NUNC EST BIBENDUM

Why does a society provide good news with a grim face? No one appears to be
the Minister of Fun around here because no one seems allowed to whoop with
pleasure when a rather cheerful finding is published in the New England
Journal of Medicine to the effect that moderate but relatively frequent
drinking can reduce the risk of heart attack.

This is old stuff to any grown-up. There is no controversy about the fact
that moderate consumption of alcohol has a benign impact on heart health.
Dry counties have more heart trouble than wet. No one quite knows precisely
why though there are many plausible biochemical theories. What no one seems
to emphasize is that drinking is fun because it is usually done with other
people, which people like. Alcohol is the most effective and widespread
social drug in the world, equaled only by food as a facilitator for social
communication. So the fact that sharing alcohol has health benefits should
be neither a surprise nor a stimulus only for earnest sermons about the
dangers of drink.

Obviously don't drink and drive or operate a crane or land a space capsule
or do an energy company audit after two martinis. Of course don't become a
boozer. But the widely pervasive role of alcohol over the planet's time and
geography almost demands that we begin to appreciate not just its
biochemical impact on the ticker but its ability to embed people in social
situations which we know are, in themselves, Good For Your Health. There is
evidence that ungulates such as deer digest their food better when they
consume it in a herd than alone. When I mentioned this arcane fact to a
cat-owner I was told that the animal refused to dine unless its human
companion was by her side. And while lonely drinkers are at risk,
especially home in their bedsitters, more often than not the bartender
becomes their surrogate community; and what has been called "the third
place," neither work nor home, is often a bar in which a tipple soothes the
cares of the day and perhaps colors the promise of the night.

As a drug , alcohol hits more of the brain than any other. It appears to
have a generalized ability to mimic conviviality in a way that heroin or
cocaine or amphetamine do not -- these generate rather specific responses
which are usually anti-social and paranoid. Furthermore, a small dose can
have a huge effect, whereas alcohol, being water, requires handling with
care. A fair amount of it is necessary before a person becomes obnoxious
and dangerous to himself and others. In fact, those who want to legalize
the dry drugs such as pot and coke -- on the meretricious ground that
prohibition failed -- do not acknowledge the logistical complexity of
water. It is hard to provide a bar for a party without ample transport,
ice, breakable glass, seats, and, most important, public inspection. I can
carry enough dry drug in my overcoat to animate half or more of the U.S.
Senate. I couldn't pass security with enough bourbon for a modest subcommittee.

So let's celebrate the fact that a rather delightful substance is not only
good but good for us in sensible amounts. The world's wine industry is
currently making products at relatively low cost, with relatively high art,
and now we know moderate medical efficacy. There was once a jerk medic
about a century ago who insisted people had to chew their food a dozen or a
hundred times. Nothing about taste, fun, texture, the art of the cook. Chew
chew chew.

Now this isn't a recommendation to drink drink drink. However, think about
this. Faced with the dire emergency of having to change my lunch plans to
meet a Wall Street Journal deadline, I reached into my stash bought in
France of canned Saucisses de Toulouse aux Lentilles Cuisinees for just
such a crisis. It was okay, but best was the can, which not only told me
how to cook the food, but advised with it either Bordeaux rouge, Gaillac,
or Cahors wine. Delightful idea. But I still had a crane to drive.