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“Alcohol ambivalence has been with us for almost as long as alcohol,” my colleague Derek Thompson wrote this week. He notes that according to the Greek comic poet Eubulus, of the fourth century B.C.E., “although two bowls of wine brought ‘love and pleasure,’ five led to ‘shouting,’ nine led to ‘bile,’ and 10 produced outright ‘madness, in that it makes people throw things.’”
But perspectives on moderate drinking have flip-flopped several times since then. Derek spent days poring over the research to try to answer a seemingly simple question: Is moderate drinking okay? The answer, as you might expect, is not simple at all. Today’s reading list explores Americans’ changing relationship with alcohol, and what we know about its risks and rewards.
On Drinking
(Illustration by Paul Spella / The Atlantic. Sources: Getty; Shutterstock.)
A little alcohol can boost creativity and strengthen social ties. But there’s nothing moderate, or convivial, about the way many Americans drink today.
