There’s a good side to alcohol

Opinion: July 26, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By Stanton Peele

Los Angeles Times

As California contemplates legalizing the sale of marijuana, the real war over intoxicants in this country is, as always, over alcohol.

Since Prohibition ended in 1933 with the 21st Amendment to the Constitution — which repealed the 18th Amendment authorizing the ban on alcohol — states, counties and municipalities have see-sawed back and forth over alcohol sales. But as an addiction psychologist and alcohol epidemiologist, I am more interested in another debate over alcohol: whether it can be good for you. This issue arises every five years as the United States issues new dietary guidelines, including for alcohol consumption. In 1990, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans firmly declared that alcohol “has no net health benefit, is linked with many health problems, is the cause of many accidents and can lead to addiction.” Consumption was not recommended.

But in 1995, based on the results of studies identifying subjects who drank and did not drink and then following their health outcomes over time, the guidelines modestly declared — amid a sea of information about the dangers of drinking — that “alcoholic beverages have been used to enhance the enjoyment of meals by many societies throughout human history” and that “current evidence suggests that moderate drinking ... is associated with a lower risk for coronary heart disease in some individuals.”

Firestorm

A firestorm resulted over these words, led by the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., a notorious teetotaler. Somehow, the section came through intact.Well, another battle is brewing over the 2010 edition of the guidelines. In the intervening years, quite a bit of evidence has accumulated to take the statement of alcohol’s benefits even further.

According to the experts charged with creating the alcohol section, strong evidence indicates that “the lowest mortality risk for men and women (occurs) at the average level of one to two drinks per day, (and) is likely due to the protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on CHD (coronary heart disease), diabetes and ischemic stroke as summarized in this chapter.”

In other words, people who have a couple of drinks daily live the longest. Adding what for some is insult to injury, the group also noted: “Moderate evidence suggests that compared to non-drinkers, individuals who drink moderately have a slower cognitive decline with age.” Moderate drinkers not only live longer, they are more alert while doing so!

Stanton Peele, an addiction and alcohol expert who lectures internationally, is the author of “7 Tools to Beat Addiction.” He wrote this for the Los Angeles Times.