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Winter 2008/09 | Vol 12 No 2

A view from CAMH

Dr. David Goldbloom

With this issue’s focus on alcohol following the autumn 2008 issue’s scrutiny of tobacco, we continue to examine aspects of the other great legal addiction in Canada – one that, like cigarettes, causes inordinate morbidity and mortality. But, unlike the diminishing number of Canadians who smoke, the number of us who drink in moderation represents a sizeable majority of the adult population. And among adolescents, binge drinking remains a significant problem. Alcohol also likely represents our longest continuing substance of addiction in Western culture.

The history of our relationship to alcohol at societal, cultural, legislative, economic and religious levels is a fascinating story. At CAMH, we are fortunate to have among our research scientists the historian Jessica Warner, whose books on this subject should be of interest to anyone curious about this complex historical relationship. Her first book, Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason (2002), looks at the impact of gin on British society in the early 18th century and how society responded. Her new book, The Day George Bush Stopped Drinking: Why Abstinence Matters to the Religious Right, shifts the focus to the United States and the changing political and religious context of the abstinence movement. Both books take us out of the immediacy of our clinical encounters with people who have alcohol-related problems into a larger view of our world across time.

This issue of CrossCurrents addresses a number of timely and provocative issues related to alcohol in the Canadian context in the 21st century. It reminds us of the enormous challenges that remain, the debates that persist and the new approaches that help. It inspires us to advance understanding and treatment. And it stirs us with a profoundly human story of recovery and hope.

David S. Goldbloom, MD, FRCPC
Executive Editor, CrossCurrents;
Senior Medical Advisor,
Education and Public Affairs, CAMH
Professor of Psychiatry, University of Toronto