Booze Hounds

The Founders loved their booze:

Indeed, we still have available the bar tab from a 1787 farewell party in Philadelphia for George Washington just days before the framers signed off on the Constitution. According to the bill preserved from the evening, the 55 attendees drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, eight of whiskey, 22 of porter, eight of hard cider, 12 of beer, and seven bowls of alcoholic punch.

Impressive, even by my standards. Years later the teetotalers, Protestant fundamentalists, (the Founders were almost exclusively deists with a few agnostics in the mix), and Prohibitionists came along to rewrite history in their image. The result is a society which by and large views drinking as evil -- never mind that LAWD JEEBUS himself indulged.

Here’s the story: a way of thinking about addiction has grown up in the United States based on our temperance history. It is furthered by our modern “brain revolution,” supposedly steeped in the biology of behavior and reinforced by an economic juggernaut, that purports to find in neuroscience a full and tidy explanation for addictive behavior. Unfortunately, these cultural beliefs bear little resemblance to the reality of addiction and are not just unhelpful—but detrimental—to people who develop addictions. This is because both the 12 steps and the “new” neuroscience strive to convince you that you are an addict and will always remain an addict, which, by and large, isn’t true. And if you dispute any part of this story, you are in denial, proof positive of everything they say.

Alcoholics Anonymous is a religious cult and always has been. It was created by fundamentalist Prohibitionists, so it can hardly be anything else. Like all extremist movements, they took temperance to... well, extremes. Is too much booze bad for you? Of course it is, but so is too much groupthink.


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Hat-tip to Jeff W.