... I lack.

That moistly energy, the hungry eyes, the imperceptible tilt of bodies lusting, that magnetism. I do not have it. I do not know the frequency of the silent broadcasts of sexuality. My face is handsome in a man-child way. My features broad but quite agreeable. Sometimes I am rich and powerful or famous. Women are curious.

Until a few years back, I was able to disguise my illness. I mimicked the behaviours, the intricate messages, the subtle bodily perfumes, the long and longing looks. But now I can't. I am exhausted. These rites of procreation drain me of the energy I need so abundantly in my pursuit of my supply. Freud called it sublimation. I am a prolific author. My seeds are verbal. My passion is abstract. I rarely fuck.

In women, I induce confusion. They are attracted, then repelled by something they cannot explain, nor name. "He is so unpleasant" - they say, hesitantly - "He is so... violent... and so... disagreeable". They mean to say I am not a healthy person altogether. The animals we are, they sense my illness. I read somewhere that female birds avoid the sickly males in mating season. I am one sickly bird and they avoid me with the hurt perplexity of the frustrated. In this modern world of "what you see is what you get", the narcissist is an exception. A packaged deception, a diversion, a virtual reality with awry programming.

Not long ago, I was still able to control myself, to hide my vile thoughts, to play the social game, to mimetically engage in human intercourse. I can no longer. I am the denuded narcissist - bereft of old defenses. This transparency is the ultimate - and psychopathic - act of sheer contempt. People are not even worth maintaining my defences anymore. This frightens women. They sense the danger. Psychic annihilation is often irresistible, the brinkmanship of self-destruction luring. That evil is aesthetic we all know. But it is also so alien, like waking from a nightmare into its continuation in reality.

But I am not an evil man, I am simply indifferent and wish not to be bothered. This schizoid streak conflicts with my narcissism and with my virility. The narcissist devours people, consumes their output, and casts the empty, writhing shells aside. The schizoid avoids them at all costs. As a man, I am very much attracted to the opposite sex. I am imaginative in my fantasies and prone to sexual abandon. But to a schizoid, women are nuisance and annoyance. Obtaining voluntary sex requires too much effort and waste of scarce resources.

Most narcissists go through schizoid phases in their inexorable orbits of gloom and mania. Sometimes the schizoid prevails. A narcissist that is also a schizoid is an unnatural hybrid, a chimera, a shattered personality. The push and pull, the approach and the avoidance, the compulsive search for the drugs that only humans can provide and the no less compulsive urge to avoid them altogether... it is a sorry sight. The narcissist shrivels and withers as the battle is prolonged. He becomes almost psychotic at the tug of war inside him. Alienated even from his False Self by his schizoid disorder, such a narcissist is turned into a gaping black hole, out to suck the vitality of those around him.

So, you see, that thing between a woman and a man - I lack it.

 

---

---

next: Malignant Optimism of the Abused: Prey for the Narcissist

I am cursed with mental X-ray vision. I see through people's emotional shields, their petty lies, their pitiable defences, their grandiose fantasies. I know when they deviate from the truth and by how much. I intuitively grasp their self-interested goals and accurately predict the strategy and tactics they will adopt in order to achieve them.

I cannot stand self-important, self-inflated, pompous, bigoted, self-righteous, and hypocritical people. I rage at the inefficient, the lazy, the hapless and the weak.

Perhaps this is because I recognize myself in them. I try to break the painful reflection of my own flaws in theirs.

I home in on the chinks in their laboriously constructed armours. I spot their Achilles hill and attach to it. I prick the gasbags that most people are. I deflate them. I force them to confront their finiteness and helplessness and mediocrity. I negate their sense of uniqueness. I reduce them to proportion and provide them with a perspective. I do so cruelly and abrasively and sadistically and lethally efficiently. I have no compassion. And I prey on their vulnerabilities, however microscopic, however well-concealed.

I expose their double-talk and deride their double standards. I refuse to play their games of prestige and status and hierarchy. I draw them out of their shelters. I destabilize them. I deconstruct their narratives, their myths, their superstitions, their hidden assumptions, their polluted language. I call a spade a spade.

I force them to react and, by reacting, to confront their true, dilapidated selves, their dead end careers, their mundane lives, the death of their hopes and wishes and their shattered dreams. And, all that time, I observe them with the passionate hatred of the outcast and the dispossessed.

The truths about them, the ones they are trying so desperately to conceal, especially from themselves. The facts denied, so ugly and uncomfortable. Those things that never get mentioned in proper company, the politically incorrect, the personally hurtful, the dark, ignored, and hidden secrets, the tumbling skeletons, the taboos, the fears, the atavistic urges, the pretensions, the social lies, the distorted narratives of life - piercing, bloodied and ruthless - these are my revenge, the settling of scores, the leveling of the battlefield.

I lance them - the high and mighty and successful and the happy people, those who possess what I deserve and never had, the object of my green eyed monsters. I inconvenience them, I make them think, reflect on their own misery and wallow in its rancid outcomes. I coerce them to confront their zombie state, their own sadism, their unforgivable deeds and unforgettable omissions. I dredge the sewer that is their mind, forcing to the surface long repressed emotions, oft suppressed pains, their nightmares and their fears.

And I pretend to do so selflessly, "for their own good". I preach and hector and pour forth vitriolic diatribes and expose and impose and writhe and foam in the proverbial mouth - all for the greater good. I am so righteous, so true, so geared to help, so meritorious. My motives are unassailable. I am always so chillingly reasoned, so algorithmically precise. I am a frozen wrath. I play their alien game by their very own rules. But I am so foreign to them, that I am unbeatable. Only they do not realize it yet.

---

---

next: The Ghost in the Machine

Thoughtful quotes about miracles.

Words of Wisdom

"Miracle is simply the wonder of the unique that points us back to the wonder of everyday." (Maurice Friedman)

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." (Albert Einstein)

"A miracle is a shift in perception." (A course in Miracles)

"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits." (Thomas Edison)

---

continue story below

---

next:Nature

Find out about drug testing, how drugs are detected and the accuracy of drug tests.

What is drug testing?

Drug testing is a way to evaluate the type and possibly the amount of legal or illegal drugs taken by a person.

How is a drug test performed?

Drug testing can be performed from small samples taken of your fingernails, saliva, or more commonly, your blood, urine, or hair. For a blood sample, a small amount of blood is taken from a vein in your arm or hand and is then sent to the laboratory for analysis. For a urine sample, you will be asked to urinate into a clean container provided to you. In some instances, you may need to provide your urine sample in the presence of a nurse or technician to make sure that the sample did indeed come from you. For a hair sample, a few strands of hair taken from your head are sent to the laboratory for analysis.

How accurate are these drug tests?

Drug testing is extremely accurate and reliable when all aspects of the testing process are done properly.

What is the purpose of a drug test?

This test is commonly used to check for illegal drug use by employees (before an offer of employment is made and randomly at any time after hire). A drug test can also be used to evaluate possible accidental or intentional overdose or poisonings, to monitor compliance with a drug rehabilitation program, and to determine the presence or absence of drugs for medical and or legal purposes.

If the test is used as a drug screen, all prescription drugs can be detected as well as illegal drugs and alcohol. Some of the most commonly tested for chemicals include:

• Cocaine
• Amphetamines
• Heroin
• Morphine
• Phencyclidine (PCP) (also known as angel dust)
• Alcohol
• Benzodiazepines
• Hydromorphone
• Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) (the active ingredient in marijuana)
• Propoxyphene
• Methadone
• Codeine
• Barbiturates
• Antidepressants

How should I prepare for a drug test?

No special preparations are necessary. Drug testing is often performed as an emergency test, on a random basis, or can be a scheduled test (for example, to meet ongoing employment requirements). Depending on the circumstances of the testing, you may be asked to identify medications or supplements that you are taking. You should bring in your prescription bottles for documentation.

Are drug testing home kits available?

Yes. There are kits that can test urine and hair samples in the privacy of your own home. The accuracy of some of these products is variable. They generally are less sensitive than the formal laboratory analyses. This means that a home test could be negative, but a laboratory test could be positive.

Do insurance companies cover drug testing?

Generally no, unless this is part of a drug or alcohol rehabilitation program. When conducted or required by your employer, there should be no cost to you.

next: Study: Alcohol, Tobacco Worse Than Drugs
~ addictions library articles
~ all addictions articles

Pamphlet prepared for The Wine Institute, San Francisco: CA, July, 1996

How Culture Influences the Way People Drink

Stanton Peele, Morristown, NJ

Archie Brodsky, Boston, MA

Introduction:

Sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and psychologists, in their study of different cultures and historical eras, have noted how malleable people's drinking habits are.

"When one sees a film like Moonstruck, the benign and universal nature of drinking in New York Italian culture is palpable on the screen. If one can't detect the difference between drinking in this setting, or at Jewish or Chinese weddings, or in Greek taverns, and that in Irish working-class bars, or in Portuguese bars in the worn-out industrial towns of New England, or in run-down shacks where Indians and Eskimos gather to get drunk, or in Southern bars where men down shots and beers--and furthermore, if one can't connect these different drinking settings, styles, and cultures with the repeatedly measured differences in alcoholism rates among these same groups, then I can only think one is blind to the realities of alcoholism."

Peele, S., Diseasing of America, Lexington Books, Lexington, MA, 1989, pp. 72-73.

"Sociocultural variants are at least as important as physiological and psychological variants when we are trying to understand the interrelations of alcohol and human behavior. Ways of drinking and of thinking about drinking are learned by individuals within the context in which they learn ways of doing other things and of thinking about them--that is, whatever else drinking may be, it is an aspect of culture about which patterns of belief and behavior are modeled by a combination of example, exhortation, rewards, punishments, and the many other means, both formal and informal, that societies use for communicating norms, attitudes, and values."

