READ Drinking Games
READ Drinking Games
READ Drinking Games
DRINKING GAMES
How much people drink may matter less than how they drink it.
By Malcolm Gladwell
books was 30A, and when he went and sin. Around the middle of the last who has made a satisfactory adjust-
over his notes he found 30A references century, alcoholism began to be widely ment to life.”
everywhere. Still, nothing about the al- considered a disease: it was recognized By the late fifties, Lolli’s clinic had
THE NEW YORKER, FEBRUARY 15 & 22, 2010 71
admitted twelve hundred alcoholics. ter. It was their Coleman lantern. glass, and repeated the ritual with
Plenty of them were Irish. But just “Whatever the occasion, it didn’t mat- someone else in the circle. When peo-
forty were Italians (all of whom were ter,” Anna recalled. “As long as the party ple got too tired or too drunk, they
second- or third-generation immi- was at night, we were first on the list.” curled up on the ground and passed
grants). New Haven was a natural ex- The parties would have been more out, rejoining the party when they
periment. Here were two groups who aptly described as drinking parties. awoke. The Camba did not drink
practiced the same religion, who were The host would buy the first bottle and alone. They did not drink on work
subject to the same laws and con- issue the invitations. A dozen or so nights. And they drank only within the
straints, and who, it seemed reasonable people would show up on Saturday structure of this elaborate ritual.
to suppose, should have the same as- night, and the party would proceed— “The alcohol they drank was awful,”
sortment within their community of often until everyone went back to work Anna recalled. “Literally, your eyes
those genetically predisposed to alco- on Monday morning. The composi- poured tears. The first time I had it, I
holism. Yet the heavy-drinking Ital- tion of the group was informal: some- thought, I wonder what will happen if I
ians had nothing like the problems times people passing by would be in- just vomit in the middle of the floor. Not
that afflicted their Irish counterparts. vited. But the structure of the party even the Camba said they liked it. They
“That drinking must precede alco- was heavily ritualized. The group say it tastes bad. It burns. The next day
holism is obvious,” Mark Keller once would sit in a circle. Someone might they are sweating this stuff. You can
wrote. “Equally obvious, but not al- play the drums or a guitar. A bottle of smell it.” But the Heaths gamely perse-
ways sufficiently considered, is the fact rum, from one of the sugar refineries in vered. “The anthropology graduate stu-
that drinking is not necessarily fol- the area, and a small drinking glass dent in the nineteen-fifties felt that he
lowed by alcoholism.” This was the were placed on a table. The host stood, had to adapt,” Dwight Heath said. “You
puzzle of New Haven, and why Keller filled the glass with rum, and then don’t want to offend anyone, you don’t
demanded of Dwight Heath, that day walked toward someone in the circle. want to decline anything. I gritted my
on the Yale campus, Tell me how the He stood before the “toastee,” nodded, teeth and accepted those drinks.”
Camba drink. The crucial ingredient, and raised the glass. The toastee smiled “We didn’t get drunk that much,”
in Keller’s eyes, had to be cultural. and nodded in return. The host then Anna went on, “because we didn’t get
The Heaths had been invited to a drank half the glass and handed it to toasted as much as the other folks
party soon after arriving in Montero, the toastee, who would finish it. The around. We were strangers. But one
and every weekend and holiday thereaf- toastee eventually stood, refilled the night there was this really big party—
sixty to eighty people. They’d drink.
Then pass out. Then wake up and
party for a while. And I found, in their
drinking patterns, that I could turn my
drink over to Dwight. The husband is
obliged to drink for his wife. And
Dwight is holding the Coleman lan-
tern with his arm wrapped around it,
and I said, ‘Dwight, you are burning
your arm.’ ” She mimed her husband
peeling his forearm off the hot surface
of the lantern. “And he said—very de-
liberately—‘So I am.’ ”
When the Heaths came back to
New Haven, they had a bottle of the
Camba’s rum analyzed and learned
that it was a hundred and eighty proof.
It was laboratory alcohol—the concen-
tration that scientists use to fix tissue.
No one had ever heard of anyone
drinking it. This was the first of the as-
tonishing findings of the Heaths’ re-
search—and, predictably, no one be-
lieved it at first.
“One of the world’s leading physi-
ologists of alcohol was at the Yale cen-
ter,” Heath recalled. “His name was
Leon Greenberg. He said to me, ‘Hey,
you spin a good yarn. But you couldn’t
“We could easily sell this place—it shows nicely.” really have drunk that stuff.’ And he
needled me just enough that he knew ing a tribe in central Kenya. One of the
he would get a response. So I said, tribesmen, he was told, was “very dan-
‘You want me to drink it? I have a bot- gerous” and “totally beyond control”
tle.’ So one Saturday I drank some after he had been drinking, and one day
under controlled conditions. He was Edgerton ran across the man:
taking blood samples every twenty
I heard a commotion, and saw people
minutes, and, sure enough, I did drink running past me. One young man stopped
it, the way I said I’d drunk it.” and urged me to flee because this dangerous
Greenberg had an ambulance ready drunk was coming down the path attacking
all whom he met. As I was about to take this
to take Heath home. But Heath de- advice and leave, the drunk burst wildly into
cided to walk. Anna was waiting up for the clearing where I was sitting. I stood up,
him in the third-floor walkup they ready to run, but much to my surprise, the
man calmed down, and as he walked slowly
rented, in an old fraternity house. “I past me, he greeted me in polite, even defer-
was hanging out the window waiting ential terms, before he turned and dashed
for him, and there’s the ambulance away. I later learned that in the course of his
“drunken rage” that day he had beaten two
driving along the street, very slowly, men, pushed down a small boy, and eviscer-
and next to it is Dwight. He waves, ated a goat with a large knife.
and he looks fine. Then he walks up
the three flights of stairs and says, The authors include a similar case
‘Ahh, I’m drunk,’ and falls flat on his from Ralph Beals’s work among the
face. He was out for three hours.” Mixe Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico:
The bigger surprise was what hap-
The Mixe indulge in frequent fist fights,
pened when the Camba drank. The especially while drunk. Although I probably
Camba had weekly benders with labo- saw several hundred, I saw no weapons used,
ratory-proof alcohol, and, Dwight although nearly all men carried machetes
and many carried rifles. Most fights start
Heath said, “There was no social pa- with a drunken quarrel. When the pitch of
thology—none. No arguments, no dis- voices reaches a certain point, everyone ex-
putes, no sexual aggression, no verbal pects a fight. The men hold out their weap-
ons to the onlookers, and then begin to fight
aggression. There was pleasant con with their fists, swinging wildly until one
versation or silence.” On the Brown falls down [at which point] the victor helps
University campus, a few blocks away, his opponent to his feet and usually they
embrace each other.
beer—which is to Camba rum approx-
imately what a peashooter is to a ba- The angry Kenyan tribesman was
zooka—was known to reduce the stu- disinhibited toward his own people but
dent population to a raging hormonal inhibited toward Edgerton. Alcohol
frenzy on Friday nights. “The drinking turned the Mixe into aggressive street
didn’t interfere with work,” Heath fighters, but they retained the presence
went on. “It didn’t bring in the police. of mind to “hold out their weapons to
And there was no alcoholism, either.” the onlookers.” Something that truly
disinhibits ought to be indiscriminate