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Tim Atkin MW: Drink's unspoken upsides

Much of what we know about the history of wine – and other forms of alcohol – is the result of McGovern’s work. His quest, pursued since 1998 until his recent death, took him to China, Africa, Europe, Transcaucasia and other parts of the world. He wanted to understand the origins of booze, but also why we drank it. Nutrition was part of the answer, but only part. The beverages that early humans consumed, he wrote in Uncorking the Past “might well have served as a principal means for accessing the subconscious recesses of the brain”. Such liquids, almost certainly lower in alcohol than much of what we consume today, have been with us from the start of what McGovern called “the hominid odyssey”, just behind our love of – and need to eat – fruit.

Altering our consciousness promoted creativity, as well, one imagines, as the desire to procreate. It also, as the philosopher Edward Slingerland argues in his book, Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced and Stumbled our Way to Civilization, enhanced social bonding. Alcohol, he told me in a podcast, reduces the interference of the controlling pre-frontal cortex and, in the right measure, leads to “lateral thinking”. That’s why it’s the “drug of choice” in most cultures. “We have evolved to drink together,” he added.

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Softened stance

As I was researching this piece, the United Nations published an updated draft of its Political Declaration on Non-Communicable Diseases to include the distinction between moderate alcohol consumption and ‘harmful abuse’. The booze industry is celebrating the softening of the UN’s stand – the World Health Organisation (WHO), heavily influenced by temperance groups and anti-alcohol NGOs, still maintains that there is no such thing as a safe level when it comes to drinking alcohol, but it’s a small victory.

Reading McGovern and Slingerland, it strikes me those of us who write about, drink and enjoy alcohol – as well as the people who produce and sell it – are fighting the wrong battle with the likes of the International Alliance for Responsible Drinking and the Institute of Alcohol Studies. Such bodies have concentrated on the physiological effects of booze. For all the talk of the J-shaped curve and the French paradox, both of which support the thesis that alcohol in moderation can be good for you, there is countervailing evidence of the health risks involved, especially from different types of cancer. Alcoholism is a serious issue, too.

What Slingerland calls the “dark side of Dionysus” has always made cultures wary of over-indulgence. In Ancient Greece, part of the job of the symposiarch, or toastmaster, was to ensure that people did not drink too much, the way a barman might tell you that “you’ve probably had enough, sir”. Booze today is stronger – especially if it’s distilled liquor – and people are more likely to imbibe in isolation, where the pace of consumption is left to the individual, not the group. It is irrefutable that alcohol is dangerous, leading to drink driving and, all too often, playing a part in domestic abuse, sexual harassment and worse.

For all that, there are positive sides to consuming alcohol, especially if we look at what it does for our psychological health, particularly, but not exclusively, in a group setting. Drinking is also fun and, as Slingerland told me, “pleasure gets short shrift in society these days. We don’t give it enough weight”. It was good to see the European Ryder Cup golf team celebrating their victory over the US with liberal amounts of Champagne.

Alcohol has been part of human culture for millennia and should be considered in that light. As Slingerland wrote in an article for the Institute of Art & Ideas, entitled The Dangers of a Sober Society: “Debates about the proper role of intoxicants in our lives need be informed by our best current scientific, anthropological and historical scholarship, which at the moment is far from reality.” In wine there is truth, as well as civilisation. Can someone tell the WHO?

• health
• WHO
• United Nations
• Patrick McGovern
• Non-Communicable Disease
• History of Alcohol
• Edward Slingerland