Heath, D.B., "Sociocultural Variants in Alcoholism," pp. 426-440 in Pattison, E.M., and Kaufman, E., eds., Encyclopedic Handbook of Alcoholism, Gardner Press, New York, 1982, p. 438.

"Individual drinkers tend to model and modify each others' drinking and, hence,...there is a strong interdependence between the drinking habits of individuals who interact.... Potentially, each individual is linked, directly or indirectly, to all members of his or her culture...."

Skøg, O., "Implications of the Distribution Theory for Drinking and Alcoholism," pp. 576-597 in Pittman, D.J., and White, H.R., eds., Society, Culture, and Drinking Patterns Reexamined, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1991, p. 577

"Over the course of socialization, people learn about drunkenness what their society `knows' about drunkenness; and, accepting and acting upon the understandings thus imparted to them, they become the living confirmation of their society's teachings."

MacAndrew, C., and Edgerton, R.B., Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation, Aldine, Chicago, 1969, p. 88.

Thus, how we learn to drink and continue to drink is determined most by the drinking we observe, the attitudes about drinking we pick up, and the people we drink with. In this booklet we will explore the relationship between cultural assumptions and educational messages about alcohol and the likelihood that people will drink in ways that are harmful to themselves or others.

---

I Alcohol problems are not simply a result of how much people drink.

One popular approach to reducing drinking problems is to reduce the overall amount of alcohol a society consumes. However, it is remarkable how little correspondence there is between the amount of alcohol consumed (per person) in different societies and the problems this alcohol consumption generates.

"Such efforts at increasing controls [on the availability of alcohol] are explicitly rationalized and recommended on the premise that alcohol-related problems occur in proportion to per capita consumption, a theory that we have disproved at least in France, Italy, Spain, Iceland, and Sweden, as well as in several ethnographic studies elsewhere."

Heath, D.B., "An Anthropological View of Alcohol and Culture in International Perspective," pp. 328-347 in Heath, D.B., ed., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1995, pp. 341-342.

In a comprehensive study of alcohol consumption patterns and outcomes in European and English-speaking countries, none of the 10 countries with a history of Temperance movements (showing a concern with the destructive consequences of drinking) had as high a per capita alcohol consumption as any of the countries without Temperance movements.

Peele, S. "Utilizing Culture and Behaviour in Epidemiological Models of Alcohol Consumption and Consequences for Western Nations ," Alcohol & Alcoholism, 1997, Vol. 32, 51-64 (Table 1).

II Enormous differences can be observed as to how different ethnic and cultural groups handle alcohol.

"...In those cultures where drinking is integrated into religious rites and social customs, where the place and manner of consumption are regulated by tradition and where, moreover, self-control, sociability, and `knowing how to hold one's liquor' are matters of manly pride, alcoholism problems are at a minimum, provided no other variables are overriding. On the other hand, in those cultures where alcohol has been but recently introduced and has not become a part of pre-existing institutions, where no prescribed patterns of behavior exist when `under the influence,' where alcohol has been used by a dominant group the better to exploit a subject group, and where controls are new, legal, and prohibitionist, superseding traditional social regulation of an activity which previously has been accepted practice, one finds deviant, unacceptable and asocial behavior, as well as chronic disabling alcoholism. In cultures where ambivalent attitudes toward drinking prevail, the incidence of alcoholism is also high."

Blum, R.H., and Blum, E.M., "A Cultural Case Study," pp. 188-227 in Blum, R.H., et al., Drugs I: Society and Drugs, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1969, pp. 226-227.

"Different societies not only have different sets of beliefs and rules about drinking, but they also show very different outcomes when people do drink.... A population that drinks daily may have a high rate of cirrhosis and other medical problems but few accidents, fights, homicides, or other violent alcohol-associated traumas; a population with predominantly binge drinking usually shows the opposite complex of drinking problems.... A group that views drinking as a ritually significant act is not likely to develop many alcohol-related problems of any sort, whereas another group, which sees it primarily as a way to escape from stress or to demonstrate one's strength, is at high risk of developing problems with drinking."

Heath, D.B., "Sociocultural Variants in Alcoholism," pp. 426-440 in Pattison, E.M., and Kaufman, E., eds., Encyclopedic Handbook of Alcoholism, Gardner Press, New York, 1982, pp. 429-430.

"One striking feature of drinking...is that it is essentially a social act. The solitary drinker, so dominant an image in relation to alcohol in the United States, is virtually unknown in other countries. The same is true among tribal and peasant societies everywhere."

Heath, D.B., "An Anthropological View of Alcohol and Culture in International Perspective," pp. 328-347 in Heath, D.B., ed., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1995, p. 334.

The Duke of Wellington felt that Napoleon's French army had an advantage over his British troops. Whereas the French soldiers could be allowed to forage freely, the British soldiers, when they encountered alcohol, could be expected to drink to unconsciousness. "Wellington's opinion of his soldiers: `The English soldiers are fellows who have all enlisted for drink.... I remember once at Badajoz,' Wellington recalled at the end of that terrible siege, `entering a cellar and seeing some soldiers so dead drunk that the wine was actually flowing from their mouths! Yet others were coming in not at all disgusted...and going to do the same. Our soldiers could not resist wine.'"

Keegan, J., The Mask of Command, Viking, New York, 1987, pp. 126-128.

---

Modern epidemiological and sociological research consistently documents these cultural differences.

1. Using DSM-III, an international team led by John Helzer discovered the following remarkable differences in alcohol abuse rates among different cultures, including two native Asian groups:
   "The highest lifetime prevalence rates [of alcohol abuse and/or dependence] were found in U.S. native Mexican Americans at 23 percent and in the Korean survey, where the total sample rate was about 22 percent. There is about a fiftyfold difference in lifetime prevalence between these two samples and Shanghai, where the lowest lifetime prevalence of 0.45 percent was found." Helzer, J.E., and Canino, G.J., Alcoholism in North America, Europe, and Asia, Oxford University Press, New York, 1992, p. 293.
2. For as long as American epidemiologists have measured drinking problems, they have found clearcut, significant, and persistent group differences. It is notable that the groups with the lowest incidence of alcohol abuse, the Jews and Italians, have (a) the lowest abstinence rates among these groups, and (b) (especially the Italians) the highest consumption rates. Cahalan D., and Room, R., Problem Drinking among American Men, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1974; Greeley, A.M., et al., Ethnic Drinking Subcultures, Praeger, New York, 1980.
3. Two sociologists searched for Jewish alcohol abusers in an upstate NY city in the belief that alcoholism rates among American Jews had risen. Instead, they found an astoundingly low rate of 0.1% alcohol abusers in this population. Glassner, B., and Berg, B., "How Jews Avoid Alcohol Problems," American Sociological Review, 1980, Vol. 45, 647-664.
4. George Vaillant, studying inner-city ethnic men in Boston over a 40-year period, found that Irish-Americans were 7 times as likely to develop alcohol dependence as Italian-Americans--this despite the Irish-Americans having a substantially higher abstinence rate. Vaillant, G.E., The Natural History of Alcoholism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983.
5. A sociologist who reviewed 17,500 arrest records in New York's Chinatown from 1933 to 1949 found that not one arrest noted public drunkenness. Barnett, M.L., "Alcoholism in the Cantonese of New York City: An anthropological study," pp. 179-227 in Diethelm, O., ed., Etiology of Chronic Alcoholism, Charles C Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1955.
6. There are also clear and distinct differences in alcohol abuse rates by socioeconomic status. Higher-SES Americans are more likely to drink, but also more likely to drink without problems, than lower-SES Americans. Again, this suggests that lower abstinence rates and higher consumption levels are not themselves the source of drinking problems. Hilton, M.E., "Demographic Characteristics and the Frequency of Heavy Drinking as Predictors of Self-reported Drinking Problems," British Journal of Addiction, 1987, Vol. 82, 913-925.
7. Drinking patterns in the U.S. also differ markedly by region (reflecting religious and cultural differences). The Southern and Mountain regions of the country, with their "dry" traditions, have high levels of both abstinence and individual excess.
   "The higher per-drinker apparent consumption levels in the historically drier regions are accompanied by higher levels of problems in the categories of belligerence, accidents, and trouble-with-the-police. These differences in problem rates, however, are apparent only among men.... It has recently been argued that drinking practices and problems in the United States are heading toward a regional convergence.... The evidence given here, however, contradicts the convergence thesis. According to the latest national survey data, the wetter and drier sections of the country continue to have markedly different rates of abstention and per-drinker consumption." Hilton, M.E., "Regional Diversity in United States Drinking Practices," British Journal of Addiction, 1988, Vol. 83, 519-532 (quotes pp. 519, 528-529).
8. Alcoholics Anonymous World Headquarters has compiled AA group membership data in countries around the world. In 1991 (the last year for which data were kept), the western country with the fewest AA groups per capita was Portugal, with 0.6 groups per million population. The highest was Iceland, with almost 800 groups per million. This is a strong indicator of greater perceived alcohol problems in Iceland--even though Portugal consumes 2 1/2 times as much alcohol per capita as Iceland! (Peele, S. "Utilizing Culture and Behaviour in Epidemiological Models of Alcohol Consumption and Consequences for Western Nations ," Alcohol & Alcoholism, 1997, Vol. 32, 51-64 (Table 1).)

III Alcohol use does not lead directly to aggressive behavior.

Drunken aggression is commonly observed in some cultures and settings in the United States. Worldwide, however, such behavior is typically quite rare, even among people who drink a great deal. Numerous anthropological studies demonstrate that alcohol-related violence is a learned behavior, not an inevitable result of alcohol consumption.

"The way people comport themselves when they are drunk is determined not by alcohol's toxic assault upon the seat of moral judgment, conscience, or the like, but by what their society makes of and imparts to them concerning the state of drunkenness."

