BLITZED By Joshua Zimmerman

My name is Josh and I’m not an beer, according to Simmons Market Research. alcoholic. In the past a college student with my By 1989, only 47 percent did. The number of drinking habits – a frequent beer or two, a couple deaths attributed to drunk driving has fallen, too, of times a year to excess – wouldn’t feel from 20,356 in 1982 to 17,849 in 1989 – a 12 compelled to declare this. But when I got ill from percent decline in seven years. drinking last spring at Princeton and was taken You’d think such a success might to the infirmary, I was told to meet with the moderate the impulse for ever more draconian school’s full-time alcohol counselor. Opening a correctives. But if anything the anti-alcohol folder in my name, he began the interview: Do severity is increasing. Last summer the you play drinking games? Have you gotten sick Supreme Court found that “the measure of the on alcohol before? Do you consume more than intrusion on motorists stopped briefly at sobriety fourteen drinks a week? After fifteen minutes of checkpoints” is a small price to pay in the effort this, he told me that getting sick was “a to reduce the “death and mutilation” caused by significant episode” in my “drinking history,” that drunk drivers. Thirty-nine states now have I was teetering on the brink of alcoholism. “dram-shop” liability and twenty-four states have Subjection to this type of inquisition is an “social host” liability, in which bartenders and increasing part of the curriculum on America’s hosts can be held partially responsible when campuses: 60 percent of colleges have some someone they serve gets in an accident. sort of substance abuse program. And the idea In the treatment industry, the tactics used behind it – that a given level of consumption or a to intimidate heavy drinkers have become more major bender means you’re a confirmed lush, or coercive. An increasingly popular method of close enough to being one to need treatment – alcoholism treatment these days is now pervades the $2 billion alcohol- treatment “intervention.” Invented by Dr. Vernon Johnson, industry. a reformed alcoholic who became famous when Today’s treatment theories reflect a far he pressured Betty Ford into treatment, the broader neo-temperance trend, which first method relies upon a team effort. Family, became evident around 1984, when Mothers friends, and co-workers “intervene: by confront- Against Drunk Driving succeeded in raising the ing the offender in public –sometimes at work, drinking age to 21. In 1988 then Surgeon preferably when he is hung over – with a list of General C. Everett Koop called (unsuccessfully) grievances and a series of ultimatums. for a ban on happy hours. Last January an Johnson’s transcript of a typical intervention award-winning edition of Little Red Riding Hood from his recent book, Chemical Dependence, was banned for first-graders in the Empire, includes threats from the victim’s wife that she’ll California, school district because Grandma leave him if he doesn’t seek treatment, and from takes a glass of wine after escaping the wolf. his boss, who says he’ll fire him. A car is Today’s puritans lobby for a whole range of supposed to wait outside so the victim can be prohibitions, from banning alcohol industry whisked directly to a treatment center. sponsorship of sports events and rock concerts The Johnson Institute promotes to barring convenience stores, gas stations, and intervention through travelling workshops and a supermarkets from selling booze. large mail-order business of books, cassettes, The new public awareness about and videos. One of Johnson’s biggest clients is drinking has, of course, helped to reduce the the national network of Employee Assistance horrendous problems caused by alcohol abuse. Programs, in-house and regional counselors Consumption is down, particularly among the who specialize in alcohol problems and are young. In 1980, 58 percent of Americans currently working with 12,000 corporate between the ages of 18 and 24 said they drank government offices across the country. A

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supervisor, noticing lagging performance or in such a way that each symptom on a night of simply suspecting an alcohol problem, can order overindulgence was recorded separately, an employee to meet with an EAP counselor. boosting my score. the counselor, who doesn’t have to meet any Across the country convicted drunk national training standards, will tell these drivers are ordered to begin treatment, usually at presumed alcoholics to go on the wagon. If the an A.A. chapter, or are given a choice Between employee is caught drinking again – whether or treatment and prison, which is, I suppose, a not the drinking is affecting his job performance – choice of sorts. But forcing someone to go to his boss is encouraged to send him back for A.A. presents another problem: six of A.A.’s more counseling or fire him. “Twelve Steps” to counter alcoholism allude to God. Last year a Maryland drunk driver, John Coercive treatment is essentially an Norfolk, objected to his court-ordered A.A. extension of one of the main precepts of meetings, saying the government was forcing Alcoholics Anonymous: alcoholism – a disease him to participate in a religion. The state yielded over which the alcoholic has no control – starts – Norfolk was switched to a non-religious with the first drink and leads inexorably to death program – before a judgment was rendered, if the alcoholic does not become perfectly avoiding a precedent and letting Maryland abstinent. It is thus essential to stop alcoholism continue with court-ordered A.A. There are now, in its early stages, no matter how scant the though, non-spiritual groups for people with evidence. In recent years, however, the disease drinking problems, which judges are beginning theory of alcoholism has come under attack. to use as A.A. alternatives in sentencing. In (See “alcohol and Free Will” by Robert Wright, contrast with A.A., one group, called Rational TNR, December 14, 1987.) Studies have shown Recovery, believes everyone has the power to that even many hard-core drinkers are able to overcome alcohol problems – without control their drinking. Yet virtually every major undergoing lifelong treatment. alcohol treatment program in the country largely The craze for compulsory treatment adheres to the A.A. tenets, and now a growing would make some sense if there were proof that number are using some form of coercion. it worked. Yet a 1988 Bureau of Statistics report Drunk drivers, understandably enough, found that nearly half of all inmates convicted of have come under particularly ferocious scrutiny. driving while intoxicated had previously been District Court Judge Albert Kramer of Quincy involved with an alcohol treatment program, and Massachusetts sentences about 470 drunk one in eleven was in treatment at the time of drivers a year to enroll in Right Turn, a $725, arrest. A major report issued last spring by the twenty-six week, out-patient treatment program, National Academy of Science’s Institute of and to attend a series of A.A. meetings. Medicine cites a study in which sanctions (e.g., “Everyone is assumed to be having a problem suspending licenses) were shown to be more by virtue of their DWI conviction,” explains Dr. effective against recidivism than alcohol Steve Valle, director of the program. “Social treatment. drinkers are really high-risk problem drinkers.” Of course, all this might be an elaborate As do most treatment programs, Right Turn process of self-denial. After several more uses a questionnaire to determine if you’re an sessions with my college alcohol adviser, a alcoholic. Right Turn’s test is adapted from one couple of compulsory sessions with A.A., and an by the National Highway Traffic Safety “intervention” organized by TNR interns, maybe Administration. Out of curiosity, I took it myself. I would be forced to admit that, yes, I am an Sure enough, I scored a 30 out of 47, which alcoholic. The trouble is, by the time that’s all meant I was in “the final, deteriorative stage of over, I probably will be. alcoholism, when most alcoholics outwardly appear to be alcoholic.” The test was designed

Source: The New Republic, April 22, 1991.

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