ABSTRACT
While the consumption of psychoactive substances, including alcohol, is prevalent in nature and evolution at large, the relation of humans to these substances is somewhat different to other animals. The chapter notes that compulsive consumption, a great increase in availability, potency and sophistication of techniques for administration, are features that are unique to humans. However, it shows that humans have long lived in intoxicant rich environments, long possessing techniques for harnessing the potency of substances. In regulating consumption, a key issue is hormesis, meaning substances are beneficial in low doses, while poisonous at high doses. The way that limits are imposed to minimise harmful modes of consumption is through social integration and social regulation, as shown by Durkheim in relation to mental health at large. Because humans have gone through a ‘symbol emancipation’, their relationship with psychoactive substances is to a large degree cultural. The nature of cultural regulation of consumption is shown to be through cultural traditions, or habitus, that is the product of socialisation, which provides institutionalised solutions to action problems. Habitus is shown to consist of a worldview, rules of the game that self-control must orient to, and an intersubjective world of meaning, which in the case of alcohol, involves using it as a symbol, that carries a range of meanings.