MacAndrew, C., and Edgerton, R.B., Drunken Comportment, Aldine, Chicago, 1969, p. 165.

"Beverage alcohol cannot be viewed as the cause of specific drunken behaviors.... Alcohol as a drug can be viewed as an enabler or a facilitator of certain culturally given inebriate states, but it cannot be seen as producing a specific response pattern among all human beings who ingest it."

---

Marshall, M., "`Four Hundred Rabbits': An Anthropological View of Ethanol as a Disinhibitor," pp. 186-204 in Room R., and Collins, G., eds., Alcohol and Disinhibition: Nature and Meaning of the Link (Research Monograph No. 12), U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD, 1983, p. 200.

"In Truk, the life cycle of drinking finds the same men behaving in strikingly different ways when drinking, according to their age and to social expectations about what their appropriate behavior at that age ought to be. Young men, out to build public reputations for `bravery' and `strong thought,' engage in brawls and other displays of bravado; by their midthirties, as they leave the `young man' category, they give up this arresting style of drunken comportment even though they continue to drink as much as before. As they move into the `mature man' age category, they are expected to demonstrate more responsibility and are publicly ridiculed if they continue to behave as `young men' when drinking."

Marshall, "`Four Hundred Rabbits,'" pp. 192-193.

"Schaefer (1973) examined ethnographic reports about drinking behavior for a probability sample of 60 small-scale and folk societies. He found that men get drunk either occasionally or often in 46 of these 60 societies. But, he found men involved in drunken brawls in only 24 of the societies. So, in a worldwide sense, it seems that alcohol-related aggressive behavior -- as measured by male involvement in drunken brawls -- is about as likely to be present as it is to be absent."

Levinson, D., "Alcohol Use and Aggression in American Subcultures," pp. 306-321 in Room R., and Collins, G., eds., Alcohol and Disinhibition: Nature and Meaning of the Link (Research Monograph No. 12), U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD, 1983, p. 306.

"Cross-cultural evidence from diverse populations around the world shows that some have habitual drunkenness with little aggression, others show aggression only in specific drinking contexts or against selected categories of drinking companions, and so forth. Such widespread and diverse variation contradicts the view -- shared by both `common sense' and much scientific writing -- that characterizes alcohol as having a relatively direct pharmaconeurological effect in triggering aggression."

Heath, D.B., "Alcohol and Aggression," pp. 89-103 in Gottheil, E., et al. Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Aggression, Charles C Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1983, p. 89.

"Interestingly enough, even in our own society, aggression seems never to be an important component in the image of drunken comportment on the part of women."

Heath, "Alcohol and Aggression," p. 92.

"The Camba of Bolivia have gained considerable notoriety in the alcohol literature because more of them drink, they drink more often, and they drink more of the most potent alcoholic beverage in customary usage anywhere in the world, yet they have virtually no social, psychological, or economic problems in connection with drinking.... There is no verbal or sexual aggression, no destruction of property, no drunken homicide or suicide. On the contrary, drinking is a time for cordiality and easy social interaction that are rare in other times of their lives...."

Heath, "Alcohol and Aggression," p. 93.

"Consider the frequency with which beer drinking in taverns results in expressions of aggression. Then consider the frequency with which wine drinking at `singles bars' results in expressions of aggression.... Or, conceivably, the blood alcohol levels could even be in inverse relation to expressions of aggression if we compare beer in taverns to martinis at business luncheons or at cocktail parties."

Heath, "Alcohol and Aggression," p. 97.

"In our society wine is clearly considered the beverage of choice for integrative social occasions. Its use is associated with sociability and the enhancement of pleasure...and is almost always moderate in nature. Few, if indeed any, major alcohol-related problems are thought to arise from the consumption of wine. Wine is deemed most appropriate for consumption at home, usually during mealtime -- which, it should be noted, is yet another drinking occasion that has been related to moderate alcohol intake...."

Klein, H., "Cultural Determinants of Alcohol Use in the United States," pp. 114-134 in Pittman, D.J., and White, H.R., eds., Society, Culture, and Drinking Patterns Reexamined, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1991, p. 129.

"In the `Mom and Pop' community bar, the men were quiet and deferential in their dealings with older members of the Charlestown [Mass.] community. But, in Boston's downtown `combat zone' -- an area designated for `adult entertainment,' [the same men] exhibited their rowdiest behavior, getting involved in a loud argument, a fight involving a gun, and a run-in with the police."

Levinson, D., "Alcohol Use and Aggression in American Subcultures," pp. 306-321 in Room R., and Collins, G., eds., Alcohol and Disinhibition: Nature and Meaning of the Link (Research Monograph No. 12), U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD, 1983, p. 314.

---

IV There have been major historical variations in drinking patterns in the U.S.

1. In colonial America, alcohol was viewed as benign and even as a blessing. Drinking and occasional drunkenness were tolerated as part of everyday life--the workplace, elections, social gatherings. Antisocial drinking, on the other hand, was held in check by strong social sanctions.

   "In the late seventeenth century the Rev. Increase Mather had taught that drink was `a good creature of God' and that a man should partake of God's gift without wasting or abusing it. His only admonition was that a man must not `drink a Cup of Wine more than is good for him'.... At that time inebriation was not associated with violence or crime; only rowdy, belligerent inebriation in public places was frowned upon.... Control was also exercised through informal channels. One Massachusetts minister insisted that a public house be located next to his own dwelling so he could monitor tavern traffic through his study window. If he observed a man frequenting the place too often, the clergyman could go next door and escort the drinker home." Rorabaugh, W.J., The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition, Oxford University Press, New York, 1979, pp. 26-30.

2. A special site for appropriate drinking was the colonial tavern, where (as in church) people of all ages met. It was like a public lecture hall and meeting place.

   "The tavern was a key institution, the center of social and political life. Frequently located near the meeting house, it provided the main source of secular recreation and entertainment. Wedding parties, funerals, and even church services were held in the tavern." Levine, H.G., "The Good Creature of God and the Demon Rum," pp. 111-161 in National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Research Monograph No. 12: Alcohol and Disinhibition: Nature and Meaning of the Link, NIAAA, Rockville, MD, 1983, p. 115.

3. Children were regularly exposed to alcohol and taught how to drink.

   "White males were taught to drink as children, even as babies. `I have frequently seen Fathers,' wrote one traveller, `wake their Child of a year old from a sound sleap [sic] to make it drink Rum, or Brandy.' As soon as a toddler was old enough to drink from a cup, he was coaxed to consume the sugary residue at the bottom of an adult's nearly empty glass of spirits. Many parents intended this early exposure to alcohol to accustom their offspring to the taste of liquor, to encourage them to accept the idea of drinking small amounts, and thus to protect them from becoming drunkards." Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic, p. 14.

4. The 19th century saw the breakdown of the colonial consensus about alcohol and the rise of the temperance movement.

   "In the colonial period the tavern had been an important part of social and community life; in the 19th century, the tavern was stigmatized, identified with the lower classes and immigrants, and an essentially male preserve. In the 19th century the saloon was where middle class men went slumming, and where all men went to get away from their families." Levine, "The Good Creature of God and the Demon Rum," p. 127.

   "Any drinking, [Lyman Beecher] argued, was a step toward `irreclaimable' slavery to liquor; people simply could not tell when they crossed the line from moderate use to inebriety -- could not tell, that is, until too late. Look out, he said, if you drank in secret, periodically felt compelled to drink, and found yourself with tremors, inflamed eyes, or a `disordered stomach.' `You might as well cast loose in a frail boat before a hurricane, and expect safety,' Beecher explained, `and you are gone, gone irretrievably, if you do not stop.' But most could not stop; the power of alcohol was too strong." Lender, M.E., and Martin, J.K., Drinking in America (rev. ed.), Free Press, New York, 1987, p. 69.

   "Politicized morality thus seemed well on its way to rolling back the tide of over two hundred years of American drinking habits. By the mid-1850s, many dry reformers were congratulating themselves on having destroyed the old consensus on drinking as a positive good.... The Reverend John Marsh...proclaimed the days gone `when drinking was universal; when no table was thought...properly spread unless it contained a supply of intoxicating drink; when no person' was held respectable who failed to `furnish it to his guests,' when no man thought of refusing liquor or of working without it, when `Ministers of the Gospel...were abundantly supplied by their people; when drinkers and rumsellers were unhesitatingly received as members of Christian churches." Lender and Martin, Drinking in America, pp. 84-85.

5. The result is the ambivalence toward alcohol we see in the U.S. today:

   "...`Americans drink with a certain sadness,' a sadness probably rooted in their culturally derived ambivalence toward the social and individual character of drinking. This cultural ambivalence has been forged and reforged during each historical period, each social and economic upheaval, and each era of immigrant assimilation. The resulting negation of alcohol use has led to a curious worship of abstinence, which is little practiced and, when practiced, little respected." Zinberg, N.E., "Alcohol Addiction: Toward a More Comprehensive Definition," pp. 97-127 in Bean, M.H., and Zinberg, N.E., eds., Dynamic Approaches to the Understanding and Treatment of Alcoholism, Free Press, New York, 1981, p. 99.

   "Our society lacks a clear and consistent position regarding the scope of the excuse [of drunkenness] and is thus neither clear nor consistent in its teachings. Because our society's teachings are neither clear nor consistent, we lack unanimity of understanding; and where unanimity of understanding is lacking, we would argue that unanimity of practice is out of the question. Thus, although we all know that in our society the state of drunkenness carries with it an `increased freedom to be one's other self,' the limits are vague and only sporadically enforced.... [As a result], what people actually do when they are drunk will vary enormously...." MacAndrew, C., and Edgerton, R.B., Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation, Aldine, Chicago, 1969, p. 172.

---

V Throughout history, wine and other alcoholic beverages have been a source of pleasure and aesthetic appreciation in many cultures.

