SHOULDER TO SHOULDER

We Raise A Glass To Companionship, A Chance To Relax

Green beer. Lines that queue up well before noon and wrap around the
corner. Crowds that stress the most veteran bartender.

These are signs that there is a St. Patrick's Day holiday brewing. Gearing
up for the occasion is Flannery's, 425 E. Wells St. The bar-and-restaurant
combo will open at 10 a.m. Saturday with $2 Leinie drafts and corned beef
and cabbage.

Bartender Jim Smerud isn't looking forward to it. He remembers last year
when he was behind the bar at The Harp. What a mess.

"It's crazy," says Smerud. "It's just getting bigger and bigger. It's an
excuse to just party and go nuts after a long winter."

Smerud's long-winter theory is one possibility for why St. Patrick's Day is
among the big drinking holidays along with New Year's Eve, Christmas,
Thanksgiving and a 21st birthday celebration, according to the American
Beverage Institute in Washington, D.C.

But do we drink because St. Patrick's Day is a holiday? Or does the fact
that it's a holiday become another excuse to drink?

And why is it that we drink at all?

You might want to pull up a stool for a few of the explanations.

The No. 1 reason experts believe we drink: Companionship.

Guy walks into a bar.

Bar owner asks: "Why do you drink?"

Guy answers: "My doctor sent me here. He told me to drink plenty of fluids."

True story.

It is one of many drinking tales told in the dusty sunlight poking through
the windows of Valent's, a Riverwest neighborhood tavern with a dozen bar
stools and about that many customers. Aside from the chorus of "Happy
Birthday," there is nothing rowdy about the place - just some retired guys
drinking cold ones, talking about their day while "Scarecrow and Mrs. King"
flickers on the TV above.

These men are like much of the population. In the U.S., 90% of those who
drink do so without problems. And they do so because it allows them to
connect with other people.

There's no jukebox, no pool table, no volume on the television and not a
pair of dice to be found. "It's just conversation," says owner Gus Valent.
"They're lonely."

Roger B., the only part of his name that he'll give, is the man celebrating
his birthday this day. He bellies up to the bar to mark the end of another
day in the plumbing business.

"I don't drink alone," he says. "A guy can come in here and have a couple
beers and feel relaxed."

No. 2: Exactly what he said - relax.

"Most people in the U.S. say they drink to relax or because they enjoy the
taste," says Dwight B. Heath, professor of anthropology at Brown University
and author of "Drinking Occasions: Comparative Perspectives on Alcohol and
Culture."

"Some people talk about the sociability, the idea that you're greeted at
the door by friends and neighbors," he says. "It makes me feel good. It's
pleasant. It's hospitality mixed with sociability."

Back at Flannery's, a group of men sit at their regular table near the door
and close to the bar. They're pretty typical of the Flannery's crowd, which
tends to be professionals in their mid-to late-20s. These men work at a
quiet insurance company nearby that they will not name. They sip from tall
Pilsner glasses.

A cacophony of explanations about why they're in this same spot twice a
week follows. The reasons include: No. 3, "To relieve stress." And, No. 4:
"Escape from reality."

Jason Kleckner, the only guy in the group standing, has yet another: "It
makes me dance better."

Reason No. 5: To release inhibitions.

"People believe that drinking will have certain effects," says Vincent
Adesso, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

"They think it will help them relax, help them be more sociable. Give them
feelings of power. Beliefs turn to motives for drinking and there are
powerful motives for drinking."

Some of the motives are getting rid of tension, reducing anxiety. "More
recent research shows it's not only getting rid of bad feelings but going
after good feelings," Adesso says.

It's new research on an old subject - alcohol has been around forever, and
then some. The story is that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock instead
of Virginia as planned because they were running low on beer - a source of
hops, wheat and some nutrition. It's a fact, according to Heath. "They
needed to keep a basic ration."

Over and over Laurie Harrington, a bartender at O'Brien's, 4928 W. Vliet
St., hears the same refrain from her customers as she pours them drinks:
"It's been a long week." Which brings up reason No. 6:

"They want to let loose a little bit," Harrington says. "It (alcohol) makes
things easier. You can say what you're thinking."

Overall, they drink for sociability, says Harrington. Proof is in the
leagues that have formed at O'Brien's. They have pool leagues and softball
leagues and regulars who greet each other and Harrington by name.

Holidays and birthdays - reasons 7 and 8 - are just good excuses to drink,
Harrington says. Last year on St. Patrick's Day, 700 people jammed the bar
across the street from Wick Field.

People tend to think of drinking as an occasion, especially moderate
drinkers who are in the vast majority in the U.S., says Heath.

An inferred reason people drink - No. 9 - is social status, says Heath.
"Drinking really is one of the cheapest luxuries that just about anyone can
afford.

"Some people have a drink to show that they have some money," he says.
"Certainly this is true with wine. We all know wine snobs who go into all
kinds of raptures to describe wines."

Heath brings up reason No. 10 - to get out of the house.

"Very often we're talking about drinking in bars, although fewer than 10%
of people drink in bars. Most drinking takes place at home or in
restaurants," he says. Heath recalls a sociologist who once termed bars,
barbershops and beauty salons the "third place." They're not home and not
work, but they are places where people socialize.

He uses as an example people who travel to a different city. They'll often
end up at a local bar or the hotel bar to get some of the city's color or
just to converse with others.

Still, it's worth noting that an estimated 10% of the population are
problem drinkers. Susan J. Rose, an associate professor in the School of
Social Welfare at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, says problem
drinkers often drink for similar reasons but also have interpersonal issues
they are trying to escape.

Problems for the alcoholic become problems for the alcoholic's family, says
Rose. And while there is a broad range of persons who are problem drinkers,
it's the risky drinkers who cause the most damage. They drink in a way that
puts themselves and others at risk. They are more dangerous on the roads.
Rose says there are more who qualify as risky drinkers than there are those
who qualify as alcoholics.

As a scientist affiliated with the Center for Addiction and Behavioral
Health Research, Rose is part of a group studying Milwaukee to look at the
effects of counseling and medication in the treatment of drinking problems.
Milwaukee was chosen because so many people here drink, more per capita
than the average metropolitan area.

Rose is aware of the temptation St. Patrick's Day holds for problem
drinkers. She teaches in Milwaukee but she lives just outside Chicago, a
city that dyes its river green for the holiday and where "everybody's out
drinking," she says.

Some of Irish ancestry may take exception to the drinking hoopla that
surrounds St. Patrick's Day, which started out as a day of abstinence in
Ireland. They might also take exception to green beer, the stereotype of
drunken Irishmen and the "Kiss me" jokes. But psychology professor Adesso
thinks the reason the holiday is such a drinking holiday is bigger than its
heritage.

"In a sense, people need a change from their ordinary lives. That's why we
have holidays in general," Adesso says. "I think drinking then, with St.
Patrick's Day, comes from a tradition of showing solidarity with the in
group and power against the out group."

Brian Witt, past president of the Shamrock Club of Wisconsin, says he isn't
offended by the drinking. "The Irish have always been known as a race that
loves its drink."

But he says it was Milwaukee's German breweries in the 1960s which helped
increase awareness of the day by offering beer specials each St. Patrick's Day.

Most likely the brewers knew something that psychologists also know.

"Holidays initially were the chance to let go of our ordinary inhibitions
and responsibilities," Adesso says.