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I was reading a book yesterday where one character offers another one a drink. He declines, and the guy says something like "Come on, the sun's over the yardarm

I was reading a book yesterday where one character offers another one a drink. He declines, and the guy says something like "Come on, the sun's over the yardarm somewhere." This struck me as a very odd phrase, so I looked it up. The yardarm is the horizontal beam on a sailing boat. Back in the day, once the sun rose above the yardarm, the Royal Navy would start issuing the first of the rum rations for the day. There were several throughout the day. This was about 11am. The U.S. Navy had similar rules. George Washington's army pounded back quite a bit as part of their daily rations. The first major uprising in the U.S. was due to alcohol production. Foreigners traveling to the states were always impressed at the amount of booze the colonists could put away. Even folks who mostly teetotaled kept a cider barrel and took a good-sized cup to get the day going. Some anthropologists believe that the natural state of man up until a hundred years or so ago was intoxication, it just wasn't spelled out as clearly in the literature, mainly because it wasn't unusual. In fact, some believe that civilization itself started with the fermentation of grain. I'm still trying to absorb those numbers, which I feel are inflated. But I note that excessive consumption in the states is certainly not a new thing. So who knows? Maybe the stats are true. I note that another commenter is pointing out that addicts will enjoy these articles because it tells them they are normal. Beats me what normal is. Are we supposed to all agree on a definition here? Is it okay to bring up what some of the stats and historians are saying about alcohol consumption in a non-judgmental way without either having to endorse or condemn it?

aaronbrethorst 12y ago
Some anthropologists believe that the natural state of man up until a hundred years or so ago was intoxication, it just wasn't spelled out as clearly in the literature, mainly because it wasn't unusual. There's quite a bit of literature out there about this. What I haven't seen a lot of—and would be interested in learning more about—is the seemingly simultaneous occurrence of the proliferation of coffee houses and the Enlightenment in Europe. It would make a ton of sense to me that trading in a constant state of inebriation for a caffeine buzz might make for better productivity.
- DanielBMarkham 12y ago
  There are all these cases today of sizable percentages of the population being pre-dispositioned to do things that currently make no sense. ADHD is one. Is ADHD a defect? Or an adaptive response that is no longer needed? Or just a different kind of personality maturation pattern? Perhaps heavy alcohol inebriation was needed when you worked 35 years barely staying alive, then died of measels. Perhaps it's part of intelligence -- some addiction researchers are now saying that addicts are actually "over-learning" the stimulus-response associated with drinking. Like I said, beats me. But it is fascinating -- even more so if there is 10% of the population who are adults and presumably mostly feel they have no problem while the rest of us think they do. Obesity is developing along similar lines -- except the 10 percent are going to end up being the folks who aren't fat! Personal anecdotes are great, and I congratulate anybody on overcoming something that they've identified as a problem. But when we're talking 10 percent of the population? There's something else at work here; something that has developed over eons across populations worldwide. Fascinating stuff.
  - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
    IIRC, a lot of it was credited to the difficulty of getting pure drinking water. Fermented beer (with considerably lower ABV than we're used to) was much safer to drink than water from a river that everyone upstream had been throwing their trash into.
thisrod 12y ago
Come visit Australia to see a real history of drinking. The British colonists ran out of pound notes, and chose rum as the national currency. Then an argument about distilling rights led to a coup d'etat.
- rjurney 12y ago
  The home of pub-glassing.
douche 12y ago
Another interesting historical comparison is that for much of the history of civilization, drinking water was mostly contaminated and unsafe to drink. So people drank beer and wine instead. Granted, most of the time it was watered wine or "small" beer, but yeah, most people must have been somewhat buzzed all the time. I read a book about John Wilkes, the 18th century English politician, and apparently it was not uncommon for people in those circles to drink four or five bottles of wine a day... Ben Franklin was another famous lush, as was Winston Churchill. There's a lot of bizarre puritanism going on in American culture these days...

aaronbrethorst 12y ago

Some anthropologists believe that the natural state of man up until a hundred years or so ago was intoxication, it just wasn't spelled out as clearly in the literature, mainly because it wasn't unusual. There's quite a bit of literature out there about this. What I haven't seen a lot of—and would be interested in learning more about—is the seemingly simultaneous occurrence of the proliferation of coffee houses and the Enlightenment in Europe. It would make a ton of sense to me that trading in a constant state of inebriation for a caffeine buzz might make for better productivity.

DanielBMarkham 12y ago
There are all these cases today of sizable percentages of the population being pre-dispositioned to do things that currently make no sense. ADHD is one. Is ADHD a defect? Or an adaptive response that is no longer needed? Or just a different kind of personality maturation pattern? Perhaps heavy alcohol inebriation was needed when you worked 35 years barely staying alive, then died of measels. Perhaps it's part of intelligence -- some addiction researchers are now saying that addicts are actually "over-learning" the stimulus-response associated with drinking. Like I said, beats me. But it is fascinating -- even more so if there is 10% of the population who are adults and presumably mostly feel they have no problem while the rest of us think they do. Obesity is developing along similar lines -- except the 10 percent are going to end up being the folks who aren't fat! Personal anecdotes are great, and I congratulate anybody on overcoming something that they've identified as a problem. But when we're talking 10 percent of the population? There's something else at work here; something that has developed over eons across populations worldwide. Fascinating stuff.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  IIRC, a lot of it was credited to the difficulty of getting pure drinking water. Fermented beer (with considerably lower ABV than we're used to) was much safer to drink than water from a river that everyone upstream had been throwing their trash into.

thisrod 12y ago

Come visit Australia to see a real history of drinking. The British colonists ran out of pound notes, and chose rum as the national currency. Then an argument about distilling rights led to a coup d'etat.

rjurney 12y ago
The home of pub-glassing.

douche 12y ago

Another interesting historical comparison is that for much of the history of civilization, drinking water was mostly contaminated and unsafe to drink. So people drank beer and wine instead. Granted, most of the time it was watered wine or "small" beer, but yeah, most people must have been somewhat buzzed all the time. I read a book about John Wilkes, the 18th century English politician, and apparently it was not uncommon for people in those circles to drink four or five bottles of wine a day... Ben Franklin was another famous lush, as was Winston Churchill. There's a lot of bizarre puritanism going on in American culture these days...