"In most of the cultures...the primary image is a positive one. Usually drinking is viewed as an important adjunct to sociability. Almost as often, it is seen as a relatively inexpensive and effective relaxant, or as an important accompaniment to food.... Its use in religions is ancient, and reflects social approval rather than scorn.... Most people in the United States, Canada, and Sweden, when asked what emotions they associate with drinking, responded favorably, emphasizing personal satisfactions of relaxation, social values of sociability, an antidote to fatigue, and other positive features...."

Heath, D.B., "Some Generalizations about Alcohol and Culture," pp. 348-361 in Heath, D.B., ed., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1995, p. 350-351.

"[In colonial America] Parents gave it [alcohol] to children for many of the minor ills of childhood, and its wholesomeness for those in health, it appeared, was only surpassed by its healing properties in case of disease. No other element seemed capable of satisfying so many human needs. It contributed to the success of any festive occasion and inspirited those in sorrow and distress. It gave courage to the soldier, endurance to the traveller, foresight to the statesman, and inspiration to the preacher. It sustained the sailor and the plowman, the trader and the trapper. By it were lighted the fires of revelry and of devotion. Few doubted that it was a great boon to mankind."

Levine, H.G., "The Good Creature of God and the Demon Rum," pp. 111-161 in National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Research Monograph No. 12: Alcohol and Disinhibition: Nature and Meaning of the Link, NIAAA, Rockville, MD, 1983, p. 115.

"British attitudes are generally favorable to drinking in itself while disapproving of heavy or problematic drinking. The drinking scene in the UK has undergone marked changes during recent decades. Public bars are now far more congenial and attractive to drinkers of both genders.... The British generally enjoy drinking, and recent legislation has attempted to increase the social integration of alcohol use and to discourage alcohol-related problems, but not drinking in itself."

Plant, M.A., "The United Kingdom," pp. 289-299 in Heath, D.B., ed., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1995, p. 298.

"Passover: Passover is a happy time. We are happy to be free. On the first and second nights we have a Seder. My whole family is there, singing and having a good time. Everybody drinks four glasses of wine....

Shabbat: Shabbat comes once a week.... It is a day of rest. It starts on Friday evening, when mother lights the candles. Then daddy comes home and says the kiddush over the wine and challah.

Next morning we all go to the synagogue. Back home again, we have a nice dinner and sing songs and take it easy. In the evening, when the three starts are out, daddy says the habdolah. I hold the candle, smell the spices and sip a little wine from the kiddush cup."

Garvey, R., and Weiss, S., The First Book of Jewish Holidays, KTAV Publishing, New York, 1954.

"The Shabbat wine slurps and slips and glides into the cup. It almost spills over. Listen! Then say, `Amen,' to Kiddush, the blessing over the wine. Taste the cool, sweet, delicious Kiddush wine. Feel it slide down your throat."

Kobre, F., A Sense of Shabbat, Torah Aura Productions, Los Angeles, 1989, pp. 20-22.

"...we want to assure moderate drinkers that the age-old bromides they learned from their grandmothers (like putting Amaretto on a teething baby's gums) or their grandfathers (who told them a glass of wine completes a good meal) or their fathers (a beer on a hot day with friends is one of the great pleasures in life) are still sound and are worth passing on."

Peele, S., Brodsky, A., and Arnold, M., The Truth About Addiction and Recovery, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1991, p. 339.

---

VI Young people in many cultures are introduced to drinking early in life, as a normal part of daily living.

Whereas educational programs in the U.S. typically emphasize that children must never taste alcohol, the reverse is true in societies that maintain the best moderate drinking practices.

"The idea of a minimum age before [which] children should be `protected' from alcohol is alien in China and France; where it is a matter of law, the mid or late teens are favored.... Children learn to drink early in Zambia by taking small quantities when they are sent to buy beer; children in France, Italy, and Spain are routinely given wine as part of a meal or celebration."

Heath, D.B., "An Anthropological View of Alcohol and Culture in International Perspective," pp. 328-347 in Heath, D.B., ed., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1995, p. 339.

"A book on practical child-raising, known in [a French] village since the early twenties, [states that when a child has reached the age of two]: `One can also give at mealtime a half-glass of water lightly reddened with wine, or some beer or cider very diluted with water.' In general, the recent literature is more cautious. It suggests, as a more suitable time for introducing children to alcoholic beverages, four years of age rather than two. Generally, though, wine is first offered when the child is two or more, can hold his own glass quite safely in his hand, and can join the family at table."

Anderson, B.G., "How French Children Learn to Drink," pp. 429-432 in Marshall, M., ed., Beliefs, Behaviors, & Alcoholic Beverages: A Cross-Cultural Survey, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1979, pp. 431-432.

"Eighteen...remains the minimum age for purchase in the United Kingdom. However, it is not illegal for those aged five and above to drink outside licensed premises."

Plant, M.A., "The United Kingdom," pp. 289-299 in Heath, D.B., ed., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1995, p. 292.

"[In Spain] The undifferentiated beverage and food shops flourish not only in the community, but also in high schools and technical schools, which have students generally between the ages of 14 and 18. Such educational centers usually have a cantina (a bar or saloon) which closely duplicates the products sold in bars of the outside community; snacks, lunches, coffee, tea, sodas, beer, wine, and brandies are available.... Beer is generally available to students in all educational centers. However, a policy may be mandated that beer be the only alcoholic beverage available to students under 18 years of age, or that no alcohol be sold before noon, or that there be a two-drink limit for each person. These regulations may or may not be enforced, however. Observations in high school cafeterias reveal that the majority of students consume coffee or soft drinks and fewer than 20% take beer either separately or with lunch."

Rooney, J.F., "Patterns of Alcohol Use in Spanish Society," pp. 381-397 in Pittman, D.J., and White, H.R., eds., Society, Culture, and Drinking Patterns Reexamined, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1991, p. 382.

"Although the minimum legal age for purchasing alcohol in Spain is 16 years, no one is concerned with formalities of the law.... Spaniards sharply distinguish legality from morality. The penal code originates from the central government, whereas the code of moral behavior comes from the norms of the people. Consequently, there is a large part of the penal code to which the citizenry is morally indifferent.... My own observations reveal that youngsters of 10 and 12 years are able to buy liter bottles of beer in grocery and convenience stores if they choose."

Rooney, "Patterns of Alcohol Use in Spanish Society," p. 393.

"In sum, Spain along with other Southern European countries allows its youth early access to alcoholic beverages without the concomitant problems of rowdy behavior, vandalism, and drunk driving that Americans typically associate with youth drinking."

Pittman, D.J., "Cross Cultural Aspects of Drinking, Alcohol Abuse, and Alcoholism," pp. 1-5 in Waterhouse, A.L., and Rantz, J.M., eds., Wine in Context: Nutrition, Physiology, Policy (Proceedings of the Symposium on Wine & Health 1996), American Society for Enology and Viticulture, Davis, CA, 1996, p. 4.

VII Many cultures teach their young to drink moderately and responsibly.

The alternative is often a fear of alcohol associated with excessive drinking.

1. How Italian youth, as distinct from American youth, are taught to drink:
   "Italians, like Jews, are a group whose members tend to drink and to have low rates of alcohol problems. The attitudes and behaviors of Italians in the United States are a reflection of those in Italy, where children are introduced to alcohol as part of their regular family life and learn to drink moderate amounts while still young. In both countries, alcohol is commonly drunk with meals and is considered a natural and normal food. Most people agree that alcohol in moderation, for those who choose to drink, is necessary, and that abuse is unacceptable and results in immediate sanctions. People are not pressured to drink, and abstention does not offend others; drinking reflects sociability and social cohesion rather than a means to achieve them. Very few people drink for the physiological effect, and most people take alcohol for granted, with no mixed feelings or uncertainty about it." Hanson, D.J., "The United States of America," pp. 300-315 in Heath, D.B., ed., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1995, p. 309.
   "In Italy, in contrast to America, drinking is institutionalized as part of family life and dietary and religious custom; alcohol (wine) is introduced early in life, within the context of the family, and as a traditional accompaniment to meals and a healthful way of enhancing the diet. Drinking is not, as it is in America, associated with transformation of status from adolescence to adulthood; alcohol use is not an illicit activity for Italian youth; and heavy, consistent use of alcohol in Italy does not carry with it the same `problem' connotation that it does in America. Such an approach to the socialization of alcohol use should make it less likely in Italy than in America that drinking will be learned as a way of trying to solve personal problems or of coping with inadequacy and failure." Jessor, R., et al., "Perceived Opportunity, Alienation, and Drinking Behavior Among Italian and American Youth," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, Vol. 15, 215-222 (quote pp. 215-216).

