Alcohol

"Jesus had no Problem with Wine or Parties"

It is remarkable how in America, more than on any other continent, a great many people seem preocupied with alcohol. Alcohol is perceived by some as a religious and moral issue. In fact, the perception is so strong, that the whole subject has become highly divisive. Alcohol is a battleground between progressives and conservatives, the target of religious crusades. Of course, that makes it a particularly attractive topic of discussion.

My exposure to the alcohol phobia started almost the very day I set foot in the New World. I ran into a nice middle-aged man, who proposed to help me settle in. We talked for a while and I offered him a beer. His reaction was bizarre; he looked at me as if I had done something terrible, then started a monologue about missionaries in Africa and some relative or other being an alcoholic. I am still not quite sure what he was talking about, but having never met an alcoholic in my life, I found the association a bit far-fetched. Out of politeness, I did not press the issue.

We eventually lost touch. The beer incident contributed, as well as a separate incident involving the Bible. When asked if I read the Bible, I casually mentioned that to my knowledge, in Europe, nobody of my generation felt a particular need to read the Bible, including myself. As far as his efforts to convert me, that was probably the straw that broke his camel's back.

Contrary to popular belief, alcohol is a rather innocent way of having a good time. Nobody dies from drinking too much wine or beer. The only way to kill yourself, is to consume absurd quantities, which shouldn't count because I have no sympathy for absurdity.

Of course, alcohol can make you drunk. That is actually the good thing about it. A little buzz helps many people overcome social inhibitions, which are a really big problem in our modern society. Alcohol loosens people up, it makes them talkative and sociable. Alcohol is the key ingredient to good parties. Alcohol is a true social lubricant. There is no substitute. Just ask some business people how deals are a lot easier after a few drinks.

Because alcohol diminishes inhibitions, it is a good prelude to sex. Just ask some married couples, and find out how many of them would never have met and fallen in love if they had not been slightly under the influence. Just read any woman's magazine. When readers talk about some of their most cherished sexual experiences, the story usually involves some kind of a drunk party...

By now, most people have heard about the French paradox. They could have called it Italian paradox, but someone chose to call it French instead. In a few words, something that had puzzled physicians and scientists for some time, was that despite the fact that the French eat much more foods high in fat and cholesterol and exercise less, they have much less heart disease and heart attacks than their health obsessed American counterparts.

Several theories were advanced, including the fact that the French may drive less and walk more, and the fact that the French enjoy sex better and more often. Of course, those things help, but it became apparent after some time that the real difference was in the red wine many French people drink with every meal, whether they are 15 or 95 years old.

So, prominent American scientists postulated that there were some beneficial nutrients in red wine. Worried religious extremists immediately wrote editorials in the papers, urging pharmaceutical companies to concentrate those nutrients into pills, so people would not have to drink wine in order to maintain their health. The reasoning is rather bizarre. Why would one want to replace something enjoyable by a pill? It would be like inventing a pill that could make a woman pregnant without sexual intercourse.

But then the real news broke. The true beneficial component in red wine, is the ethyl alcohol. In fact, subsequent scientific medical studies involving tens of thousands of subjects on different continents, confirmed beyond a doubt that alcohol is beneficial against heart disease. Actually, it does not even matter where the alcohol comes from. Besides red wine, a good drink of whisky or vodka will do the same job.

Physicians now recommend that middle-aged men consume one to two alcoholic drinks a day. More is actually good for the heart, but may hurt the liver slightly. Women are recommended to take no more than one drink a day, because supposedly there may still be some issues with breast cancer, although a lot of breast cancer research still remains to be done.

Anyway, the reason alcohol was only recommended to middle-aged men is interesting. Alcohol is also good for younger men, but the reasoning is that younger men can exercise more, and therefore they might as well exercise. (The first thing that came to my mind is that it should be even healthier to exercise AND drink two glasses of red wine a day!)

