How Alcohol Fuels Innovation and Group Cohesion with Edward Slingerland

Natalie MacLean
Sep4th

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Introduction

What is the connection between alcohol and innovation? How does alcohol improve the quality of group brainstorming? Why is it important not to think about alcohol consumption through a medical lens alone?

In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with Edward Slingerland, a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia and the author of Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization.

You can find the wines we discussed here.

 

Giveaway

Two of you will win a copy of his terrific book, Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization.

 

How to Win

To qualify, all you have to do is email me at [email protected] and let me know that you’ve posted a review of the podcast.

It takes less than 30 seconds: On your phone, scroll to the bottom here, where the reviews are, and click on “Tap to Rate.”

After that, scroll down a tiny bit more and click on “Write a Review.” That’s it!

I’ll choose one person randomly from those who contact me.

Good luck!

 

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Join the live-stream video of this conversation on Wednesday at 7 pm eastern on Instagram Live Video, Facebook Live Video or YouTube Live Video.

I’ll be jumping into the comments as we watch it together so that I can answer your questions in real-time.

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Highlights

  • What’s Edward’s take on the quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway about writing drunk and editing sober?
  • How did Edward use this strategy when writing the book proposal for “Drunk”?
  • What role did alcohol play in Edward’s first lecture as a graduate student?
  • How did the first pub on the University of British Columbia campus lead to a major research collaboration on the evolution of religion?
  • What is the “Ballmer Peak,” and how does it relate to alcohol and creativity?
  • How does alcohol help enhance trust and cooperation in large-scale societies?
  • Why did problem drinking increase significantly during the pandemic?
  • What was the most surprising insight Edward discovered while writing “Drunk”?
  • Why is it inadequate to look at alcohol consumption through a medical lens alone?
  • What are the three objects Edward would include in a museum exhibit about himself?
  • Who would Edward most want to share a bottle of wine with?

 

Key Takeaways

  • What is the connection between alcohol and innovation?
    Edward explains that it’s a double effect in enhancing individual creativity and reducing inhibitions. He cites the study that examined the number of patent applications during Prohibition in the US when people couldn’t drink socially. It found that when Prohibition was imposed on a wet county, patent applications nosedived, wow, and didn’t come back for about another three years. Edward believes that the recovery is because people figured out speakeasies where they could drink socially again.
  • How does alcohol improve the quality of group brainstorming?
    Edward observes that alcohol also enhances group creativity because individual members are more creative. They’re also less nervous about saying something that your prefrontal cortex would judge as not worthy when perhaps it’s a great idea.
  • Why is it important not to think about alcohol consumption through a medical lens alone?
    Edward believes that we have to recognize both the dangers and the benefits of alcohol to make intelligent decisions about how to use it. He wishes he had been able to address the inaccurate information about the health risks in the book as it’s a classic example of how public policy regarding alcohol is completely distorted by this medicalized lens.

 

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For creativity, you need to generate lots of options, and that’s what alcohol helps you do. - Edward Slingerland Edward Slingerland Click to tweet

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One of the main functions of alcohol is brainstorming group innovation. - Edward Slingerland Edward Slingerland Click to tweet

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Alcohol is a cultural technology we invented to get around the tension of trying to use your mind to shut your mind down. - Edward Slingerland Edward Slingerland Click to tweet

 

About Edward Slingerland

Edward Slingerland is a Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where he also holds appointments in the Departments of Psychology and Asian Studies. He is also Director of the Database of Religious History. Dr. Slingerland is the author of several academic monographs and edited volumes, a major translation of the Analects of Confucius, and approximately fifty book chapters, reviews, and articles in top academic journals in a wide range of fields. His first trade book, Trying Not to Try (Crown 2014), ties together insights from early Chinese thought and modern psychological research. His second, Drunk (Little, Brown Spark June 2021), targets the standard scientific view of our taste for intoxicants as an evolutionary accident, arguing instead that alcohol and other drugs have played a crucial role in helping humans to be more creative, trusting, and cooperative.

 

Resources

 

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Thirsty for more?

  • Sign up for my free online wine video class where I’ll walk you through The 5 Wine & Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner (and how to fix them forever!)
  • You’ll find my books here, including Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines and Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass.
  • The new audio edition of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass is now available on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com and other country-specific Amazon sites; iTunes.ca, iTunes.com and other country-specific iTunes sites; Audible.ca and Audible.com.

 

Transcript

Natalie MacLean 00:00:00 What is the connection between alcohol and innovation? How does wine or alcohol improve the quality of group brainstorming? And why is it important not to think about wine consumption through a medical lens alone? In today’s episode, you’ll hear stories and tips that answer those questions in Part Two of our chat with Edward Slingerland, a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia and author of Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization. You don’t need to have listened to Part One from last week first, but if you missed it go back and have a listen after you finish this one.

By the end of our conversation, you’ll also discover Edward’s take on the quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway about writing drunk and editing sober, and how he used this strategy when writing the book proposal for Drunk. The role of alcohol in Edward’s first lecture as a graduate student. How the first pub on the University of British Columbia campus led to a major research collaboration on the evolution of religion. What the bomber peak is and how it relates to alcohol and creativity. Why problem drinking increased significantly during the pandemic. How alcohol generates more options and so enhances creativity. Why alcohol is a cultural technology we invented to get around the tension of trying to get our minds to shut down. How alcohol enhances trust and cooperation. The most surprising insight about distilled liquor Edward discovered while writing drunk. And who Edward would most want to share a bottle of wine with. Okay, let’s dive in.

Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places Cases and amusingly awkward social situations? Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie MacLean, and each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle, please, and let’s get started. Welcome to episode 301. Thank you to all of you who sent me wonderful emails and direct text messages on social media about the podcast celebrating episode 300. I am so glad you’re loving the podcast and we have got so much more to cover.

So two of you will win a copy of Edward’s fantastic book. All you have to do is email me and let me know that you’d like to win a copy. I’ll choose two people randomly from those who contact me. Our latest winner is Mary Bernthal from Lowell, Michigan, which is just outside Grand Rapids. She tells me she has won a copy of Anne Krebiehl’s terrific book, The Wines of Germany. In personal news, I wanted to share an interview with you that was published in the LCBO magazine this week. If you’re not familiar with the LCBO, it stands for the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, and it’s actually the world’s second largest purchaser of wine, after Costco.

“Ottawa based wine expert and author Natalie MacLean is a trusted resource for good food and wine. She was awarded the 2024 Winegrowers Canada Wine Industry Champion Award earlier this year. We sat down recently with her to discuss the changing landscape of Ontario wine. Do you feel the Niagara wine industry has changed much in the past 20 years? My answer: I’ve seen and tasted the dramatic rise in Canadian wine quality, but also in perception. In the past, Canadian wines suffered from the Celine Dion – Shania Twain syndrome. They needed validation abroad before they were accepted on their home turf. Well, they’ve been there, done that. They have the international competition medals and scores to prove it. Canada’s cool climate produces grapes that aren’t loaded with sugar so they don’t ferment into high alcohol. Low alcohol wines dance with food rather than clobbering it with flavour. They also have dazzling flavours and an edgy, nervy vibrancy. I believe we are just beginning to tap into our full potential and I’ll raise my glass to that.

How do you see women represented in the local wine industry? My answer: I feel a lot still needs to change in our industry, not only for women, but also for people of colour, LGBTQ plus, and more. I urge my readers subscribers and listeners to support the wines made by underrepresented groups. This isn’t charity. These wines taste great, and when I see the remarkable achievements of these groups in the industry, I’m incredibly optimistic. They’re not only shaping the industry into a kinder landscape, but they’re also improving the taste of our wines. My vision for the future is that as the barriers for these groups continue to crumble, we all benefit from the contributions of so many more people. Rather than fighting injustice, we all have so much more time and energy to learn, to create, and to enjoy life, including wine itself.

You’ve earned a veritable cabinets worth of awards in your career, is this one particularly special? My answer: This award is a tremendous honour, not just for me. It’s also a recognition of the collaborative spirit that defines Canadian wine, from those who grow the grapes and make the wine to those who market and buy it. This is a shared achievement”

Natalie MacLean 00:06:06 One final note the audiobook for Wine Witch on fire: Rising from the Ashes of Divorce, Defamation and Drinking Too Much  is on sale now for 60% off. So that’s just eight bucks at audiobooks.com until September 23rd. That’s audiobooks.com. You can also get it from Audible.com, Kobo, Spotify, Google Play, Libro.FM, or wherever else you get audiobooks. If you’re listening to the audiobook or reading the paperback or e-book, please let me know, I’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. I’ll put a link in the show notes to all retailers worldwide at nataliemaclean.com/301. Okay, on with the show.