---

1. Attitudes conveyed to Spanish children:
   "Clearly, alcohol is not placed in a separate moral category in the Spanish cognitive map but rather constitutes one class of beverages among others, all of which are sold in the same establishment and generally have some degree of association with food consumption. Martinez and Martin (1987, p. 46) well summarize the integral position of alcohol in Spanish culture: `The consumption of alcohol is [as] integrated into common behaviors as sleeping and eating.'" Rooney, J.F., "Patterns of Alcohol Use in Spanish Society," pp. 381-397 in Pittman, D.J., and White, H.R., eds., Society, Culture, and Drinking Patterns Reexamined, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1991, pp. 382-383.
2. How Chinese children are introduced to drinking:
   "[Chinese-Americans] drink and become intoxicated, yet for the most part drinking to intoxication is not habitual, dependence on alcohol is uncommon and alcoholism is a rarity.... The children drank, and they soon learned a set of attitudes that attended the practice. While drinking was socially sanctioned, becoming drunk was not. The individual who lost control of himself under the influence of liquor was ridiculed and, if he persisted in his defection, ostracized. His continued lack of moderation was regarded not only as a personal shortcoming, but as a deficiency of the family as a whole. Barnett, M.L., "Alcoholism in the Cantonese of New York City: An anthropological study," pp. 179-227 in Diethelm, O., ed., Etiology of Chronic Alcoholism, Charles C Thomas, Springfield, IL, 1955.
3. Attitudes about drinking learned by Jewish children:
   "The protective social processes [that put the Jew in a special lifelong relationship with alcohol] are as follows: (1) association of alcohol abuse with non-Jews; (2) integration of moderate drinking norms, practices, and symbolism for oneself and significant others during childhood by means of religious and secular ritual; (3) continual reiteration of moderate drinking through restriction of most primary relationships to other moderate drinkers; and (4) a repertoire of techniques to avoid drinking more than one wants to drink amid social pressure." Glassner, B., and Berg, B., "How Jews Avoid Alcohol Problems," American Sociological Review, 1980, Vol. 45, 647-664 (quote p. 653).
   "In the Jewish culture the wine is sacred and drinking is an act of communion. The act is repeated again and again and the attitudes toward drinking are all bound up with attitudes toward the sacred in the mind and emotions of the individual. In my opinion this is the central reason why drunkenness is regarded as so `indecent'--so unthinkable--for a Jew." Bales, R.F., "Rates of Alcoholism: Cultural Differences," Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1946, Vol. 6, 480-499 (quote p. 493).
   "Jewish alcohol socialization practices virtually duplicate the five conditions that are correlated cross-culturally with nonabusive drinking patterns and low rates of alcoholism." Zinberg, N.E., "Alcohol Addiction: Toward a More Comprehensive Definition," pp. 97-127 in Bean, M.H., and Zinberg, N.E., eds., Dynamic Approaches to the Understanding and Treatment of Alcoholism, Free Press, New York, 1981, p. 111.
   "...drinking itself cannot cause the many problems associated with alcohol, since orthodox Jews clearly demonstrate that virtually every member of a group can be exposed to drinking alcoholic beverages without suffering from drinking pathologies. Drinking norms, along with socio-cultural ritualism, are instituted early for the orthodox Jew. Alcoholic consumption, while occurring frequently and regularly throughout the Jew's lifetime, is closely related to social and religious ritual, which in turn provides the substance for his cultural lifestyle." French, L., and Bertoluzzi, R., "The Drunken Indian Stereotypes and the Eastern Cherokees," pp. 15-24 in Hornby, R., ed., Alcohol and Native Americans, Sinte Gleska University Press, Mission, SD, 1994, p. 17 (citing Snyder, C., Alcohol and the Jews, Free Press, Glencoe, IL, 1958).
4. The Southern Baptist ambivalence toward alcohol:
   "...The Protestant fundamentalist churches, which have no culturally defined role for alcohol, i.e., those which advocate abstinence, have the highest probability rate for drinking pathologies. Of these groups, the southern Baptists have the highest drinking pathology probability rate. The probable reason for this is that they isolate attitudes toward drinking from other inhibitory and controlling aspects of the personality.... [These conditions] necessitate that drinking be learned from dissident members of the group or members of other groups who may suggest and reinforce utilitarian drinking attitudes." French and Bertoluzzi, "The Drunken Indian Stereotypes," p. 17.
5. How Irish children learn to drink:
   "With the Irish, the treatment is tried--and untrue. All his life the kid has been hearing of the evils of the drink, and how his loving mother suffered at the hands of his rotten father because of it. And, at the end of the threnody, `Ah, but it's in the blood, I guess.' [After the boy gets drunk] the wrath of God descends. The priest comes into the house. He makes it clear that what you have done is worse than the violation of a vestal virgin. The mother of the house sobs quietly. The old man, craven, orders another beer at the corner saloon.... If a system has been devised to produce a confirmed alcoholic to exceed this one in efficiency, I know it not." McCabe, C., The Good Man's Weakness, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1974, pp. 31-32.
   "It is consistent with Irish culture to see the use of alcohol in terms of black or white, good or evil, drunkenness or complete abstinence." Vaillant, G.E., The Natural History of Alcoholism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1983, p. 226.

---

1. How negative socialization patterns have been imposed on Native Americans and others by conquest and cultural disruption:
   "Clearly, it is within the cultural context that genetics and familial considerations of Indian alcoholism become meaningful. Not only was distilled alcohol unknown to this group prior to white contact, severe controls administered by the federal government through the General Indian Intercourse Act (1832-1953) denied American Indians the opportunity to establish acceptable drinking norms. Given this situation, subcultural, deviant drinking norms emerged to fill the therapeutic void alcohol seems to offer. And since a de facto policy of enforced abstinence still prevails in Indian/white interaction these deviant drinking patterns continue to the present." French, L., "Substance Abuse Treatment Among American Indian Children," pp. 237-245 in Hornby, R., ed., Alcohol and Native Americans, Sinte Gleska University Press, Mission, SD, 1994, p. 241.
   "The major colonial powers exported to those areas of the globe that fell under their control not only models of drunken behavior but also a host of beliefs about the effects of alcohol on human beings. It may be that the widespread belief in alcohol as a disinhibitor is nothing but an ethnocentric European folk belief foisted on subject peoples around the world during the heyday of colonialism." Marshall, M., "`Four Hundred Rabbits': An Anthropological View of Ethanol as a Disinhibitor," pp. 186-204 in Room R., and Collins, G., eds., Alcohol and Disinhibition: Nature and Meaning of the Link (Research Monograph No. 12), U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD, 1983, p. 198.
2. How cultures known for positive drinking practices usually rely on wine as their main alcoholic beverage:
   "...the Italian samples, as expected, had wine most frequently for their first drink, more than twice as often as the Boston sample." Jessor, R., et al., "Perceived Opportunity, Alienation, and Drinking Behavior Among Italian and American Youth," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, Vol. 15, 215-222 (quote p. 217).
   "Most of the sample first tasted wine, and nearly the entire sample report that most drinking in their parents' homes involved wine....Our interviewees tend to drink only a glass or two of wine when they do drink, and they tend to view wine as quite apart from intoxicating alcohol, indeed as almost nonalcoholic." Glassner, B., and Berg, B., "How Jews Avoid Alcohol Problems," American Sociological Review, 1980, Vol. 45, 647-664 (quote p. 657).

VIII A recipe for moderate drinking can be constructed from such successful examples as the Italian, Spanish, French, Greek, Jewish, and Chinese cultures:

"There are five conditions that cross-cultural researchers have found to be correlated in most societies with nonabusive drinking practices and low rates of alcoholism...:

1. Group drinking is clearly differentiated from drunkenness and associated with ritualistic or religious celebrations.
2. Drinking is associated with eating, preferably ritualistic feasting.
3. Both sexes and several generations are included in the drinking situation, whether all drink or not.
4. Drinking is divorced from the individual's effort to escape personal anxiety or difficult (intolerable) social situations....
5. Inappropriate behavior when drinking (aggression, violence, overt sexuality) is absolutely disapproved, and protection against such behavior is offered by the `sober' or the less intoxicated. This general acceptance of a concept of restraint usually indicates that drinking is only one of many activities, that it carries a relatively low level of emotionalism, and that it is not associated with a male or female `rite of passage' or sense of superiority."

Zinberg, N.E., "Alcohol Addiction: Toward a More Comprehensive Definition," pp. 97-127 in Bean, M.H., and Zinberg, N.E., eds., Dynamic Approaches to the Understanding and Treatment of Alcoholism, Free Press, New York, 1981, p. 110.

"A literature review provides evidence of five major informal controls -- cultural recipes that describe what substances should be used in what amounts to achieve what effects: learning to use through association with others who teach people what, when, why, how, where, and with whom to use; sumptuary rules specifying eligibility requirements for use; sanctions that reinforce the learning of substance use conventions and norms; and everyday social relations that make it expedient for people to use in some ways and inconvenient to use in others."

Maloff, D., et al., "Informal Social Controls and Their Influence on Substance Use," pp. 53-76 in Zinberg, N.E., and Harding, W.M., Control Over Intoxicant Use, Human Sciences Press, New York, 1982, p. 53.

Moderate-Drinking Cultures

1. Alcohol consumption is accepted and is governed by social custom, so that people learn constructive norms for drinking behavior.
2. The existence of good and bad styles of drinking, and the differences between them, are explicitly taught.
3. Alcohol is not seen as obviating personal control; skills for consuming alcohol responsibly are taught, and drunken misbehavior is disapproved and sanctioned.

---

Immoderate-Drinking Cultures

1. Drinking is not governed by agreed-upon social standards, so that drinkers are on their own or must rely on the peer group for norms.
2. Drinking is disapproved and abstinence encouraged, leaving those who do drink without a model of social drinking to imitate; they thus have a proclivity to drink excessively.
3. Alcohol is seen as overpowering the individual's capacity for self-management, so that drinking is in itself an excuse for excess.

Peele, S., and Brodsky, A., "The Antidote to Alcohol Abuse: Sensible Drinking Messages," pp. 66-70 in Waterhouse, A.L., and Rantz, J.M., eds., Wine in Context: Nutrition, Physiology, Policy (Proceedings of the Symposium on Wine & Health 1996), American Society for Enology and Viticulture, Davis, CA, 1996, p. 67.

IX Government control policies are misguided and ineffective in regulating cultural drinking practices.

In most cases, strict government controls represent inadequate efforts to remedy weak or harmful cultural rules for drinking.

"Official or formal controls are far less effective in shaping behavior than are the unofficial informal controls that people exert in their daily interactions, through gossip, exhortations, or other forms of social sanction.... Addressing attitudes and values is probably the most effective way, in the long run, to change patterns of belief and behavior, because even the strictest nation-state is hard put to enforce its laws and regulations when they conflict with the culture of the people."

