Which Country Drinks the Most Alcohol?

National alcohol consumption statistics tend to be accurate for one simple reason: alcohol is a popular source of tax revenue in most countries.

Based on this survey Ireland doesn't deserve its reputation as the home of boozers. Citizens in twenty other countries out-drink them.

King Richard III may have been a drunk

King Richard III may have been a drunk say researchers who claim he drank three litres of alcohol every day.

Scientists have built up new picture of King after tests on bones and teeth Identified significant changes to alcohol intake after he was crowned in 1483 Showed 25 per cent increase in alcohol consumption ...

John Cheever’s Ossining House for Sale

By Alexander Nazaryan

 

 ... In 1964, Time magazine called Cheever “Ovid in Ossining,” because he saw what he called in one story “the pain and sweetness of life” as fully as the Roman poet had two millennia before him. Ovid, of course, spent the last decade of his exile from Rome in the desolation of Tomis (today, Romania). Cheever exiled himself, leaving Manhattan in 1951 for Westchester County and never returning. That journey into the manicured countryside beyond the Bronx would define his career more than his impoverished Massachusetts childhood or posh Sutton Place, where he lived while becoming famous for his New Yorker stories.

 

...  Unlike his brother, Fred, who succumbed to alcoholism, Cheever quit drinking in 1975, devoting himself seriously to Alcoholics Anonymous. Two years later, he published Falconer, based on his experience teaching at the nearby prison (he had started doing so in 1971, after deciding that he’d “exhausted his old landscapes”). Joan Didion called the novel “extraordinary” in The New York Times. This magazine put Cheever on the cover, calling Falconer a “great American novel.” Five years later, Cheever died of cancer.

 

Link.

 

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford says he will try to stay sober if reelected — but no promises

Ford, who returned this week to City Council from two months in rehab, said in an interview on Newstalk 1010 that he can’t make promises about something over which he has “no control.”

Robin Williams takes part in 12-step treatment at Minnesota facility

 Details here.

'Broadway Joe' puts life back on track

By Jon Saraceno, USA TODAY

 

TEQUESTA, Fla. — Last year, before America's disbelieving eyes, the man known as "Broadway Joe" morphed into "Blown-away Joe" — a melancholy caricature of the aging, boozed-up playboy quarterback without enough restraint to stop throwing wobbly passes in public.

 

Instantly, the phrase "I want to kiss you" joined his "I guarantee it" as two of football's memorable lines. Last December, after a day of non-stop drinking, the cultural icon and cocky superhero humiliated himself live on TV during an inebriated sideline interview with a female ESPN reporter.

 

That interview pushed Joe Namath to acknowledge that he had a problem — one he couldn't solve with reputation, swagger or a wink of those seductive green eyes.

 

Link to the original article.

My Name is Roger, and I'm an alcoholic

by Roger Ebert

In August 1979, I took my last drink. It was about four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, the hot sun streaming through the windows of my little carriage house on Dickens. I put a glass of scotch and soda down on the living room table, went to bed, and pulled the blankets over my head. I couldn't take it any more.

On Monday I went to visit wise old Dr. Jakob Schlichter. I had been seeing him for a year, telling him I thought I might be drinking too much. He agreed, and advised me to go to "A.A.A," which is what he called it. Sounded like a place where they taught you to drink and drive. I said I didn't need to go to any meetings. I would stop drinking on my own. He told me to go ahead and try, and check back with him every month.

The problem with using will power, for me, was that it lasted only until my will persuaded me I could take another drink. At about this time I was reading The Art of Eating, by M. F. K. Fisher, who wrote: "One martini is just right. Two martinis are too many. Three martinis are never enough." The problem with making resolutions is that you're sober when you make the first one, have had a drink when you make the second one, and so on. I've also heard, You take the first drink. The second drink takes itself. That was my problem. I found it difficult, once I started, to stop after one or two. If I could, I would continue until I decided I was finished, which was usually some hours later. The next day I paid the price in hangovers.

Link to original article.