Heavy Drinking Quotes

“In sum, Jellinek's highly influential articles were based on questionnaires completed by 98 male members of A.A. Of the 158 questionnaires returned, Jellinek had eliminated 60, excluding the data from some A.A. members who had pooled and averaged their answers on a single questionnaire because they shared their newsletter. Jellinek also excluded all questionnaires filled out by women because their answers differed greatly from the men's. No wonder Jellinek spoke of the limitations of the data. And no wonder his data conformed so closely to the A.A. model. Even in 1960, Jellinek acknowledged the lack of any demonstrated scientific foundation for his proposals. Of the lack of evidence he remarked, "For the time being this may suffice, but not indefinitely." 16”
― Herbert Fingarette, Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease

“The classic disease concept admirably suits the interests of the liquor industry: By acknowledging that a small minority of the drinking population is susceptible to the disease of alcoholism, the industry can implicitly assure consumers that the vast majority of people who drink are not at risk. This compromise is far preferable to both the old temperance commitment to prohibition, which criminalized the entire liquor industry, and to newer approaches that look beyond the small group diagnosable as alcoholics to focus on the much larger group of heavy drinkers who develop serious physical, emotional, and social problems.”
― Herbert Fingarette, Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease

“The Mantle of Science
For a decade or so, A.A. grew modestly. But, lacking scientific confirmation, it remained a relatively small sectarian
movement, occasionally receiving a boost in popular magazines. The great surge in the popularity of the A.A. disease concept came when it received what seemed to be impeccable scientific support. Two landmark articles by E. M. Jellinek, published in 1946 and 1952, proposed a scientific understanding of alcoholism that seemed to confirm major elements of the A.A. view.12
Jellinek, then a research professor in applied physiology at Yale University, was a distinguished biostatistician and one of the early leaders in the field of alcohol studies. In his first paper he presented some eighty pages of elaborately detailed description, statistics, and charts that depicted what he considered to be a typical or average alcoholic career. Jellinek cautioned his readers about the limited nature of his data, and he explicitly acknowledged differences among individual drinkers. But from the data's "suggestive" value, he proceeded to develop a vividly detailed hypothesis.”
― Herbert Fingarette, Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease