Overview
Habitual drunkenness, much like habit forming and other terms associated with “habit”, is an outdated reference to some constant use of alcohol that might today be described as “alcoholic dependence”, “alcoholism”, or “alcohol use disorder.”
History and Context
“Habitual drunkenness” is a term we can trace at least as far back as Benjamin Rush, a prominent physician who was alive to sign the Declaration of Independence and who advocated for treating “habitual drunkenness” as a disease that should be approached with compassion rather than purely a moral failing.
A 1942 review paper titled “Habitual Drunkenness”: Meaning in Divorce and Criminal Law Statutes by Anthony Frank discusses the way “habitual drunkenness” is used in the paper’s contemporary legal contexts:
Plaintiff sued for a divorce on the grounds of cruel and inhuman treatment and habitual drunkenness. The parties were married in 1918, and the present divorce action was commenced in September, 1939, and was the fourth upon these grounds, the other three having been dismissed after reconciliations.
Defendant had been drinking for a number of years, and to great excess since 1931. He had been arrested five times for drunkenness. Defendant’s desire for liquor reached its highest intensity during the last year. For the plaintiff, the testimony was that the defendant was drunk anywhere from “one-third to one-half” of the time. He had been seen “laid out” or to “crawl up the stairs many times.” Frequently he was so intoxicated that he did not “know what he was doing.” Defendant’s own witness, upon being asked as between sobriety and intoxication for the defendant’s condition replied, “Well, I guess it would be about half and half.”
Defendant’s routine was not daily or regular. He would be drunk for five days or a week at a time, and then perhaps he would be sober for two or three weeks again, and he would start over again. All the witnesses agreed that the defendant’s hours of intoxication were longer and oftener during the preceding summer. During these periods of drunkenness, the defendant was an abusive, molesting and boisterous person.
This is an incredibly common pattern with those experiencing substance use disorders, and in particular, alcohol use disorder. It’s also a reason that many who drink resist seeking help and treatment, as the periods of sobriety that one achieves become evidence for the notion that one can successfully moderate and control their compulsions to drink, even if their intoxicated states are highly destructive and dangerous, even if only to oneself. I’d also infer that it’s harder to treat something as habitual if someone can demonstrate weeks of abstinence from that habit; it might be easier to conceive the drinker as maintaining habitual sobriety, with occasional drunkenness, under this framework.
Defendant contended that his drunkenness was only occasional and not habitual, and that these occasional periods of drunkenness were caused by plaintiff’s criticism and nagging.
I can only imagine that this exchange went something like “can you stop drinking our entire tavern out of its inventory and beating me when you’re upset?” followed by “Do you never shut up? I need another drink to cope with this.” Based on my recent watch of Reefer Madness, that seems perfectly plausible.
Under the divorce statute, the “habitual drunkenness” complained of must have been “for one year immediately preceding the commencement of the action.” Plaintiff was denied a divorce; she appealed from an order denying amended findings or a new trial.
An habitual drunkard within the divorce statutes is one who, by frequent, periodic indulgence in liquor to excess, has lost the power or desire to resist alcoholic opportunity with the result that intoxication becomes habitual rather than occasional.
This is interesting. The plaintiff, or the wife, seems to be appealing to a specific set of rules around the justifiable grounds for divorce that stipulates that the condition of “habitual drunkenness” must have been present for at least a full year before the divorce would be processed. The terms “habitual” and “occasional” are used without necessarily a strict line to determine how much drinking constitutes being a “drunkard” or how often something has to happen for it to be considered habitual rather than occasional. Based on the testimony provided by witnesses and the plaintiff, it seems like they settle for asking lay witnesses how often the drinker in question appears to be drunk. Today, we might examine whether an individual meets the official guidelines for alcohol use disorder as it is laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which might be assessed by a clinician or someone else capable of being an expert witness. The DSM-5-TR guidelines are far more focused on the individual’s capacity to resist cravings and compulsions to use rather than external observations of episodic binge drinking.