Before the 19th century Temperance movement which culminated in national prohibition, Americans drank what would now be considered stupendous quantities of alcohol. Part of the impetus for prohibition was the nearly out-of-control amount of inebriation in society at large. Eventually of course Prohibition was repealed, and yet the US did not resume drinking at anything like former levels. What changed?
Can we have some data to support your thesis?
Somethin’ I read somewhere… 
Seriously, a starting point would be the recent PBS documentary about Prohibition, but I wasn’t aware anything in the OP was controversial.
I’ll take a WAG that prohibition opened up drinking establishments to women, and the presence of women in bars changes the social dynamic… but I’m not really sold on your initial thesis without a some type of cite, it’s not something i have heard before.
The prodigious consumption of alcohol in the United States actually peaked in the 19th century. The following article talks about alcohol in America.
In a nutshell, by the 1830s the average American consumed 3.9 gallons of alcohol per year. That’s not 3.9 gallons of beer, wine or whiskey. That’s 3.9 gallons of alcohol, period. In contrast, the average consumption in 2007 for people 14 or older was 2.31 gallons a year. The first temperance societies in the United States got their start back in the late 18th century. What changed? Industrialization. It changed the way people worked, traveled and communicated.
What also changed: clean drinking water.
According to the book “And a Bottle of Rum” by Wayne Curtis, in Colonial times through roughly Prohibition, the average American drank on the order of GALLONS of absolute alcohol annually. This means that the alcohol content of the beer, wine and spirits they drank totaled up to over a gallon per man, woman and child. Considering that generally speaking, only men seriously drank in those days, and not every man drank or drank heavily, the ones that did, really went after it.
Personally, I think the biggest reason we’re not as drunk as we once were is because beer and wine have replaced spirits as the chief alcoholic beverages; in colonial times, people drank rum, and post-colonial, whiskey took over. Somewhere around the late 1800s, beer became very popular with the increased German immigration, and I suspect the breweries recovered faster than distilleries.
I’d also bet that World War II had something to do with it- distilleries were required to make industrial alcohol, not whiskey, gin, etc… while I don’t think breweries were so restricted. Between WWII and prohibition, it likely took whiskey distilleries in particular, a very long time to age their products back up to where their quality was pre-prohibition.
There was also (I think, but not sure) a real change in the way that the churches viewed alcohol somewhere in there, and I’m sure that affected the church-going types, especially over time- if enough children are taught that alcohol is the Devil, then some proportion will believe it and not drink.
Roll all that together, and that’s why I think we’re less drunk now than pre-Prohibition. Luckily, I think we’re getting back to our roots and going back to the old ways!
I also suspect that there was little to mix liquor into cocktails with in the old days, so they drank it straight.
The PBS doc also claimed that in some instances, episodes of severe drunkenness were more prevalent during prohibition than before. My guess is that this was because beer was more difficult to produce and smuggle–per unit of alcohol–than hard liquor. So a guy wanting a drink would get ahold of an entire bottle of liquor whereas before a few beers at the saloon would have sufficed.
This is reminiscent of the theory that the crack epidemic was triggered in part because marijuana had become too difficult to profitably smuggle compared to cocaine.
Gallons could be 2. That’s not much. It’s less than 3 ounces per day.
I still think it makes no sense to start this debate without actual data.
Here’s stats:
http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/resources/databaseresources/quickfacts/alcoholsales/consum01.htm
OK, on the figures Captain Amazingp helpfully provides, it does seem to be that in the years before prohibition per capita consumption bounced around in the 2 to 2.5 gals/yr range, and that it didn’t really get back there until the 1960s.
Just a wild guess, but could taxation have any bearing on this? Given the perceived failure of prohibition, could the temperance movement have switched to revenue measures as a way to reduce consumption?
Anybody got any data on the effective tax rates on alcohol over the years?
Talking about gallons of absolute alcohol confuses me. How does a gallon of absolute alcohol translate into bottles of beer or glasses of wine?
So in the ten years leading up to prohibition, Americans drank ~2.6 gallons of ethanol.
Starting ten years after prohibition, it averaged about 2 gallons/year over the decade.
And for the past 10 years, it’s averaged about 2.1 gallons.
The peak alcohol consumption period was in the mid-60s to mid-80s.
I doubt the changes in alcohol consumption are either within the margin of error of the measurement system or significant even if they are. But even if we assume they are significant, it seems to be largely an artefact of the Baby Boom.
Bear in mind that by the time the industry had recovered from Prohibition the US was entering included the Great Depression, World War Two and the start of the Baby Boom period. With many more children in the population, alcohol consumption had to fall even if adult consumption remained static.
As the Boomers became young adults consumption climbed to above pre-Prohibition levels, which is what you’d expect from having fewer children and elderly in the population. And as the Boomers entered middle age we get a slight dip, which again is what you’d expect if we assume that older people drink somewhat less.
I’m not seeing anything but demographic effects at play here. Age adjusted alcohol consumption seems to have been perfectly stable for the past 150 years.
It’s possible of course, but I can’t see any need to invoke it.
Prohibition crippled the industry, and it took time to recover. Coupled with that recover was taking place during the Depression, then WWII, both of which would further have reduced consumption. Once those were over we entered the Baby Boom, and the increased ratios of both infants and parents would have further decreased alcohol consumptions even if per capita consumption for other segments of society was static.
Once the Boomers entered adulthood consumptions picked up and surpassed pre-Prohibition levels, which is exactly what you’d expect. It wasn’t until the Boomers hit middle age that consumption started to fall off.
Most beer is ~5% alcohol by volume, so you’d have to drink 20 gallons of it to get a gallon of alcohol.
I do recall hearing on NPR how the German “Beer Garden” – a bright, cheery, family gathering-place to drink – was a strange thing when first tried on American soil, where even (especially) heavy drinkers had internalized the Puritan concept of drinking as a shameful thing to be done in dark, dreary caves, and not in front of the family.
20 (American) gallons of beer comes out to about 213 twelve-ounce bottles. Or 35 six-packs. How long do you think it would take the average American beer-drinker to down 35 six-packs? Less than 35 days, I’m sure.
Going by the data posted above, it takes quite a bit longer than that.
I got no factual data, but it reminds me a bit of the problem of poverty and “dysgenic families”, families where alcohol and drug abuse, depravity, general abuse, unemployment and misery were rampant, and where lots of children seemed to be born. A friend of mine studied that. She found that about 90 percent of those problems disappeared when the general standard of living rose. So that would indicate that poverty was the original problem, not the alcohol itself.
I’m sorry, but do you seriously believe the AVERAGE American beer drinker drinks more than six beers a day? The heaviest beer drinkers I know don’t drink that much beer - certainly more than six beers on a Saturday night, but every day, of course not. I actually know people I honestly believe have drinking problems who don’t average six beers a day. And all the alcoholics have to balance out people like me who average maybe six beers a month.