Although presented as a novelty, the whole alcohol discovery is really old news. In the Middle Ages, the European clergy and aristocracy drank wine almost exclusively, simply because wine was safer than water. For one, the alcohol killed some of the minor micro-organisms that could spread disease (nowadays alcohol is used in the better anti-bacterial soaps). Water was only for poor peasants.

It is intuitively clear that wine must be healthy. Wine is 100% pure fruit juice. Actually, there are few substances today subject to as tight a quality control as wine. Beer is similar. At least in Germany, beer only contains 4 natural ingredients: water, barley, hops and yeast. Compare that to some of the junk and chemicals in the most popular soft drinks, and I feel almost ashamed that we let our kids drink those. (Just read the labels on the back of a can; the ingredient I get the biggest kick out is poly-ethylene glycol, commonly known as anti-freeze).

Intuitively again, it is clear why alcoholic beverages taste good. Alcohol traps taste, aroma and smell, which is why it is used in perfumes. Alcohol also dissolves fat and can be used for cleaning. Cholesterol being a particularly sticky kind of fat, it just seems to make sense that alcohol would help dissolve it.

The confusion originates from the concept of getting "high". Apparently, some people associate the hightened social abilities derived from the responsible use of alcohol, with the chemical state of mind obtained through the use of illegal drugs.

A definition of an alcoholic, is someone who consistently drinks in order to get drunk. Someone who cannot function without a drink. Someone who becomes violent or irrational as a result of alcohol. I keep hearing about alcoholics. They must be like ghosts, because I never seem to find one. All of my friends drink, but I don't know of a single one who beats up women.

I like to drink, but I am not an alcoholic. I cannot remember seeing any alcoholics when I was young, back in Italy, either. We all drank wine, but nobody was violent or irrational. I have seen people occasionally getting drunk. I have been drunk occasionally. Most of the time, it was fun, except for a few cases of subsequent stomach upset or morning after migraine. I have probably been irrational a few times while under the influence. But violent? Never!

My view is that alcohol brings out the real self of people. Nice people become nicer, funnier and more talkative after a few too many drinks. Insincere people turn into assholes. Actually, alcohol is a great way to figure people out. "In vino veritas" is the Latin saying (The truth is in the wine). That is why in Europe, few companies would hire someone unless that person had a few glasses of wine over dinner during a job interview.

In most cultures, it is not cool to be drunk. It is an insult to the host to become drunk at a party. It is an annoyance to other guests. Especially when the drunkenness involves stomach sickness. Drinking too much is like over-eating, it implies lack of self-control.

Getting too drunk can also be dangerous. Especially if you are walking on the edge of a cliff or by a busy highway. Even more so when you drive. That is a disadvantage, and it takes a little training to deal with it. Essentially, the trick is to always know when you are about to get drunk. And not to drive if you think you might be. They make it a big deal, but it is really just elementary personal responsibility. In Milan, we drove vespa's. That could be dangerous, so we were careful.

The real problem with alcohol, is that many people seem to have propensity for excess. A few lessons in moderation, early in life, would probably go a much longer way in terms of prevention than a huge bureaucracy based on laws and rules and regulations.

This is the organization that is responsible for a great many laws that have to do with drinking. Their intense lobbying has resulted in drunk driving laws, but also in the raising of the US drinking age to the highest in the non-Islamic world (21).

Besides that, they are still actively trying to pass more laws, like open container laws. These would make it an offense, not only to drink while driving, not only to be under the influence when driving, not only to have someone drinking next to you while you are driving, but simply to have an open alcohol container anywhere in your car. Whether anybody actually drank out of the container, would be irrelevant. Effectively, these laws make the recycling of beer or wine bottles a crime, at least if you decided to take them to a recycling center yourself.

I respect MADD. They are a living proof that when you are well organized, you can get a lot of things done. I even share a belief with MADD: that drunk driving is stupid, and that it can be very dangerous to oneself and to others.