Robin,

I'm not reading Stephen Jurd's question in quite the same way you are.  We
need to separate the IDEA or CONCEPT suggested by "controlled drinking"
from that specific TERM.  Jurd seems to be asking about the origin of the
use of the specific TERM "controlled drinking" as a reference to something
that has had a great many designations over time, including "normal
drinking," "moderate drinking," "social drinking," "drinking like a
gentleman," etc., etc., etc.

The IDEA that the alcoholic cannot master or re-master controlled drinking
is essentially a corollary of the notion that the alcoholic must
permanently abstain.  That IDEA, as Harry Levine showed in his celebrated
1979 essay, goes back 200 years or so.  Levine himself noted the similarity
between early 19th century and modern day ideas as offered by AA and
alcoholism treatment sources in relation to the abstinence requirement:

"Many observations made by temperance advocates" writes Levine, "did not
differ significantly from
those made by contemporary students of alcoholism and by Alcoholics
Anonymous. One temperance writer, for example, described a case of loss of
control after one drink:

    "All have seen cases of this kind, where a longer or shorter interval
of entire
    abstinence is followed by a paroxysm of deadly indulgence.... In their
sober
    intervals they reason justly, of their own situation and its danger;
they know
    that for them, there can be no temperate drinking: They resolve to
abstain
    altogether, and thus avoid temptation they are too weak to resist. By
degrees
    they grow confident, and secure in their own strength, and. . . they
taste a
    little wine. From that moment the nicely adjusted balance of self
control is
    deranged, the demon returns in power, reason is cast out, and the man
is
    destroyed (44, p.145)"

Levine's quoted text comes from an 1833 source.  Despite the resonance with
modern or post-Repeal thinking on alcoholism, what's tricky about Levine's
material is that temperance ideology did not differentiate strongly between
"a drinking man" and "an alcoholic."  This was something Harry recognized
and stressed in his analysis of course; it means that the slippery slope
going from any drinking to immoderation -- whether over the lifecourse or a
single drinking occasion -- was not so rigorously confined to the inebriate
as it would be after Repeal.

The idea that controlled drinking was impossible was certainly "in the air"
in the pre-AA 1930s and part of the notion of therapeutic necessity before
AA's Big Book came out in 1939.  For example, Richard R. Peabody, in a 1930
article in MENTAL HYGIENE, suggested that alcoholics with a desire to
return to moderate drinking represented one group that was hopeless to
treat.  His words:  "Another futile group are those who wish to be taught
to 'drink like gentlemen', as the saying goes.  There is only one thing a
drunkard can be taught and that is complete abstention forever, and it is
only to those who are sincere and intelligent enough to comprehend this
that the treatment is applicable" (p. 114).

What does all this mean in relation to Jurd's specific question about the
first use of the specific TERM "controlled drinking"?  Well, it means that
anyone wishing to confirm the "black swan" assertion that the Big Book was
the first to use the term in 1939 has a lot of reading to do -- since the
term is one of several that might have been employed for an idea that
stretches back a long time.

Ron Roizen
----------
From: Robin Room <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Controlled drinking as a goal for dipsomaniacs/inebriates
before1939?
Date: Friday, July 14, 2000 1:30 AM

Listmates -- does anyone have an answer to this request from the ADD_MED
listserve?  I can think of etiquette books around the time of Repeal like
(if I remember her name right) Phyllis Whitaker's Bacchus Behave!  But they
are telling presumptively "normal drinkers" how to behave.  Is there any
prior history of setting a goal of moderate drinking for presumed
inebriates?  Robin

>>John L. wrote:
>>
>>A.A., which recommends abstinence, also states formally
>>in its literature that "our hats are off" to anyone who can
>>learn to drink moderately, and expresses hope and confidence
>>that science will in tie come up with something that will help
>>those suffering from alcoholism.
>>


Stephen Jurd replied:
>Yes, John,
>I think AA probably coined the term "controlled drinking". On pages 31 &
32
>of the AA Big Book, it says: "We do not like to pronounce any individual
>alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself. Step over to the nearest
>barroom and try some controlled drinking. Try and drink and stop abruptly.
>Try it more than once. It will not take long for you to decide if you are
>honest with yourself about it."
>
>Does Robin or any of our history buffs know of earlier references to
>"controlled drinking" than 1939?
>