The Alcohol Problem in America: From Temperance to Alcoholism

Summary This paper traces the ideology and politics of the ‘liquor problem’ in America from its invention or discovery at the end of the 18th century up to the present. In the 17th and 18th centuries alcohol was highly regarded, universally consumed, and even Puritans called it ‘the Good Creature of God’. In the early 19th century, physicians and laymen developed and promulgated a new scientific and popular view of alcohol as an addicting, toxic, and dangerously unpredictable stimulant ‐ and they organized a mass movement to spread their ideas and to get people to give up drinking. Throughout the 19th century, temperance supporters regularly referred to alcohol addiction as a disease beyond the control of the will and engaged in reform and treatment efforts for habitual drunkards. They campaigned against alcohol because they believed it to be the cause of most of the major social problems in America. In short, they made alcohol a scape‐goat. The paper then discusses the passage and repeal of national Constitutional prohibition. They should be understood in the context of the new economic and political conditions of 20th century America ‐ especially the new power of the corporation, the decline of the old middle class, and the rapid growth of the industrial working class. The middle class supported prohibition as a panacea for many social problems, but the 18th Amendment's passage was achieved partly through the help of the corporate sector. Similarly, the repeal effort was led by the key elements of the corporate rich. Repeal was passed, and alcohol regulatory systems were designed and put into place, in the midst of the Great Depression ‐ in large part as a response to the political forces the Depression unleashed. Since the 1930s, concerns and policies about alcohol have focused on helping to aid the treatment and recovery of ‘alcoholics ‘. The paper traces the development of Alcoholics Anonymous and the spread of its ideas about alcoholism and its organizational forms; it also briefly looks at new public health and social scientific ideas about ‘alcohol problems’ or ‘alcohol abuse’. The paper suggests that both alcoholism and public health conceptions have much more in common with 19th century temperance ideas than is usually thought. Indeed, nearly all present day ideas – like addiction – are derived from temperance ideas. Further, both 19th and 20th century forumulations have a tendency to blame drinking and individual behaviour for many problems which have much broader political and economic causes.