A DRINKING SONG

DRINK: A Social History of America, by Andrew Barr. Carroll & Graf,
466 pp., $27.95.

MANY OF US live by the rule "everything in moderation," but most of the time
we're too worried about "moderation" and forget that the real key is
"everything." We gluttonous Americans might keep our drinking in check, but
we eat nine chocolate bars a week and cycle through automobiles at an
alarmingly materialistic rate. British writer Andrew Barr doesn't always hew
to the full import of the expression, either. In his provocative,
entertaining "Drink: A Social History of America," Barr, a well-regarded
wine authority and Sunday Times of London food writer, makes his case for a
sensible, moderately imbibing society, yet his calls for civility, common
sense and respect for the beneficial effects of drinking are frequently
undermined by excessive cheekiness.

"Drink" is most effective and enlightening when Barr tells the history of
alcohol in America, from the popularity of Madeira imported from Portugal,
to Thomas Jefferson's fabulous wine cellar, to the revolting, all-American
custom of "bolting" one's food with drink, to the social and cultural forces
that led to the 12-year period of Prohibition. Some of it is just amazing to
consider, such as the fact that in the early 19th Century belief in the
medicinal powers of booze was so great that life insurance premiums were
much higher for teetotalers.

Barr is a libertarian sort who is all too eager to point out the long-known
fact that this nation has a nearly Manichean binge-purge mentality when it
comes to squaring up our Dionysian impulses with our Apollonian. The simple
explanation is that the original settlers in the New World were either
Puritans or crooks, and we're still sorting out who gets to run the show 300
years later. Barr sympathizes with the spiritual heirs of the latter and
mocks temperance activists and reformers, arguing that their excessive zeal
has completely backfired on them.

The classic example is Prohibition, he says, which only served to popularize
the drinking of dangerous hard liquor and quashed a growing wine-
appreciation movement. Barr also points out that the main intention of
teetotalers had been to send a stern, martial message to the huge waves of
European immigrants coming ashore: The streets aren't paved with gold, and
the gutters aren't flowing with whiskey.

Many of Barr's counterintuitive viewpoints on touchy subjects - such as
fetal alcohol syndrome - will make readers see red, but the incorrigible
oenophile Barr will tell you that the "red" is quite a nice bouquet,
actually. He says that treating alcohol abuse as a "disease" only serves to
make victims out of irresponsible drinkers; it gives them a ready "The
Drambuie Made Me Do It" excuse when they foul the world with errant deeds.
Besides, he says, "the disease concept of alcoholism is destroyed by its own
internal contradictions. Any alcoholic who seeks treatment is told that by
drinking alcohol he sets off an irrepressible desire for the substance and
that he must therefore agree as a condition of his treatment to abstain from
drinking. Yet, if he does as he is told and abstains during treatment, he is
disproving the theory that alcoholism is a disease that causes an inability
to abstain from drinking."

Barr also takes Mothers Against Drunk Driving to task for the organization's
attempts to have a federal blood alcohol content level set at 0.08. He makes
a persuasive argument - and one that is, in fact, supported by MADD's
founder - that drunk drivers are by and large heavy drinkers for whom the
threshold of 0.08 is irrelevant.

Still, you might say, what's the harm? It's a social one, he argues: People
would never even be able to have a single drink and get into a car if MADD
and the "zero tolerance" folks had their way. But it would be unfair to
enroll Barr in DAMM (Drunks Against Mad Mothers) just yet, because he does -
in a grudging dash - acknowledge its impact on lowering drunk-driving rates.

However, Barr sees the successful campaign to raise drinking ages as
complete folly, and brings up the usual canard that every 19-year-old totes
out: I can vote, I can die for my country, but I can't have a drink.
Moreover, he says, raising drinking ages has created even larger problems
with drinking, based on the "taboo" theory, the fact that students can't buy
beer and drink in their dorms but must go - drive - to parties, and that the
whole "just say no" culture has scared parents away from letting their kids
have a couple of cocktails at home, thus ruining an opportunity to counsel
them on responsible drinking.

Barr expends a lot of energy discussing the heart-healthy benefits of red
wine, a theory first introduced to Americans on a mass scale in a 1991 "60
Minutes" feature called "The French Paradox," which asked why the French,
despite smoking more and eating worse than Americans, have significantly
fewer heart attacks. It's the wine, and in typical fashion sales of the red
stuff in America skyrocketed after the report. Barr details the government's
attempt to debunk or otherwise water down the theory, but whether or not the
science is on his side, his larger point is that wine gives working people a
flavorful way to kick back and relax, leading to a stress-reduction benefit.

No one can accuse Barr of offering one-sided arguments; he's certainly done
his homework. Having said that, it's also true that he makes no attempt to
suppress his sardonic dismissals of teetotataling agencies, like the World
Health Organization, which refuses to admit that moderate, socially
responsible drinking is, in fact, good for the soul, good for society and
aids digestion to boot. "If you believe that alcoholism is a problem for
which society in general is responsible," writes Barr, "then you cannot also
regard alcoholism as a disease that affects individuals. If you endorse the
first of these beliefs, you cannot logically subscribe to the other, and
vice versa."

Barr's problem here is applying logic to a debate that doesn't readily
conform to it. There's no reason to believe both can't be true, and he falls
victim to false choices, neither of which he agrees with. In doing so, he
begins to resemble a classic barroom scholar, regaling listeners with his
ready flask full of fact-based opinions. As he edges closer and closer to
the edge of credibility, not to mention his barstool, you think, "He's
insane, but entertaining - and he has a point." But he loses you in a fit of
slurred scorn, and falls off his stool.