Heath, D.B., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1995, pp. 343, 358-359.

"The evidence is...that control-of-supply policies will never reduce substance abuse significantly and that such policies may backfire by propagating images of substances as being inherently overpowering."

Peele, S., "The Limitations of Control-of-Supply Models for Explaining and Preventing Alcoholism and Drug Addiction," Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 1987, Vol. 48, 61-77 (quote p. 61).

"[Among states in the U.S.], the more proscriptive the norms concerning alcohol consumption [and the lower the overall rate of consumption], the greater the incidence of behavior that is defined as socially disruptive.... The results of the present study suggest...that societies that fear alcohol soon encounter problems with disruptive alcoholics."

Linsky, A.S., et al., "Stress, Drinking Culture, and Alcohol Problems," pp. 554-575 in Pittman, D.J., and White, H.R., eds., Society, Culture, and Drinking Patterns Reexamined, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1991, pp. 567, 570.

"In general, those societies and groups that place a high value on sobriety and a low value on intoxication do not have a need for extensive social control.... Societies that place a high premium upon the pleasures of drink and that have the greatest need for control are inclined to reject programs of control or to sabotage them if they are established.... Large societies with mixtures of ethnic minorities, diverse locality, and occupational groups make it unlikely that any one model will suffice to eliminate socially harmful drinking."

Lemert, E.M., "Alcohol, Values, and Social Control," pp. 681-701 in Pittman, D.J., and White, H.R., eds., Society, Culture, and Drinking Patterns Reexamined, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1991, p. 697.

"The control model of prevention...has been increasingly espoused by policymakers and others throughout the world, calling for increasing restrictions on the availability of alcohol as the best way to lessen alcoholism or a wide range of alcohol-related problems. In light of this case study (among others), the sociocultural model of prevention appears more plausible, stressing that the meanings, values, norms, and expectations associated with drinking have more effect than sheer quantity does in determining how many and what kinds of problems may be associated with alcohol -- or whether, as is strikingly the case among the Bolivian Camba, such problems appear not to occur at all."

Heath, D.B., "Continuity and Change in Drinking Patterns of the Bolivian Camba," pp. 78-86 in Pittman, D.J., and White, H.R., eds., Society, Culture, and Drinking Patterns Reexamined, Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, New Brunswick, NJ, 1991, p. 85.

---

X Researchers have derived important lessons from cross-cultural research on drinking practices.

"[The following are] some of the most significant generalizations that derive from cross-cultural study of the subject:

1. In most societies, drinking is essentially a social act and as such, it is embedded in a context of values, attitudes, and other norms.
2. These values, attitudes, and other norms constitute important sociocultural factors that influence the effects of drinking, regardless of how important biochemical, physiological, and pharmacokinetic factors may also be in that respect.
3. The drinking of alcoholic beverages tends to be hedged about with rules concerning who may and may not drink how much of what, in what contexts, in the company of whom, and so forth. Often such rules are the focus of exceptionally strong emotions and sanctions.
4. The value of alcohol for promoting relaxation and sociability is emphasized in many populations.
5. The association of drinking with any kind of specifically associated problems -- physical, economic, psychological, social relational, or other -- is rare among cultures throughout both history and the contemporary world.
6. When alcohol-related problems do occur, they are clearly linked with modalities of drinking, and usually also with values, attitudes, and norms about drinking.
7. Attempts at prohibition have never been successful except when couched in terms of sacred or supernatural rules."

Heath, D.B., "Drinking and Drunkenness in Transcultural Perspective: Part II," Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review, 1986, Vol. 23, 103-126 (quote p. 121).

1. Beverage alcohol usually is not a problem in society unless and until it is defined as such.
2. When members of a society have had sufficient time to develop a widely shared set of beliefs and values pertaining to drinking and drunkenness, the consequences of alcohol consumption are not usually disruptive for most persons in that society. On the other hand, where beverage alcohol has been introduced within the past century and such a set of beliefs and values has not developed completely, social -- and sometimes physiological -- problems with ethanol commonly result.
3. Socially disruptive drinking occurs only in secular settings.
4. Where opportunities for group or community recreation are few and alcoholic beverages are available, alcohol consumption will become a major form of recreational activity in a community ("the boredom rule").
5. Typically, alcoholic beverages are used more by males than by females and more by young adults than by preadolescents or older persons. Hence in any society the major consumers of beverage alcohol are most likely to be young men between their mid-teens and their mid-thirties.
6. The drinking of alcoholic beverages occurs usually with friends or relatives and not among strangers. Where drinking among strangers does take place, violence is much more likely to erupt.
7. Peoples who lacked alcoholic beverages aboriginally borrowed styles of drunken comportment along with the beverages from those who introduced them to "demon rum."
8. When alcoholic beverages are defined culturally as a food and/or a medicine, drunkenness seldom is disruptive or antisocial.
9. Alcoholic beverages are the drug of choice for a majority of persons in any society, even if alternative drug substances are available.

Selected points from Marshall, M., "Conclusions," pp. 451-457 in Marshall, M., ed., Beliefs, Behaviors, & Alcoholic Beverages: A Cross-Cultural Survey, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1979.

---

XI Summary: Historical and cross-cultural research point the way to more responsible, healthful, and pleasurable drinking practices today.

"The human experience abounds with evidence, both cross-cultural and international, that people can use alcohol in a variety of responsible and fruitful ways."

Heath, D.B., "Some Generalizations about Alcohol and Culture," pp. 348-361 in Heath, D.B., ed., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1995, p. 359.

"Drinking is essentially a social act, performed in a recognized social context. If the focus is to be on alcohol abuse, then the anthropologists' work suggests that the most effective way of controlling it will be through socialization."

Douglas, M., Constructive Drinking: Perspectives on Drink from Anthropology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1987, p. 4.

"The attitudes that characterize both ethnic groups and individuals with the greatest drinking problems are being propagated as a national outlook.... A range of cultural forces in our society has endangered the attitudes that underlie the norm and the practice of moderate drinking. The widespread propagation of the image of the irresistible dangers of alcohol has contributed to this undermining."

Peele, S., "The Cultural Context of Psychological Approaches to Alcoholism: Can We Control the Effects of Alcohol? " American Psychologist, 1984, Vol. 39, 1337-1351 (quotes pp. 1347, 1348).

"It is important to realize that drinking problems are virtually unknown in most of the world's cultures, including many where drinking is commonplace and occasional drunkenness is accepted. This suggests that even a technologically advanced culture might have something to learn from other cultures.... To speak of adopting traits from other cultures is problematic, because each culture is itself a complex web of interrelationships in which the parts have more meaning to each other than in isolation.... Nevertheless, it is apparent that certain ways of thinking and acting with respect to alcohol, ways that are consistently associated with drinking problems, might fruitfully be rejected, while others, those that correlate with unproblematic drinking, might well be fostered."

Heath, D.B., "Sociocultural Variants in Alcoholism," pp. 426-440 in Pattison, E.M., and Kaufman, E., eds., Encyclopedic Handbook of Alcoholism, Gardner Press, New York, 1982, pp. 436.

"Influences from numerous nations and cultures strongly affect alcohol beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in the United States. The family plays a central role in teaching these alcohol norms and behaviors. Parents, through their power of example, may be the most important long-term influence on the behavior of their offspring. The strength of their power, often reinforced by religious teachings, is usually underestimated.... The thrust [of alcohol education programs in U.S. schools] has largely been to stress problems associated with alcohol abuse and to portray alcohol as a dangerous substance to be avoided. In spite of the enormous human and monetary resources employed in this educational approach, it has not been effective. Not surprisingly, any alcohol education that is inconsistent with prevalent beliefs and behaviors in a group or society is likely to be ineffective."

Hanson, D.J., "The United States of America," pp. 300-315 in Heath, D.B., ed., International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1995, p. 312.

"Understandings based on the cross-cultural and scientific evidence yield recommendations that the current control-of-consumption attack upon alcohol should be ended; that all attempts to stigmatize alcohol as a `dirty drug,' as a poison, as inherently harmful, or as a substance to be abhorred and shunned should be ended; that governmental agencies formulate and implement policies that incorporate the concept of moderate or responsible drinking along with the choice of abstinence; that systematic efforts be made to clarify and emphasize the distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable drinking; that unacceptable drinking behaviors be strongly sanctioned, both legally and socially; that parents be permitted to serve alcohol to their offspring of any age, not only at home, but in restaurants, parks, and other locations under their direct control and supervision; and that educational efforts encourage moderate use of alcohol among those who choose to drink."

Hanson, D.J., Preventing Alcohol Abuse: Alcohol, Culture, and Control, Praeger, Westport, CT, 1995, pp. xiii-xiv.

XII Conclusions:

1. Historical, cultural, and ethnic comparisons show clearly that alcohol can be used in very different ways, for better and for worse.
2. The destructive personal and social consequences of alcohol abuse are not entirely or even largely due to the prevalence of drinking or the amount of alcohol consumed.
3. Indeed, one factor often identified as predisposing a culture to lower rates of alcohol abuse is a comfortable acceptance of beverage alcohol, together with broad agreement about and consistent application of clearly defined limits to its consumption and to people's behavior when drinking.
4. In a culture with positive drinking habits, responsible drinking typically is taught to children early in life, along with an image of alcohol as a beneficent and controllable force that offers pleasure and positive social experiences.
5. These experiences allow us to create a recipe or template incorporating the elements of successful cultural control of drinking. They suggest a policy for educating the young to become moderate, healthy, social drinkers.

next: Alcoholism Abstinence
~ all Stanton Peele articles
~ addictions library articles
~ all addictions articles

Chapter 25 of the book Self-Help Stuff That Works

by Adam Khan:

SELF-ESTEEM IS SELF-WORTH or self-value. So to increase your self-esteem, increase your worth or value. A lot of people would interpret that to mean "change the way you think about your worth or value." But I mean change what you do in order to make yourself worth more to yourself and others. Make yourself worth more in reality, not just in your mind.

