Here’s to Your Health

As the only freshman on his high school’s varsity wrestling team, Tod was anxious to fit in with his older teammates. One night after a match, a teammate offered him a ride home. Several other teammates also were passengers. One of them took out a bottle of tequila and started passing it around. When the bottle reached Tod, he felt he had to drink, or he would seem like a “sissy.” He took a swallow. Each time a teammate passed the bottle back to him, Tod took another swallow. After seven swallows, he passed out. Terrified, his teammates carried him into his house. Tod’s mother rushed him to the hospital, where his stomach was pumped. Tod recovered, but his blood alcohol level had been so high that he was lucky not to be in a coma or dead.

Although alcohol can cause rapid poisoning, frequently leads to long-term addiction, and always threatens self-control, U.S. society encourages drinking. By their example, many parents give children like Tod the impression that alcohol is an essential ingredient of social gatherings. Peer pressure turns bachelor parties, fraternity initiations, and spring-semester beach vacations into competitions in “getting trashed.” In soap operas, glamorous characters pour Scotch whisky from crystal decanters as readily as most people turn on the faucet for tap water. In movies and music videos, trendsetters party by drinking in nightclubs and bars. The worst culprit of all is advertising. Alcohol ads appear with pounding frequency in magazines, on billboards, in newspapers, and on television. Who can recall a televised baseball or basketball game without a beer commercial? In 2005 more than 300,000 alcohol commercials appeared on U.S. television. It is no surprise that 70 percent of 21- to 25-year-olds report using alcohol in the last month, and nearly 48 percent of 21-year-olds are binge drinkers, downing five or more drinks in one session.

This nonstop promotion of alcohol in the mass media has resulted in several harmful beliefs about drinking that have spread throughout U.S. society. One alcohol myth is that liquor signals professional success. In a slick men’s magazine, one full-page ad for Scotch whisky shows two men seated in an elegant restaurant. Both are in their thirties, perfectly groomed, and wearing expensive-looking gray suits. The windows are draped with velvet, the table with spotless white linen. Each place setting consists of a long-stemmed water goblet, silver utensils, and thick silver plates. On each plate is a half-empty cocktail glass. The two men are grinning and shaking hands, as if they’ve just concluded a business deal. The caption reads, “The taste of success.”

Contrary to what the liquor company would have us believe, drinking is more closely related to failure than to achievement. Among students, the heaviest drinkers generally have the lowest grades. In the work force, alcoholics are frequently late or absent, tend to perform poorly, and often get fired. Although alcohol abuse occurs in all economic classes, it remains most prevalent among the poor.

Another alcohol myth that non-stop advertising supports is that drinking makes a person more sexually attractive. “Hot, hot, hot,” one commercial’s soundtrack begins, as the camera scans a crowd of college-age beachgoers. The camera then zooms in on one woman sitting amid the crowd. She is beautiful, wearing a bikini. The camera follows the shape of her leg up to her bare hip and lingers there. Carrying an ice chest, a man positions himself near the woman. He is handsome, tan, muscular. The woman doesn’t show much interest—until the man opens the chest and takes out a beer. Now she smiles at him. He raises his eyebrows and invitingly holds up another can. The woman joins him. The advertised beer “attracts like no other,” the commercial’s song concludes.

The truth, however, is that beer doesn’t make anyone sexier. Like all alcohol, it lowers the levels of male hormones in men and of female hormones in women—even when drunk in small amounts. In substantial amounts, alcohol can cause infertility in women and impotence in men. Some alcoholic men even develop enlarged breasts.

Yet another myth is that alcohol and athletics are a good combination. One billboard features three high-action images: a sprinter running at top speed, a surfer riding a wave, and a basketball player leaping to make a dunk shot. A particular light beer, the billboard declares, “won’t slow you down.”

But “slow you down” is exactly what alcohol does. Even in small amounts, alcohol dulls the brain, reducing muscle coordination and slowing reaction time. It also interferes with the ability to focus the eyes and adjust to a sudden change in brightness, such as the flash of a car’s headlights. The leading cause of death among U.S. teenagers, drinking and driving is responsible for about 40 percent of all U.S. traffic fatalities. Drinking also results in many home and workplace accidents, such as falls, that cause injury or death. Continued alcohol abuse can physically change the brain, permanently impairing learning and memory. Long-term drinking is related to malnutrition, weakening of the bones, and ulcers. It increases the risk of liver failure, heart disease, and stomach cancer. Drinking during pregnancy can lead to miscarriage and is a major cause of birth defects such as limb deformities and brain damage.

Finally, advertising creates the myth that alcohol fosters happy relationships. In one TV commercial, an overweight man sits alone in his drab living room. He reaches into a cooler, takes out a bottle of beer, and twists off the cap. Instantly, dance music plays, and dozens of attractive young adults appear in a shower of party streamers and confetti. “Where the party begins,” a voice announces. The previously lonely man now is surrounded by male and female friends. The message: drinking solves social problems.

In reality, relationships in which alcohol plays a major role are unlikely to be happy. Heavy drinking destroys relationships and contributes to antisocial feelings and behavior. Alcoholics are about twenty-one times more likely than nonalcoholics to have antisocial personality disorder. In the United States, an estimated 30 percent of violent crimes are committed by people who had been drinking, and three-fourths of reported cases of spouse abuse involve alcohol. Parents with a drinking problem are more likely to neglect or abuse their children. Approximately 30 percent of Americans who commit suicide are alcoholics; the suicide rate among alcoholics is fifty times the rate among nonalcoholics.

Alcohol, many would have us believe, is part of being successful, sexy, healthy, and happy. Those who have suffered from alcohol’s destructive effects know otherwise. For alcohol’s victims, “Here’s to your health” rings with a terrible irony when it is accompanied by the clink of liquor glasses.