Recent trends in alcoholism and in alcohol consumption [CAAAL 3898]

In the past few years newspapers and popular magazines have published surmises about an increase in drinking and a rise of alcoholism, particularly among women. The question has also been raised whether or not alcoholism has tended lately to develop at earlier ages. These surmises have been based either on impressions or on naïve statistics or on the free interpretation of scattered statements in professional journals. Extravagant conclusions have been attached to observations made on highly specific and small units, such as small hospitals or individual municipal courts which deal with selected populations. Thus Rotman’s† finding that the male–female ratio of inebriates had dropped from 4.5:1 in 1931 to 2:1 in 1943 at the Psychiatric Institute of the Municipal Court of Chicago has been generalized by the daily press as valid for the entire country. Such a conclusion was not intended by Rotman, who pointed out that “In fairness it must be noted that this represents a sex ratio in only extremely pathological cases.” A lay lecturer who apparently misunderstood some estimates of the number of inebriates in the United States publicly stated that the number of female alcoholics in this country was over 600,000. That Statement, which lacked all authority, was spread widely through the American press. Because of the great public interest in matters pertaining to alcohol and alcoholism, statements on trends of drinking easily find their way into the news irrespective of whether they are based on superficial judgments or on proper investigations. When impressions of the same kind are voiced from all sides and by individuals of greatly varying backgrounds and attitudes, a certain although limited validity of the impressions may be expected, but it becomes imperative to test these impressions by means of objective statistical methods. The present study is intended to approximate the answers to questions which are on the public mind through an analysis of consumption statistics, rates of alcoholism in the adult population, first admissions for alcoholic mental disorders to mental hospitals, and other indices of inebriety.