How? Here are four ways to go about it:

1. Gain more ability. If you are a manager, you could take classes or read books to increase your ability to manage. If you live in fear of physical harm, you could take a self-defense class. Become more able to do what needs to be done.
2. Become more honest. Every person has been dishonest. And you know it feels bad. It doesn't make us feel good about ourselves. Every effort you make, no matter how small, to become more honest will make you worth more to yourself. It will increase your personal pride in a healthy way.
3. Do something worthwhile. Are you doing something worthwhile? That depends on what I mean by "worthwhile," doesn't it? No! It depends on what you consider worthwhile. In order to feel self-worth, you need to know you're doing something worthwhile. Otherwise, your self-worth would be a sham. So spend some time wondering what that worthwhile task might be for you. It is a worthwhile pursuit to find a worthwhile pursuit!
4. Acknowledge people. Try to give three good acknowledgments a day. It's a whole new way of life. And it will increase your self-esteem.

All four of these things improve your value and worth, to yourself and other people. And that's what self-esteem is all about.

To increase your own self-esteem:
Gain more ability, become more honest, do something worthwhile, and acknowledge people

In some cases, a feeling of certainty can help. But there are many more circumstances where it is better to feel uncertain. Strange but true.
Blind Spots

---

 

---

When some people get smacked around by life, they give in and let life run them over. But some people have a fighting spirit. What's the difference between these two and why does it make a difference? Find out here.
Fighting Spirit

Learn how to prevent yourself from falling into the common traps we are all prone to because of the structure of the human brain:
Thoughtical Illusions

Would you like to stand as a pillar of strength during difficult times? There is a way. It takes some discipline but it is very simple.
Pillar of Strength

next: All In Your Head

I have no roots. I was born in Israel but left it many times and now have been away for five years. I haven't seen my parents since 1996. I have met my sister (and my niece and nephew) for the first time last week. I haven't been in touch with any of my "friends". I haven't exchanged one additional word with my ex after we split up. I - an award winning author -am slowly forgetting my Hebrew. I do not celebrate any nation's holidays or festivals. I stay away from groups and communities. I wonder, an itinerant lone wolf. I was born in the Middle East, I write about the Balkan and my readers are mostly American.

This reads like a typical profile of the modern expatriate professional the world over - but it is not. It is not a temporary suspension of self-identity, of group-identity, of location, of mother tongue and of one's social circle. In my case, I have nowhere to go back to. I either burn the bridges or keep walking. I never look back. I detach and vanish.

I am not sure why I behave this way. I like to travel and I like to travel light. On the way, in between places, in the twilight zone of neither here not there and not now - I feel like I am unburdened. I do not need to - indeed, I cannot - secure narcissistic supply. My obscurity and anonymity are excused ("I am a stranger here", "I just arrived"). I can relax and take refuge from my inner tyranny and from the anxious depletion of energy that is my existence as a narcissist.

I love freedom. With no possessions, devoid of all attachments, to fly away, to be carried, to explore, not to be me. It is the ultimate depersonalisation. Only then do I feel real. Sometimes I wish I were so rich that I could afford to travel incessantly, without ever stopping. I guess it sounds like escaping and avoiding oneself. I guess it is.

I do not like myself. In my dreams, I find myself an inmate in a concentration camp, or in a tough prison, or a dissident in a murderously dictatorial country. These are all symbols of my inner captivity, my debilitating addiction, the death amidst me. Even in my nightmares, though, I keep fighting and sometimes I win. But my gains are temporary and I am so tired...:o((

In my mind, I am not human. I am a machine at the service of a madman that snatched my body and invaded my being when I was very young. Imagine the terror I live with, the horror of having an alien within your own self. A shell, a nothingness, I keep producing articles at an ever accelerating pace. I write maniacally, unable to cease, unable to eat, or sleep, or bathe, or enjoy. I am possessed by me. Where does one find refuge if one's very abode, one's very soul is compromised and dominated by one's mortal enemy - oneself?

 

---

---

next: That Thing Between a Man and a Woman...

In the first concentrated study of the social and psychological effects of Internet use at home, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found that people who spend even a few hours a week online experience higher levels of depression and loneliness than they would have if they used the computer network less frequently.

Those participants who were lonelier and more depressed at the start of the two-year study, as determined by a standard questionnaire administered to all the subjects, were not more likely to use the Internet. Instead, Internet use itself appeared to cause a decline in psychological well-being, the researchers said.

The results of the $1.5 million project ran completely contrary to expectations of the social scientists who designed it and to many of the organizations that financed the study. These included technology companies like Intel Corp., Hewlett Packard, AT&T Research and Apple Computer, as well as the National Science Foundation.

"We were shocked by the findings, because they are counterintuitive to what we know about how socially the Internet is being used," said Robert Kraut, a social psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon's Human Computer Interaction Institute. "We are not talking here about the extremes. These were normal adults and their families, and on average, for those who used the Internet most, things got worse."

The Internet has been praised as superior to television and other "passive" media because it allows users to choose the kind of information they want to receive, and often, to respond actively to it in the form of e-mail exchanges with other users, chat rooms or electronic bulletin board postings.

Research on the effects of watching television indicates that it tends to reduce social involvement. But the new study, titled "HomeNet," suggests that the interactive medium may be no more socially healthy than older mass media. It also raises troubling questions about the nature of "virtual" communication and the disembodied relationships that are often formed in the vacuum of cyberspace.

Participants in the study used inherently social features like e-mail and Internet chat more than they used passive information gathering like reading or watching videos. But they reported a decline in interaction with family members and a reduction in their circles of friends that directly corresponded to the amount of time they spent online.

At the beginning and end of the two-year study, the subjects were asked to agree or disagree with statements like "I felt everything I did was an effort," and "I enjoyed life" and "I can find companionship when I want it." They were also asked to estimate how many minutes each day they spent with each member of their family and to quantify their social circle. Many of these are standard questions in tests used to determine psychological health.

For the duration of the study, the subjects' use of the Internet was recorded. For the purposes of this study, depression and loneliness were measured independently, and each subject was rated on a subjective scale. In measuring depression, the responses were plotted on a scale of 0 to 3, with 0 being the least depressed and 3 being the most depressed. Loneliness was plotted on a scale of 1 to 5.

By the end of the study, the researchers found that one hour a week on the Internet led, on average, to an increase of .03, or 1 percent, on the depression scale, a loss of 2.7 members of the subject's social circle, which averaged 66 people, and an increase of .02, or four-tenths of 1 percent, on the loneliness scale.

The subjects exhibited wide variations in all three measured effects, and while the net effects were not large, they were statistically significant in demonstrating deterioration of social and psychological life, Kraut said.

Based on these data, the researchers hypothesize that relationships maintained over long distances without face-to-face contact ultimately do not provide the kind of support and reciprocity that typically contribute to a sense of psychological security and happiness, like being available to baby-sit in a pinch for a friend, or to grab a cup of coffee.

"Our hypothesis is there are more cases where you're building shallow relationships, leading to an overall decline in feeling of connection to other people," Kraut said.

The study tracked the behavior of 169 participants in the Pittsburgh area who were selected from four schools and community groups. Half the group was measured through two years of Internet use, and the other half for one year. The findings will be published this week by The American Psychologist, the peer-reviewed monthly journal of the American Psychological Association.

Because the study participants were not randomly selected, it is unclear how the findings apply to the general population. It is also conceivable that some unmeasured factor caused simultaneous increases in use of the Internet and decline in normal levels of social involvement. Moreover, the effect of Internet use varied depending on an individual's life patterns and type of use. Researchers said that people who were isolated because of their geography or work shifts might have benefited socially from Internet use.

Even so, several social scientists familiar with the study vouched for its credibility and predicted that the findings would probably touch off a national debate over how public policy on the Internet should evolve and how the technology itself might be shaped to yield more beneficial effects.

---

---

---

"They did an extremely careful scientific study, and it's not a result that's easily ignored," said Tora Bikson, a senior scientist at Rand, the research institution. Based in part on previous studies that focused on how local communities like Santa Monica, Calif., used computer networks to enhance civic participation, Rand has recommended that the federal government provide e-mail access to all Americans.

"It's not clear what the underlying psychological explanation is," Ms. Bikson said of the study. "Is it because people give up day-to-day contact and then find themselves depressed? Or are they exposed to the broader world of Internet and then wonder, 'What am I doing here in Pittsburgh?' Maybe your comparison standard changes. I'd like to see this replicated on a larger scale. Then I'd really worry."

Christine Riley, a psychologist at Intel Corp., the giant chip manufacturer that was among the sponsors of the study, said she was surprised by the results but did not consider the research definitive.

"For us, the point is there was really no information on this before," Ms. Riley said. "But it's important to remember this is not about the technology, per se; it's about how it is used. It really points to the need for considering social factors in terms of how you design applications and services for technology."

The Carnegie Mellon team -- which included Sara Kiesler, a social psychologist who helped pioneer the study of human interaction over computer networks; Tridas Mukophadhyay, a professor at the graduate business school who has examined computer mediated communication in the workplace; and William Scherlis, a research scientist in computer science -- stressed that the negative effects of Internet use that they found were not inevitable.

For example, the main focus of Internet use in schools has been gathering information and getting in touch with people from far-away places. But the research suggests that maintaining social ties with people in close physical proximity could be more psychologically healthy.

"More intense development and deployment of services that support pre-existing communities and strong relationships should be encouraged," the researchers write in their forthcoming article. "Government efforts to wire the nation's schools, for example, should consider online homework sessions for students rather than just online reference works."

