You may be wondering what is wrong with Washington.
One answer, according to a 314-page report recently released by a federal government agency, is that the nation’s capital likes to get its drink on.
“The District of Columbia had the highest rate of past year alcohol dependence or abuse among persons aged 26 or older,” said the report, issued by Arthur Hughes and Pradip Muhuri of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Based on nationwide interviews with 137,436 people conducted in 2008 and 2009, the report found a 6.1 percent nationwide rate of recent alcohol abuse or dependency, with the highest regional rate in the West (6.5 percent) and the lowest in the Northeast (5.8 percent). The state with the lowest rate was Utah (4.92 percent), closely followed by Kentucky (4.94 percent), where bourbon is produced but illegal to consume in many counties.
In Washington, the rate was 8.1 percent.
“Are you surprised, with everything going on down here?” said Billy Reilly, the promoter behind the city’s Fastest Bartender Contest. “The pressure’s enormous.”
But the pressure may be too simple an explanation.
After all, this is a city where the former chairman of the alcohol control board has been charged with impersonating a police officer (It’s a long story; he has denied the accusations). And a city whose namesake once operated the nation’s largest whiskey distillery from his plantation at Mount Vernon.
“It’s stressful here, but it’s stressful in New York, it’s stressful in Los Angeles,” said Drew Permut, a Washington psychologist. “I think it has more to do with the transient nature of the population, fewer family roots.”
Like other big cities built to reward and crush the ambitious, sometimes in the same day, Washington does little to discourage self-medication.
“Alcohol use and dependence rates are sensitive to cultural rules,” Permut said. “There’s not a strong constituency for disapproval of drinking here, as there might be in Salt Lake City or Southern states with Protestant denominations.”
Others saw a more direct link to politics.
“It’s always been the case around capitals, around parliaments,” said Paul Meagher, bartender at the Hawk ’n’ Dove, an Irish pub three blocks from the Capitol. “You can go to Washington, D.C., Springfield, Ill., or Salem, Ore. Any city where there’s a government, people will be drinking. Because you need that to talk. Parliament, the etymology of the word comes from talk, in French, parlez-vous.”
While experts from the ivory tower to the corner pub attested to a vibrant drinking culture, some contested the report’s conclusions.
“I don’t know about the abuse part,” said Travis Smith, a bartender at Spider Kelly’s in Arlington, Va., a suburb of Washington. “I haven’t lived too many places. I lived in the Caribbean for a few months, and compared to those cats down on the island, it’s nothing.”
But from outside the city, others found the report illuminating.
“Maybe if they were sober,” said Herbert Kleber, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University in New York, “this all wouldn’t have happened.”
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A multitude of sins
One answer, according to a 314-page report recently released by a federal government agency, is that the nation’s capital likes to get its drink on.
“The District of Columbia had the highest rate of past year alcohol dependence or abuse among persons aged 26 or older,” said the report, issued by Arthur Hughes and Pradip Muhuri of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Based on nationwide interviews with 137,436 people conducted in 2008 and 2009, the report found a 6.1 percent nationwide rate of recent alcohol abuse or dependency, with the highest regional rate in the West (6.5 percent) and the lowest in the Northeast (5.8 percent). The state with the lowest rate was Utah (4.92 percent), closely followed by Kentucky (4.94 percent), where bourbon is produced but illegal to consume in many counties.
In Washington, the rate was 8.1 percent.
“Are you surprised, with everything going on down here?” said Billy Reilly, the promoter behind the city’s Fastest Bartender Contest. “The pressure’s enormous.”
But the pressure may be too simple an explanation.
After all, this is a city where the former chairman of the alcohol control board has been charged with impersonating a police officer (It’s a long story; he has denied the accusations). And a city whose namesake once operated the nation’s largest whiskey distillery from his plantation at Mount Vernon.
“It’s stressful here, but it’s stressful in New York, it’s stressful in Los Angeles,” said Drew Permut, a Washington psychologist. “I think it has more to do with the transient nature of the population, fewer family roots.”
Like other big cities built to reward and crush the ambitious, sometimes in the same day, Washington does little to discourage self-medication.
“Alcohol use and dependence rates are sensitive to cultural rules,” Permut said. “There’s not a strong constituency for disapproval of drinking here, as there might be in Salt Lake City or Southern states with Protestant denominations.”
Others saw a more direct link to politics.
“It’s always been the case around capitals, around parliaments,” said Paul Meagher, bartender at the Hawk ’n’ Dove, an Irish pub three blocks from the Capitol. “You can go to Washington, D.C., Springfield, Ill., or Salem, Ore. Any city where there’s a government, people will be drinking. Because you need that to talk. Parliament, the etymology of the word comes from talk, in French, parlez-vous.”
While experts from the ivory tower to the corner pub attested to a vibrant drinking culture, some contested the report’s conclusions.
“I don’t know about the abuse part,” said Travis Smith, a bartender at Spider Kelly’s in Arlington, Va., a suburb of Washington. “I haven’t lived too many places. I lived in the Caribbean for a few months, and compared to those cats down on the island, it’s nothing.”
But from outside the city, others found the report illuminating.
“Maybe if they were sober,” said Herbert Kleber, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University in New York, “this all wouldn’t have happened.”
READ MORE
A multitude of sins
