In Lysistrata, by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides, the wives of the warring Athenians and Spartans revolt. The women collectively agree to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers until the men of the two cities make peace. A peace conference quickly follows. A treaty is successfully negotiated, thanks in part to the hefty amount of alcohol consumed by the ambassadors on both sides:
1ST ATHENIAN
I've never known such a pleasant banquet before,
And what delightful fellows the Spartans are.
When we are warm with wine, how wise we grow.
2ND ATHENIAN
That's only fair, since sober we're such fools:
This is the advice I'd give the Athenians—
See our ambassadors are always drunk.
For when we visit Sparta sober, then
We're on the alert for trickery all the while
So that we miss half of the things they say,
And misinterpret things that were never said,
And then report the muddle back to Athens.
But now we're charmed with each other. They might cap
With the Telamon-catch instead of the Cleitagora,
["they could perform Spartan poetry instead of Athenian poetry"]
And we'd applaud and praise them just the same;
We're not too scrupulous in weighing words.
The time I am spending on the hospital wards is showing me another side of alcohol: the terrible toll that it exacts from some of its consumers. One such patient who was in her twenties had suffered complete liver failure because of heavy alcohol consumption. As such, she was badly jaundiced. The whites of her eyes were now a dark yellow and her fair skin was now a dark green-brown. Her chances of being alive in 3 months' time were under 15%. Another patient had lost the ability to walk or sit up unassisted because of alcohol-induced degeneration of the part of his brain (the cerebellum) that regulates balance. According to Harrison's:
As much as I enjoy having a beer, I've started to see alcohol as a poison above all else. Although you might think that doctors would know better, Harrison's also points out that "the lifetime risk for alcoholism among physicians is similar to that of the general population."Because80% of people in Western countries have consumed alcohol, and two-thirds have been drunk in the prior year, the lifetime risk for serious, repetitive alcohol problems is almost 20% for men and 10% for women, regardless of a person's education or income. While low doses of alcohol have some healthful benefits, the intake of more than three standard drinks per day on a regular basis enhances the risk for cancer and vascular disease, and alcohol use disorders decrease the life span by about 10 years.
Alcohol consumption is increasing in the United Kingdom and Russia and is surging in new markets like India and China. As an increasing number of people worldwide try alcohol for the first time, more will abuse alcohol, with the concomitant problems that alcohol wreaks on the body and the mind.
Although treatment for alcohol addiction is in its infancy, doctors are getting a better sense of what interventions are effective. There even are a few medications, such as naltrexone, that seem to blunt cravings. The outsized public health impact of alcohol consumption also means that medical innovations in this field will have an outsized effect on people's well-being.
