Our drinking “problem”
Here’s our problem: Jews don’t drink enough:
The reason for the high frequency of depression among Jewish men may be linked to their low frequency of alcoholism (confirmed in recent World Health Organisation statistics for Israel). A connection is suggested by the fact that depression is as common in both sexes in other abstemious societies such as Islam and the American Christian sect, the Pennsylvania Amish….
The conclusion must be that Jewish men might be less depressed if they drank more. As the old song has it: “Another little drink wouldn’t do us any harm” — a sentiment that might be medically as well as musically effective.
Ah, but consider the tradeoffs: I’ll take a little depression over domestic violence, family dysfunction, brain damage, workplace absenteeism and injury, road deaths, and all the other devastating health and society ills associated with alcoholism.
I’ve always felt that, despite historical episodes of grinding poverty, Jews avoided the cycle of poverty (abandonment, low educational achievement, high family dysfunction) because we’ve been lucky enough to avoid a pattern of substance abuse.
(hat tip: Elli Wohlgelernter)
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JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 
March 19th, 2010 at 10:32 am
How do we get from the idea that Jews are being diagnosed with depression more frequently than with alcoholism to the idea that one is either alcoholic or depressed? Or even, as the retired neurologist (!) you linked seems to assert, that drinking somehow prevents depression? That’s pretty shaky reasoning. It seems more probable that alcoholic behavior masks depression.
Even though drunkenness is less socially acceptable among Jews, some Jews do have alcoholism and other addictions, and it seems to me important to acknowledge their situations. Otherwise we make it even harder for them to seek help. I’d also argue that unmasked depression without the alcoholism on top of it is still no picnic, and we shouldn’t dismiss its effects.
July 6th, 2011 at 1:51 am
substance abuse is sometimes very difficult to cure because of addiction.’