[MR] Booze in Period / Now

[Maymunah al Siqilliyah]

Thank you, this was a very thoughtful response.

I want to point out also that  just in my lifetime, the medical 
definition of 'alcoholic' has changed.   When I was young, 'alcoholic' 
was based on behavior and practical results; was your consumption of 
alcohol causing serious health problems, problems with work, with loved 
ones, with being a parent, were you having symptoms of withdrawal, dt's, 
pink elephants, blackouts, etc.  Now, it is solely based on levels of 
consumption and those levels are rather low, IMHO.  Five glasses of wine 
A WEEK qualifies you as a "heavy drinker" now, and thus a health risk, 
according to a questionnaire that my family doctor used in my last 
physical.  I would have said that a "heavy drinker" was more like five a 
day, not five a week.  Seems to me that guideline makes all of the 
citizens of France and Italy, including the older children, into "heavy 
drinkers".




On 1/30/2011 11:06 AM, Dexter Guptill wrote:
> Forwarding, I forgot to hit "Reply to All" the first time:
>
> Back about 22-1/2 years ago, there was an article in TI on the subject
> of being an alcoholic (as in, "I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a drunk.
> Alcoholics go to meetings.") in the SCA.  It discussed modern AA-type
> issues in an SCA context, stuff like "you really don't want to take a
> swig out of that tankard someone handed you".  At any rate, the final
> paragraph was telling:
>
>   "Bringing this back to a medieval context, one may ask what
> alcoholics did in the Middle Ages. My Lords and Ladies, they died."
>
> Note that the number of alcoholics in a population (VERY rough guess,
> here) seems to be inversely proportional to that population's
> familiarity with alcohol.  The most extreme case is Native Americans,
> who didn't get much of the stuff until Europeans showed up.   Methinks
> that Father Darwin may have had a hand in this.
>
> Small beer is barely alcoholic, but still has enough yeast growth to
> compete with pathogenic bacteria.  Even mixing a bit of wine in with
> your water is going to help, somewhat, with decontaminating the water.
>   To some extent, drinking brewed beverages was a safety precaution.