Alcohol and Happiness: Get the Order Right

One of the great delights I have in reading writers from generations other than the present is the freedom they enjoy: they are unconstrained by our contemporary consciences or sensitivities to speak with clarity and conviction (and often did so even in the face of their contemporaries' sensitivities). G. K. Chesterton is certainly one such writer. His affinity for alcohol is no secret to those familiar with him, but the manner in which he revels in it while writing is as delightful as the drink he celebrates.

It is thought that one very wise and moderate position is to say that wine or such stuff should only be drunk as a medicine. With this I should venture to disagree with a peculiar ferocity. The one genuinely dangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink it as a medicine, and for this reason: if a man drinks wine in order to obtain pleasure, he is trying to obtain something exceptional. But if a man drinks wine in order to obtain health, he is trying to get something natural.

The sound rule in the matter would appear to be like many other sound rules - a paradox. Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.

It goes without saying that these two paragraphs will eliminate no one's addiction to drink, nor does it address a hundred other problems associated with alcohol, but who can deny how well Chesterton has put alcohol in its place: a means to greater joys than drink itself. The Italian peasant he pictures is not the one that Corona or Budweiser will choose to push their stuff - his joy is too rich for them.

BHT