Alcoholism or Alcohol Abuse?

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Alcoholics Anonymous is perhaps the most famous and popular way for those with drinking problems to combat their addiction. The organization has become so successful the term “go to meetings” and the abbreviation “AA” have also entered the lexicon as terms to describe treatment to addiction. While widespread and available treatment is normal in modern times it was not always the case.

Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in the mid-1930s. At that time is was still taboo to call drinking a disease or for people from important families to admit that they had a drinking problem. The rise of the modern alcoholism movement began in the 1940s. A centralized leadership was finally established to enact standards for treating alcoholism and to increase the general public’s awareness and understanding of the disease.

The National Committee for Education on Alcoholism provided the leadership to modernize alcohol treatment. One of the first issues that movement leaders E.M. Jellinek faced was creating an understanding of exactly what constituted alcohol abuse. It was a difficult subject to tackle because the effects of consumption depended on the individual. But by the 1960s the movement was having an identity crisis because the term alcoholic had as many as 200 different definitions. In 1957 the World Health Organization had already suggested that alcoholism had lost its clinical specificity. It urged that diagnosis of alcohol problems include terms such as alcohol addiction or alcohol habituation.

The World Health Organization findings were debated during a five-year study that was carried out by the Cooperative Commission on the Study of Alcoholism. They added the phrase problem drinker to the plethora of ways to describe alcohol abuse.

Fretting over the phrasing was part of the movement to gain a wider acceptance for the treatment of alcohol addiction. The labeling of the disease was also complicated by new discovers that wiped out previous thoughts on how and why individuals become addicted. As health professionals attempted to define alcoholism in modern terms it became clear that substance abuse and addiction involved defining a subset of personality disorders and neuroses.

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Father of Alcohol Treatment

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Perhaps the most important person in getting American alcoholics to admit that they have a problem was Benjamin Rush. Rush is often a forgotten name when looking back at the colonial period of American history, but Rush was a famous person to the Founding Fathers of the United States.

In fact, Rush could be considered a founding father. He was a member of the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence, and was the physician-general for General George Washington’s Continental Army. Rush was Princeton educated and on the staff at the Philadelphia College of Physicians.

He was America’s doctor of that era. He was the past day Dr. Oz, and Rush was likely to be sought out if an important medical debate was happening in the colonies. While Rush was qualified to be sought out as an authority on alcohol abuse, he was also a motivated advocate in the field of alcohol treatments. Rush had a difficult relationship with his father. His parents were divorced, and it is believed that his father’s drinking was a major reason why. After his parent’s divorce his mother married a distiller who abused her.

Rush also witnessed alcohol abuse firsthand during his involvement with the Continental Army. It is also the first known time he tried to do something about controlling widespread alcohol abuse. Rush distributed a pamphlet to the soldiers of the army that condemned drinking and distributed the paper to the entire army. His career to raise the public’s awareness of alcohol was launched.

Rush continued his fight after the end of the American Revolution. He published a paper titled, “An Enquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors Upon the Human Body, and Their Influence Upon the Happiness of Society” The 36-page manifesto was the most influential anti-alcohol work of its day. But its ultimate importance was in creating a starting point. Rush was able to define alcohol as a disease, which trumped his lack of scientific research into the field. The seeds had be planted and a movement grew to understand and prevent alcoholism from damaging society.

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Temperance Movement

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There was little for anti-alcohol advocates to go on at the dawn of the 19th century, and dedicated teetotalers would have their work cut out for them as the United States entered its infancy.

From 1790 to 1830 the United States went on a bender that would be unparalleled in its history. The United States would become a land of opportunity, if that opportunity was to become blitzed. In 1792 the average American drank 2.5 gallons of alcohol pure year. The annual amount had gone up to 4.5 gallons by 1810. And by 1830 the amount had risen to an astonishing 7.1 gallons per person. Problems of public drunkenness and disorderly conduct were regular occurrences. The nation also had an epidemic of alcohol fueled abuse inside the home.

The young republican had become a victim of its own success. There was relative economic prosperity, an as a result there was more disposable income and more selections to drink. Not all the changes were positive. With rising levels of alcohol abuse, the town tavern had gone from a center of culture to a place that was becoming associated with crime, violence and vice.

