A double glass o’ the inwariable. Charles Dickens, Pickwick Papers, Mr Weller
It’s my opinion, sir, that this meeting is drunk, sir! ibid. Mr Stiggins
Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew. Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
Who loves not woman, wine, and song
Remains a fool his whole life long. Martin Luther
Scientists have learnt from studies of identical twins and of adoption cases that around half of what makes people alcoholic is genetic, and around half is their environment. Horizon: Miracle Cure? A Decade of the Human Genome, BBC 2010
There is one drug that is just everywhere. Alcohol. And it’s the one drug that I just don’t get. Alcohol grips most of us before we are even adults and stays right the way through our lives to the end. And no other drug does that. Dr John Marsden, Horizon: Do I Drink Too Much? BBC 2009
In 2004 on the Island of St Kitts people noticed monkeys coming in from the surrounding jungle and stealing cocktails. ibid.
Alcohol has become the devil we know. ibid.
Considering it’s a drug that’s been enjoyed since the dawn of civilisation, the science around alcohol can seem rather vague and conflicting ... Just how bad is binge drinking for you? Horizon: Is Binge Drinking Really that Bad? BBC 2015
Without this particular species of yeast it would be a teetotal world. Professor David Quain, Heriot-Watt University
As a child I never felt wanted. My mother and I never got along. I suffered as a child watching my parents drink themselves to death. Susan Atkins, The Manson Family, interview Manson: Kill for Me
Addiction is a psychological problem, first of all ... There is no gene for alcoholism. Dr Lance Dodes, Harvard Medical School, author The Heart of Addiction
cf.
Addiction is a choice; it’s not a disease ... Addiction is a behaviour ... Addiction and alcoholism do not meet that criteria for a disease classification. Dr Jeffrey A Schaler
It’s the magic liquid that unlocks the door to the human heart. In celebration, commiseration, for hatches, matches and dispatches most of us reach for alcohol. Timeshift: The Rules of Drinking, BBC 2012
This is the story of a nation with a deep love of rules, and an even bigger love of drink. ibid.
Britain has always been a nation of drinkers with plenty around to quench the thirst. In the Middle Ages beer was even preferred to water as it was less likely to contain dangerous bacteria. ibid.
Churchill, himself a heavy drinker, realised the importance of the role alcohol had to play. ibid.
Working men’s clubs had been inspired by the gentlemen’s clubs. ibid.
The working man would go home to have his tea with his family, and then off to the club. ibid.
Babycham: By the 1960s bottles were selling by the million. ibid.
Then there was George Best. ibid.
The pretensions of the home drinks cabinet were excruciatingly satirised in Mike Leigh’s comedy of manners Abigail’s Party. ibid.
The men were out together watching football. And drinking. ibid.
We’re right back where we started, drinking what we did a hundred years ago. ibid.
I began to think vodka was my drink at last. It didn’t taste like anything, but it went straight down into my stomach like a sword swallowers’ sword and made me feel powerful and godlike. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
I don’t have a drinking problem. ’Cept when I can’t get a drink. Tom Waits
Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain —
Quaintest thoughts — queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away;
What care I how time advances?
I am drinking ale today. Edgar Allan Poe
I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I some-times so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom. Edgar Allan Poe
There was a tacit understanding between them that ‘liquor helped’; growing more miserable with every glass one hoped for the moment of relief. Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
Alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life. George Bernard Shaw
Alcohol is a very necessary article ... It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning. George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara
I hate the taste of alcohol. When I’m drinking, I’m drinking Red Bull. Paris Hilton
But you can count the dead bodies from alcohol, tobacco, and legal pharmaceuticals by the millions. Jack Herer
A man who doesn’t drink is not, in my opinion, fully a man. Anton Chekhov
But when speakeasies re-opened as legal night-clubs business was poor. With neighbourhood liquor stores now open people could save money by drinking at home. Ken Burns, Jazz: The Gift 1929-1934, PBS 2001
Labor Day in the USA spells party day. Drunken States of America, National Geographic 2012
For others it’s a battle that’s violent, bloody, even deadly. ibid.
Alcohol kills 80,000 Americans a year. ibid.
This drug is legal. ibid.
Trauma centre staff brace themselves ... Drunk patients often become violent. ibid.
Alcohol is also linked with serious crime. Up to 73% of felonies in the USA are alcohol related. ibid.
Across the USA the minimum drinking age is set at 21. ibid.