Natalie MacLean – You mentioned writers, musicians and so on. I don’t know that he said it, but there’s a quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway that says write drunk and sober. What’s your take on that? Are you in agreement or up to a point?

Edward Slingerland 00:06:58 Yeah. No, I think that’s great advice. You need both, right. You need to generate lots of options. And that’s what alcohol helps you do. So you can think of new things that you hadn’t thought of before. But then you need the PFC to come in and be the parent. You know, it’s like a kid drawing all this crazy stuff, and then the parent has to come in and say, okay, this is what I want to hang on my wall. This other stuff is terrible. Your brain can generate all these options when you’re on alcohol, but then you need the PFC and kind of your grown up PFC brain to decide what’s good and what’s not or how to reshape the wrong good stuff that the PFC self-created. So yeah, I think that’s really good advice.

Natalie MacLean 00:07:40 You took your own advice.  You did not at first, but tell us about writing your book proposal for Drunk.

Edward Slingerland 00:07:46 Yeah. So this is not in the book. It’s something I’ve talked about in some interviews and I should have put it in the book.

Natalie MacLean 00:07:52 Yeah, it’s kind of meta.

Edward Slingerland 00:07:54 It’s very meta. You know, I wrote like at this point, 10 or 12 versions of the book proposal, and my agent kept sending it back to me and saying that it’s not good. Yeah, she’s very blunt. She’s like, I’m not sending this out. And she was right. Like, there’s something missing. And it was hard to figure out what it was because all the arguments were there, all the science was there, but it was basically like it was written A to B to C. So why do people like to drink? Well, some people think this reason that doesn’t make any sense. So let’s look at why it’s puzzling. And then I walk through the different. All the arguments were there. But in this very kind of linear fashion that was a little boring. And I realized after she rejected like the 12th version, that I had taken my own advice in the book, which was write drunk you can edit over later, but do a little drunk writing first. And I was on a this was pre-COVID. I was on this Conference trip, and I had a couple hours before my first meeting and I was having dinner with my colleagues. So I went down to the hotel bar with my laptop and stared at the screen at what’s now the first two pages of the book? Just it felt like it was revealing itself to me. I didn’t feel like I was writing it, I just felt like I was taking dictation and that everyone loves the first pages of the book, that those were the products of 0.08 at least, maybe 0.1 BAC. It was a Negroni and a third. So that’s where I produced that. And that’s what I think sold a proposal. And it’s people’s favourite thing about the final product. And I don’t think I would have been able to write those things unless I had just relax my mind.  Instead of doing the A, B, C here’s my argument writing, I came up with something punchy that would grab people’s attention so yeah. So I use this practically in my work.

Natalie MacLean 00:09:54 I listened to your book and really enjoyed it, but remind me of, if you can recall by heart the first sentence or two. Do you remember how it starts?

Edward Slingerland 00:10:02 People like to masturbate.

Natalie MacLean 00:10:05 Right [laughter]

Edward Slingerland 00:10:05 It’s the first line. People like to masturbate. That just came to me. I was like, oh, that’s how it was.

Natalie MacLean 00:10:11 Definitely a Negroni or two [laughter]

Edward Slingerland 00:10:14 They also like to do shots of Jagermeister and eat Twinkies. Not necessarily all at the same time, but it’s up to personal preference. So that’s the first two lines.

Natalie Maclean 00:1o:23 That will draw you in.

Edward Slingerland 00:10:28 Yeah, that’ll draw you in. Again, not something I think I could have ever written just completely on caffeine.

Natalie MacLean 00:10:32 Yeah that’s great. I mean, you know, it’s not a dry treatise after that.

Edward Slingerland 00:10:36 Yeah. Right. Right.

Natalie MacLean 00:10:38 So do you have a couple of other stories that are interesting? Tell us about the time when you were a student covering for your professor who was away. You were delivering a lecture for the first time or early on to an, I guess, undergraduate students, a class. What happened then?