The growing problem was soon paired with a possible solution. The problem had become so bad that major figures such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin were asked about their views on alcohol. The American Temperance Movement was conceived during this era of heavy alcohol consumption. Dr. Bill Clark founded the Union Temperance Society in Moreau, New York in 1808. From this early movement a model was established and soon temperance groups were being founded throughout the country.

Temperance became a religious issue as Methodists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists made abstaining from alcohol an important part of faith in may congregations. The temperance movement’s initial goal was reflected its names. Tempering the amount of excessive drinking and replacing it was a more responsible level of consumption. As the movement grew so did the goals. America had a religious war on its hands, and one side was against the use of any alcohol.

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Alcohol Consumption and the Noble Experiment

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Alcohol is poison to humans that works to slowly poison then. The immediate effects cause what is known as drunkenness, when excessive amount of alcohol has entered the bloodstream. But the long term effects can include heart or liver failure. Yet despite knowledge of the effects of alcohol, drinking remains a popular past time in the United States and around most of the world.

Part of the reason that alcohol remains part of the culture is that it is addictive both physically and mentally. The bodies of regular drinker crave the substance, and the cravings can be multiplied by conditioning. For example if a person drinks to get over a stressful situation, any stress could trigger a drinking episode.

While every society that drinks must deal with the negative effects of alcohol consumption, the negatives today are not nearly as bad as they once were. Alcoholism was once so widespread in the United States that it inspired a movement to completely ban consumption. Alcohol was considered the venom of man, and by some in religious circles as too dangerous for anyone to become involved with.

There was good reason to fear the effects of drinking in 19th century America. Crime rates soured on holidays when saloons poured freely. Women who had limited rights in the court systems of the day were also frequent victims of husbands or other men who had allowed alcohol to get the best of them.

Their were numerous anti-saloon leagues that had formed and united to become a political force in the United States. They had grown so powerful at one point that anti-drinking advocates proposed exiling drinkers to remote islands. While this proposal did not gain much political traction, the United States engaged in a great social experiment by passing the 18th Amendment. After Jan. 18, 1920 it was illegal to purchase or consume alcohol in the United States. The government hoped to save addicts from themselves. A great question would be asked and answered: can governments justly enforce morality? The Noble Experience was underway.

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Prohibtion to Fight Addiction

Addiction
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Governments have long tried and continue to attempt to control alcohol addiction from a macro level by banning alcohol. The bans are most effective in controlled economies where the punishment for breaking the law is harsh. Alcohol is difficult to acquire in Muslim nations such as Iran or Saudi Arabia, but even in these nations there have been reports of a black market for alcohol.

When the United States launched its own Noble Experiment, banning alcohol with the 18th Amendment, the nation did not have the nearly unlimited police powers enjoyed by enforcement agencies in nondemocratic states. When Prohibition was launched in the United States the police still had to follow procedures, while enforcing a law that was unpopular and ignored by a large percentage of the population.

The story of Prohibition has been often told in popular culture. Al Capone and the Untouchables make for great drama, but for all that was made about organized crime there were some benefits to Prohibition. Studies show that banning alcohol had a positive effect on public health. There were declines in alcohol consumption, alcohol related accidental deaths, cirrhosis of the liver and crime related to alcohol consumption. Divorce rates also went down. While the immediate impact had positive effects, by 1930 the rates were creeping back up toward pre-Prohibition levels.

As the positives flagged, the negatives grew. The court system struggled to deal with the amount of alcohol related cases it received. The minor infractions caused a dilemma of how to handle people just looking for a drink. Organized gangs became powerful forces that were past the ability of local law enforcement to keep in check.

And after the levels of consumption rose to pre-ban levels a serious health risk was revealed. Without the government mandating and monitoring health and safety standards, the bath tub whiskey people consumed caused damaging effects to drinkers. The anti-Prohibition crowd soon swelled. Alcohol addiction was to remain a problem in the United States, but fighting it with an all out ban proved to be more costly that the drain of combating the disease in other ways.

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