contain 40 to 50 percent alcohol by volume.

Proof is designed as twice the percentage of alcohol by volume. There is approximately the same amount of alcohol in the average twelve-ounce bottle of beer, five-ounce glass of wine, and shot of whiskey - a little less than three quarters of an ounce of ethanol.

In the process of fermentation and distillation, small amounts of substances such as ketones, aldehydes, and acids are formed. These chemicals are called congeners, and their presence causes the characteristic taste and odor of a particular distilled beverage.

Alcohol is sometimes considered a food, and each gram of pure alcohol contains seven calories. However, these are often called "empty calories," as they contain no other nutrients.

A half ounce of alcohol contains about 100 calories, but the various sugars found in most drinks, especially beer and wine, give higher calories to each average-sized drink.

A bottle of beer (twelve ounces) contains about 170 calories, two ounces of whiskey contain approximately 140 calories, and eight ounces of wine contain about 270 calories.

Cultural Use

Recreational. The drinking of alcoholic beverages is considered customary in many social situations today.

About 85 percent of all North Americans who drink do so without any harmful effects to themselves, their families, or society.

As in the past, drinking is done to celebrate social occasions such as parties with friends, births, weddings, and family get-togethers, and with meals.

Alcohol beverages are used for political occasions such as state functions and the making of war or peace, and the use of alcohol is common during and after recreational activities such as bowling, skiing, and golf and while watching sports events.

At present, beer is the most popular drink among both adults and university students, with distilled spirits coming in a close second, followed by wines.

Wines tend to be drunk with meals or in the form of sherry as a before-dinner drink and in the form of port as an after-dinner drink. Beer tends to be drunk at sports events and at out-of-door gatherings or when meeting friends at a corner tavern.

Beer is also popular with pizza and other informal foods. Distilled spirits are popular at the cocktail hour, when visiting friends, before diner, and at adult parties. University students tend to drink beer more than any other alcoholic beverage on most occasions.

Medicinal. Alcohol in one form or another has long been used as a medicine. It was used in surgery, in childbirth, and as an anesthetic in ancient times. Whiskey was popular for curing colds and treating snake bites, although it helps neither of these conditions.

Wine was thought to build up the blood, and brandy was used to relieve fainting. Any alcoholic beverage was used to treat sleeplessness and over excitement, and many spirits were used to clean wounds and were added to various cure-all tonics during the latter part of the nineteenth century.

A drink was, and often still is, prescribed to stimulate sluggish appetites, as a sedative to induce sleep, as a vasodilator in arteriosclerosis, and to relieve the vague aches and pains that beset the elderly.

Women used to drink to relieve premenstrual tension and cramping from menstruation. Many research reports have found a correlation between one or two drinks a day and decreased heart disease and increased longevity.

Alcohol today, with the exception of use for the elderly, is rarely prescribed. It is, however, found in many over-the-counter medicines, especially in sleep aids, mouthwashes, and cough syrups.

Religious. Perhaps one of the earliest uses for alcohol was in religious ceremonies. In Greco-Roman culture, the cults of Dionysus or Bacchus, the wine god, were the most popular. Red wine, symbolizing the blood of life, ultimately passed from these religious customs into Christianity.

The records of Egyptian and other Middle Eastern civilizations show that drinking went from almost exclusive use for religious ritual to common practice for social occasions.

The early Hebrews drank wine for various rites of passage such as circumcision, marriage, death, religious holidays, and the weekly Sabbath.

Other religious groups, however, developed abstinence beliefs as part of their religious practice. In Arabia the followers of Muhammad and in China the followers of Buddha forbade the consumption of all alcoholic beverages.

Abstinence sects developed after the Reformation, and in the United States the religious temperance movement became popular at the beginning of the twentieth century.