Edward Slingerland 00:10:51 As a grad student and TAing in this class. I was just a teaching assistant. But my professor was out of town. He’s like, why don’t you do this lecture? And this was 150, maybe 200 person lecture class. And I was nervous because I had never spoken to that many people before. And I don’t know who it was. I think it might have been one of my fellow grad students was like, you need to take the edge off. And so this was back in the day and people will remember this back in film photography film came in these little plastic canisters. So I had this little plastic film canister, and I put a little bit of vodka in it. And before I went out to give my lecture at 10:30 a.m. or whatever it was, I did a little shot of vodka. And it may have just been psychosomatic because it was so, so small amount, but it seemed to kind of just take the edge off and get me over that hump at the beginning. There’s something about the beginning when you start talking to a big group of people at least back then. Now I’ve done it. So much, I’m kind of used to it, but it got me over that initial nervousness and launch me into the material enough that then I just kind of let the material do its thing. So then I was kind of going, but it helps with that kind of initial PFC getting in the way. Nervousness.

Natalie MacLean 00:12:08 Yeah, nervousness. Definitely. Especially the start of anything that inertia of getting going. Let’s stick with the university themes. How did a huge research collaboration happen mainly because the University of British Columbia finally got a pub on campus?

Edward Slingerland 00:12:21 Yeah. So this was a while ago now, but there was no place for faculty or grownups to drink. There was like a student, and then they built a pub at the bus loop. So it was perfect. It was actually kind of where we all went through to get on the bus and go home anyway. And so a group of us started meeting on Friday afternoons and all different departments, very different backgrounds but we were interested in religion. We all kind of from different directions. We’re interested in the legend it created,  sitting around drinking a beer or two, having some nachos, just created a space where we could talk about things in a way we never could if we were at a coffee shop or we were in somebody’s office. And it led to this $3 million grant from SSHRC from Social Science Humanities Research Council, the evolution of religion. And I honestly believe that that grant would have never happened without a place to drink beer. So one of my arguments in the book is it enhances individual creativity. So as an individual you’re more creative but because it’s reducing inhibitions it also enhances group creativity, because now you’re not only more creative, but you’re less nervous about saying something. So something where your PFC would normally say, oh, don’t say that. It’s too crazy. You’ll just blurt out and maybe it actually is a great idea. So a double effect. It’s enhancing individual creativity, reducing inhibitions. And I look at this study by an economist that it’s a great correlational study, took advantage of the fact that prohibition in the US was imposed at the county level over a very long period of time. So it’s kind of a nice natural experiment, what happens when people can’t drink socially anymore? He had data on patent applications at the county level when he was using that as a proxy for group innovation. And what he found is if you take a wet county and you impose prohibition on it, and applications nosedived and didn’t come back for about another three years. And he thinks the recovery is because people figured out speakeasies, you know, they figured out workarounds to drink socially again. So this is one of, I think, one of the main functions of alcohol as is kind of brainstorming group innovation.

Natalie MacLean 00:14:44 Absolutely sounds a whole lot more fun than team enforced improv sessions. I don’t know, like yeah, right.

Edward Slingerland 00:14:49 So that is that’s another possible way to do it. But it’s kind of not as fun. And it’s harder. It’s much more of a hassle. You can get the same effect through like. This is why people are worried about alcohol in the workplace, right. And so we come up with other ways. Let’s do an escape room.

Natalie MacLean 00:15:06 or rafting.

Edward Slingerland 00:15:07 Rafting. And those aren’t crazy ideas because they can have the same effect, right. The physical danger or kind of getting lost in a game can down regulate your PFC. It can boost endorphins. It could have the same effect. But yeah,I hate escape rooms. So I’d much rather just have a cocktail reception to get with my colleagues.

Natalie MacLean 00:15:30 Make you take in some film role again or something. Yeah, I know me, too. Oh, and then tell us about the tour you took at Google with the engineers there of their campus and especially the Whiskey Room and the Bomber Peak.