At a time when Internet use is expanding rapidly -- nearly 70 million adult Americans are on line, according to Nielsen Media Research -- social critics say the technology could exacerbate the fragmentation of U.S. society or help to fuse it, depending on how it is used.

"There are two things the Internet can turn out to be, and we don't know yet which it's going to be," said Robert Putnam, a political scientist at Harvard University whose forthcoming book, "Bowling Alone," which is to be published next year by Simon & Schuster, chronicles the alienation of Americans from each other since the 1960s. "The fact that I'm able to communicate daily with my collaborators in Germany and Japan makes me more efficient, but there are a lot of things it can't do, like bring me chicken soup."

Putnam added, "The question is how can you push computer mediated communication in a direction that would make it more community friendly."

Perhaps paradoxically, several participants in the Internet study expressed surprise when they were informed of the study's conclusions by a reporter.

"For me it's been the opposite of depression; it's been a way of being connected," said Rabbi Alvin Berkun, who used the Internet for a few hours a week to read The Jerusalem Post and communicate with other rabbis across the country.

But Berkun said his wife did not share his enthusiasm for the medium. "She does sometimes resent when I go and hook up," he said, adding after a pause, "I guess I am away from where my family is while I'm on the computer." Another possibility is that the natural human preference for face-to-face communication may provide a self-correcting mechanism to the technology that tries to cross it.

The rabbi's daughter, Rebecca, 17, said she had spent a fair amount of time in teen-age chat rooms at the beginning of the survey in 1995.

"I can see how people would get depressed," Ms. Berkun said. "When we first got it, I would be on for an hour a day or more. But I found it was the same type of people, the same type of things being said. It got kind of old."

Source: NY Times

---

---

next: Why is This Thing Eating My Life?
~ all center for online addiction articles
~ all articles on addictions

People share stories about Pycnogenol and Proanthocyanadin for naturally treating ADHD symptoms, plus story on manufacturers of dietary supplement products settling charges on false ADHD claims.

Natural Alternatives for ADHD

Bill Scott of Michigan wrote to us about his grandson, Christopher...

"My purpose in writing is to agree that Ritalin helps to focus the person, so they will pay attention (some times), but it does nothing for behaviour problems. We started giving Christopher a substance called PYCNOGENOL about 8 months ago and it has helped tremendously with his behaviour problems. PYCNOGENOL is made from the bark of the Maritime Pine Tree in the south of France. It is from the family, PROANTHOCYANIDIN, of which there are many cheaper alternatives. You can purchase, from health food stores, straight Proanthocyanadin,or...we have been using grape seed extract, with about the same results. Christopher is about 142 lbs at 12 years of age,and we give him a 50Mg tablet 3 times per day.

I am not a doctor, but from what I have read it works like this, and I will be using the term Proanthocyanidin, because that is the root family. All of these "food supplements" are basically anti-oxidants, which act to transport free-radical damage out of the body. They are 50 times more powerful then aspirin. One needs to be aware that if the child has FM (Fibromyalgia), you shouldn't be using any plant based product. Assuming that your child may not also have FM, there should not be a problem. For kids with E-I (Emotional Impairment) disturbances and/or ADHD, the body produces defective DOPAMINE, or, not enough of it. Remember, I am not a doctor, so check with your Pediatric Neurologist. Anyhow, the ADHD person's body has these toxins running around in the blood stream as a result of the free-radical damage caused by defective Dopamine production. What an anti-oxidant does is to help transport these toxins out of the body, thereby giving some relief to the person's body and brain which are off the richter scale with who-knows-what."

Shelley Johnston writes......

"Just a quick note to pass along, we have found effalex to be ineffective for Jeffrey and are currently looking for alternatives. I have tried Pycnogenol without much success, but I must say it helped my older son who suffers from adhd but in a much less severe fashion."

Deborah writes......

"I found your website today and like the links. I have a 7 year old son with ADHD. I won't use Ritalin, but he is using Pycnogenol and capsules that contain evening primrose oil and flax seed oil. I started Pycnogenol at 5 yrs of age, and it made a noticable improvement in his behavior in one week. Once regular school started and we had LOTS more problems, I've added the evening primrose and flax seed oils. They seemed to help some also. I thought of discontinuing Pycnogenol, and haven't given it to him for about two weeks, but his behavior has deteriorated somewhat so I guess I'll buy some more....

I have not found anything that gives me an always compliant, quiet, and focused child. I think the natural remedies take the edge off but don't turn a child into someone else. So...don't expect miracles from these natural remedies. They just make the world for your child a little easier to handle."Rosie writes......

"I just read your artical regarding, Melotone syrup; I didn't now it existed I am glad to here about it.

My son is 81/2 he his on Dexadrine & Clonidine, last month he was so hyper we didn't now what to do any more. Surfing the net I found an antioxidant. He his still on his med but I give him 2 50mg in the morning, and now he his calm, more focus, he is doing great at school. We are so pleased.

I recommend you look at it on world web type proanthenol and there are lots of info. The product is called Masquelier Original OPCs.

This summer I want to stop his med and try only the Proanthenol. I don't sell the product I am just pleased with the result"

Click here for more information on Pycnogenol. If you're in the U.K., Holland and Barrett Health Shops do Pycnogenol Gold, which we assume is the same, though we've not tried it ourselves.

In addition to the above information you should also be aware of the following...

Supplement firms to settle charges on ADHD claims

May 15, 2000
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Two manufacturers of dietary supplement products touted as helping to manage or cure attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that the claims they made for their products lacked adequate scientific substantiation, the FTC said.

The companies, Boston-based Efamol Nutraceuticals and Massena, Iowa-based J&R Research, would be prohibited by the proposed agreements from making certain claims about their products without adequate substantiation.

---

---

---

Efamol markets two supplements containing essential fatty acids, Efalex and Efalex Focus, which the company has promoted in a series of magazine advertisements.

One Efalex ad claims that studies "show that some children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder... have problems converting essential fatty acids into the long chain forms the body needs to maintain optimum eye and brain function."

"Only Efalex provides the precise combination of these important fatty acids--G.A., DHA and AA--to properly manage this deficiency," the ad states.

Another ad asserts that "nutritional research conducted at a major American university" has backed up the essential fatty acid deficiency theory for ADHD.

To promote its pycnogenol supplement for ADD/ADHD, J&R Research--a general partner in the Longmont, Colorado-based multi-level distributorship Kaire International--created advertising materials that it sold to Kaire distributors.

Pycnogenol "is becoming a very attractive first-line method of choice by many physicians, in preference to conventional drug administration" for children with attention disorders, the materials state. "Also, in most cases, traditional drug therapy can usually be discontinued--or significantly reduced--provided the patient continues to consume pycnogenol."

The FTC noted that the two new agreements represent the agency's third and fourth cases involving products marketed to treat ADHD. Companies advertising unsubstantiated treatments for the condition "prey on a vulnerable population of parents who seek a 'natural' alternative to prescription medications," such as Ritalin, according to a statement released by the agency.

"Our fear is that parents who fall for the claims may ignore proven, and perhaps essential, treatments for their child's disorder," FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Jodie Bernstein explained. "That's why parents should exercise caution in giving supplements to their kids."

Along with barring the companies from making unsubstantiated claims, the proposed agreements include other provisions, such as a clause requiring the firms to make copies of advertising and consumer correspondence available to the FTC on request for a period of 5 years.

The commission has voted five to zero to accept the agreements for public comment. The Efamol and J&R Research proposals will be published in the Federal Register and open to comment until June 12 and July 12, respectively. After the comments period closes, the FTC will decide whether to make the agreements final.

The FTC has developed "Promotions for Kids' Dietary Supplements Leave Sour Taste," which offers pointers for parents. It is available on the Internet at http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/08/natorganics.shtm

Further information about Pycnogenol can be found at: http://www.pycnogenol.com/flash/.

Ed. Note:Please remember, we do not endorse any treatments and strongly advise you to check with your doctor before using, stopping or changing any treatment.

---

 

---

next: Relationship Between ADHD Stimulant Therapy and Substance Abuse
~ back to adders.org homepage
~ adhd library articles
~ all add/adhd articles

The Weighting Game

Summary: bulimia and its negative effects on female fertility.

As if we needed more evidence that what cultural standards decree as a suitable weight for women and what the body regards as normal may be two entirely different things. The latest proof is in reproductive function of women with the eating disorder bulimia.

Even after returning to what is considered "ideal" weight, more than half of such women experience reproductive disorder--no menstrual bleeding, or scanty, irregular periods. For them the problem is low levels of luteinizing hormone, a pituitary hormone that controls the cyclic patterns of the secretion of estrogen and progesterone. Even bulimics with regular menstrual bleeding have deficiencies in circulating hormone levels.

In studies conducted at the Western Psychiatric Institute in Pittsburgh, return to normal reproductive function is linked most closely to what the women weighed before they resorted to extreme weight control efforts. The lower their current weight as a percentage of the past body weight, the lower their levels of luteinizing hormone.

"Women with bulimia nervosa appear to be underweight in relationship to their own lifetime high body weight," report Walter Kaye, M.D., and colleagues in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

These women are not just relatively underweight. They are probably still eating restrictively, too, causing some subtle form of malnutrition. Hence regaining weight is not enough to return them to hormonal normality; it looks like they have to normalize eating patterns as well, says Kaye, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. It's not just the number of calories, but how they are distributed among healthy foods at regular times of the day.

Scientists know that the appetite center of the brain is exquisitely sensitive to the amount and timing of fat and carbohydrate consumed--and it communicates this information to the center that controls sex hormones. Mother nature is always trying to assure that women maintain enough fat on their bodies to nourish the next generation.

In additional studies, Kaye is trying to determine just how much of a contribution normalizing the eating patterns makes to the return of hormonal happiness.

next: Eating Disorders in College Women -Overview
~ eating disorders library
~ all articles on eating disorders