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the manner most of us drink. water.
Workmen often imbibe wine all day
long, without serious social censure
or visible side effects. The hidden
toll is quite serious, however, as the
French lead the world in deaths due
to cirrhosis of the liver (328 deaths
per million people per year), and
have the highest alcoholic rate in
the world - 9.4 percent.
Meanwhile, across the Alps, the
second-highest wine (and total alco–
hol) consumers in the world, the
Italians, drink an average of 111
litres of wine per person per year,
yet amazingly they have the lowest
alcoholism rate in the Western
world, 0.4 percent. Why is there this
vast gap in alcoholism between the
two largest alcohol consuming na–
tions?
Although virtually all Italians
drink alcohol, very few of them
drink outside the borne. Four out of
five (80 percent) drink only at meal–
time and among family members.
Drunkenness is frowned upon by
church and family in Jta ly, whereas
overdrinking is more socially ac–
ceptable (even considered "mascu–
line") in France.
The main inftuence on ltalian
moderation is the powerful family
example. The inftuence of the
Church is not of major importance,
since other strongly Catholic nations
(Ireland and France) have two of
the highest alcoholism rates.
American Alcohol
Attitudes
In the United States, unlike Euro–
pean and Third World societies,
there is no one cultural or religious
tradition goveming alcohol con–
sumption. lnstead, we find a rather
confusing mélange of mores, rang–
ing from the hard-drinking, hard–
living "frontier mentality" to the
Puritan prohibition of the Bible
Belt.
Countless ethnic groups within
the American melting pot behave
radically ditferently in their manner
of initiating children to alcohol. On
one extreme, the Irish American has
an alcoholic rate two or three times
28
the national average, which reftects
the heavy drinking pattern in lre–
land. Other ethnic groups drink as
often, but avoid imbibing alcohol in
any appreciable quantities. In sorne
states, the majority abstain totally.
For instance, a Bible Belt state, such
as AJabama, consumes just one
fourth of the alcohol (per capita)
that Western states such as Nevada
and California consume.
Family Pattern
The key to alcohol education in
America - as in Italy and France -
is the example of the family. Most
alcoholics are the children of alco–
holics, while the children of parents
who drink in moderation have
only
a 2 percent chance of becoming al–
coholics.
If the parents are strict abstainers,
however, their children's chances of
alcoholism lie somewhere between 2
and 25 percent. If the children of
abstainers don' t thernselves abstain,
they tend to drink secretly, furtively,
rebelliously, and more intemper–
ately thao chi ldren who are taught
the right example of moderation.
Abstainers have a hard time resist–
ing a drink in such a heavily drink–
ing society, unless they are armed
with home training in examples of
moderation.
In the wake of the latest wave of
youth drinking (74 perceot of all
high school students drank alcohol
in 1972, compared with only 39 per–
cent in 1969), many parents have
severely punished their children for
drinking before age 18; or they have
ignored the "OK addiction," thank–
ful that their children were not on
marijuana or harder drugs. Either
extreme is wrong. Instead, these
parents should have considered in–
troducing the moderate use of wine,
beer, and other "softer'' liquor in
the borne environment.
Most teen-agers sip their first al–
coholic drink in secret, with friends,
and in an atmosphere of defying
authority, showing off, playing
"adult," or revelling in their forbid–
den fruit.
If
parents had introduced
alcohol at home, these teen-agers
(like the children of ltalians and
Jews) would likely
never
drink to
excess outside the home. The ex–
ample of the Jewish Americans sup–
ports this approach.
The Jewish Example
Jewish Americans have the high–
es t percentage of drinkers in the
United States, but the lowest per–
centage of alcoholism. In New York
City, there are more Jews than in
the nation of Israel, yet they com–
prise less than one percent of that
city's alcoholics.
Drinking is a lmost universal
among the Jews, starting ceremo–
nially, for males, on the eighth day
of life (circumcision) when wine is
touched to the baby's lips. The habit
of drinking continues on every
weekly Sabbath, the holy days, wed–
dings, funerals, and numerous other
social and ceremonial occasions.
Moderate drinking is virtually man–
datory.
This formula has all but elimi–
nated alcoholism from among the
Orthodox Jewish population. Where
did the Jews develop their "winning
game" for avoiding alcoholism?
From the Bible - the Orthodox
Jew regulates his life by a strict
reading of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Isn't it strange that sorne churches
have misread the same book to the
extent of forbidding any and all use
of alcohol? The Jews observe the
literal commands of the Old Testa–
ment to drink wine. But professing
Christians have ignored the New
(and Old) Testament verses which
prove that Jesus drank wine, Paul
advocated the moderate use ofwine,
and David claimed that wine
"cheered the heart of God and
man."
This Protestant ignorance of the
Bible even led to 15 years of cata–
strophic Prohibition in the United
States (1919-1933), in the
name
of
the Bible! Of course it is no sin to
abstain, but it is definitely wrong to
use God's name to enforce absti–
nence on those families who can
drink modera tely and wisely
together.
o
PLAIN TRUTH October-November 1974