![]() ![]() All cool.įor years, too, there’s been a stampede of self-help books by alcohol skeptics, most of them women, many of whom once had trouble drinking not the third bottle. Another spelling of the word, in Latin, is alcool. If etymology is any help, “alcohol” comes from the Arabic al-kuhl, referring to kohl, the black eyeliner powder dating back to the fourth millennium BC kohl was made of a refined mineral, and then it came to be used for anything distilled. Why does the affliction that’s said to define the alcoholic-“alcoholism”-lack clear biological markers? Finally, it’s “ism,” not “itis.” Is alcoholism a disease or an ideology? But the 20th-century disease model, often associated with Alcoholics Anonymous, brings more confusion. Herbert, of course, wrote centuries before the habit of consuming more than a third of a six-pack was considered a pathology rather than a failure of will. It is most just to throw that on the ground, Which would throw me there, if I keep the round. ![]() Herbert’s special worry about the shame brought by the third drink brings to mind another three-stage adage about the progression of alcoholism: “The man takes a drink, the drink takes a drink, the drink takes the man.” Herbert then switches to the personal pronoun and imagines that the third drink would cast him on the floor, where he would literally hit bottom. ![]()
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