I learn, via a Los Angeles Times article, of a recently—established magazine calling itself Modern Drunkard, dedicated to heavy drinkers and heavy drinking. My initial response was a chuckle and the assumption it was some kind of satirical parody. But sure enough, it has a website, and may even have the circulation of 50,00 which it claims.

Although I am in the wine business as a part—timer, I do not find the excessive consumption of alcohol to be an attractive practice — for myself or others. Drunks lose control, and it isn't pretty. Many of those controls (inhibitions, if you will) serve a necessary social purpose. Then there is the physical loss of control, which can place the drunk and those he encounters, when driving or even walking, in danger. Loss of control of bodily function, which occurs in deep intoxication, is disgusting. Plus, it is very, very unhealthy to drink to excess with any regularity, not to mention the costs inflicted on loved ones who, at a minimum, lose their connection to the drunkard during periods of inebriation.

For all these good reasons, a modern temperance movement has arisen. Groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving have pushed for increased regulation of alcohol, and for lower standards defining blood alcohol levels qualifying for drunk driving arrest. As such crusades often do, they may have gone too far. There is evidence that current blood alcohol standards of .008 unreasonably penalize drivers fully able to control their cars. The "impairment" they suffer is roughly comparable to the "impairment" of turning on the car radio.

Raising the drinking age to 21, a product of the modern temperance movement, is also highly questionable, in my eyes. In my own experience, learning to drink at the family dining table as a young adolescent was the pathway to moderation. I never, ever saw my parents drink to excess, and when I went to college and was able to drink to excess, I didn't find drunkenness terribly appealing. My own children followed the same path of learning to drink responsibly while young, and, thank the Lord, none of them seems inclined to drunkenness, though all enjoy moderate social drinking.

Telling voters (age 18) who serve in the US Armed Forces that they are not responsible enough to drink seems to me to be foolish. It also creates the problem of "forbidden fruit" appeal. Better to let drinking age reflect voting age, it seems to me.

In Wisconsin, children may accompany their parents to a tavern and drink there, under parental supervision. This seems a very sensible way to regulate the matter. Better to train children in front of their parents, and better for parents to consider their public behavior's effect on their children.

I think that Modern Drunkard may well be a reaction, or over—reaction, to the excesses of the temperance movement's own excesses. The ability of a free society to generate its own corrective mechanisms, however inexact or back—and—forth, remains a source of wonder.

Thomas Lifson  1 02 05