[ad_1]
“The purpose of dry January is not long-term sobriety, but long-term control,” Richard Piper said in a recent Washington Post article. Piper is the CEO of Alcohol Change UK, the UK non-profit that launched the Dry January Challenge. “It gives us the power to choose the rest of the year,” Piper said.
People who are dehydrated in January, September, or October may be seeking self-improvement for personal reasons, but in the United States, alcohol consumption or abstinence has always been a personal and collective decision. It was about .
Journal of the historian W. Early Republic, the first scholar to thoroughly study drinking patterns in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
In the 40 years from 1790 to 1830, Americans drank the most in the nation’s history, Rorabaugh wrote in 1979. He said some Americans were forced to drink excessively as a result of the country’s rapid change.
But after 1830, heavy drinking (and perhaps American anxiety) began to subside. Young Americans, ready to let go of the past and embrace the new spirit of industrial growth and religious fundamentalism, led a cultural change from excessive drinking, he noted. Half stopped drinking altogether.
Once the temperance movement was in full swing, Prohibition was soon enacted, and society thrashed around until it all collapsed in 1933. I found myself trapped between what I thought the country could be and reality… what it was.
In the last three years alone, we have been able to swing on both sides of the drinking pendulum that has existed in this country for centuries. We clung to alcohol and pushed it away during the anxiety of the pandemic as reality hit us. In this period of cultural change and social reform.
As centuries ago, the younger generation is leading the way, whether they realize it or not.
“Consumption trends come in long waves of ups and downs. Drinking is bound to decline at some point, and younger generations are likely to make that change,” said a professor of alcohol policy in the UK. John Holmes said in a recent interview. with the BBC.
I do not know what new American ideals the younger generation will lead us to in this time of great cultural change, but if Dry January is the tool that will lead us to a clearer future, I strongly agree.
For more information, visit the Real Life blog (www.ajc.com/opinion/real-life-blog/) and find Nedra on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AJCRealLifeColumn) and Twitter (@nrhoneajc) or email her nedra.rhone@ajc.com.
Sign up for the AJC Food and Dining Newsletter
Read more stories like this I like the Atlanta restaurant scene on FacebookContinue Twitter When @ajcdining on Instagram.
[ad_2]
Source link