Edward Slingerland 00:15:43 Yeah. So this was when I was giving talks on trying not to try. And this is where I got interested in the alcohol thing from another angle besides the kind of origins of civilization. I got interested in the creativity problem of how alcohol is helping us to think in a flexible way, and how hard that is to consciously will yourself to be creative. So the first straight book is called Trying not to Try, and it’s about this paradox that if you try to be funny, you’re not funny. If you try to be creative, you’re not going to be creative. The early Chinese philosophers I look at come up with various tricks to get you around that, which are kind of like the escape room thing. Giving you things to do that make you stop thinking about it. But there’s a story in one of these texts where they can compare being in the state of spontaneity to being drunk, and this kind of light went on for me, and I was like, oh, maybe alcohol is this cultural technology we invented to get around this tension of trying to use your own mind to shut your mind down. So I was talking about that and I mentioned the only study actually to date that’s directly like about alcohol and creativity –  that’s where they found the 0.08 peak for creativity. And afterwards in the Q&A, someone put their hand shot up and they were like, have you ever heard of the Ballmer Peak? And I hadn’t, and it’s possibly apocryphal, but supposedly Steve Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, discovered this blood alcohol content level where he was a supernaturally good coder and he would hook himself up to an alcohol IV to keep himself at exactly that BAC so he could code. And, you know, I find that…

Natalie MacLean 00:17:28 Taking the fun of it, though. You want it taste…

Edward Slingerland 00:17:30 Taking the fun out of it…

Natalie Maclean 00:17:31.. too mechanical or whatever.

Edward Slingerland 00:17:33 It’s very computer engineer approach to it. So that’s where I heard about the Ballmer Peak, which is the same idea, right, You get this creativity boost. And then they took me on a tour of the campus and they said, we know where we’re taking you first. And they took me to their whiskey room. So when they run into a problem as an engineering team and they’re drinking caffeine, they’re doing a, b, c reasoning, they’re really trying as hard as they can and they’re just not solving the problem. They don’t keep doing that. They stop and they go to this room where they’ve got amazing –  I was very jealous –  they have an amazing collection of single malt scotches and beanbag chairs and a foosball table, and they just go and they have a little bit of scotch, and they have some whiteboards, and they just turn down their PFCs a bit, turn down their inhibitions a bit, and they say that’s often where they get the breakthrough they need to go back, then do caffeine again and go back to work. So it’s interesting to me, it was really revealing that a company like Google that is completely dependent on creativity.  It’s a that’s a product in a way actually institutionally makes room for alcohol. They sanction this room because they know that it actually, in the end, is a good thing for their creativity.

Natalie MacLean 00:18:56 I wonder if they studied the number of problems, if people started reporting I’m really stuck on this line of code. Let’s go. [laughter].

Edward Slingerland 00:19:05 And they care about the bottom line right. They’re not going to do this just because it’s fun. To me, that’s a bit of evidence that successful organizations are aware of this benefit.

Natalie MacLean 00:19:14 Absolutely. And you’ve mentioned it briefly but how does alcohol, especially for those who are, say, doing a business transaction, increase the trust? So it’s down regulating the PFC. What else is happening?

Edward Slingerland 00:19:27 So trust issues are a big thing in large scale societies. And back in our old lifestyle hunter gatherer lifestyle trust wasn’t as quite as important because we were interacting with mostly with relatives, people we were physically related to or people we knew really well. Once we move in a large scale societies. we’re constantly faced with these situations where we have to trust people who are strangers, and often we’re trusting people who are strangers who are never going to see again. We’ve never seen them before. We’re never going to see him again. So you get a class of trust problem that economists call the prisoner’s dilemma. It goes by various names: prisoner’s dilemma, tragedy of the commons is  a version of this where self-interested, selfish people are going to get a suboptimal outcome. If I pursue my selfish interest, you pursue your selfish. We’re worse off. We’re actually going to be better off if we trust each other. We cooperate we’ll both actually in the end do better or selfishly, we’ll get a better payoff individually. The catch is that we have to trust each other, because if you cheat and I cooperate, I get a really terrible payoff. So it sounds very kind of abstruse, but these happen all the time. When I agree to help you move your couch, we’re in a prisoner’s dilemma situation, right, Because we all are better off if large objects that one person can’t move, people agree to help other people. We all get a better payoff. But if I agree to move your couch and then when I need to move my couch, you’re sick or you have some other you defect on me. I’ve just put out a lot of effort and gotten no benefit back. In reality, so economists are puzzled really interested in the prisoner’s dilemma because rational agents can’t solve it. So rational, self-interested agents are selfish and just don’t cooperate and get suboptimal. No one helps anyone move couches. Everyone just kind of stays by themselves. In fact, we don’t do that. And it seems to be because we trust each other. And what binds us together is things like loyalty and duty and love. I’m not feeling well and you call me and say you need your couch moved. I’m like, okay, she’s my friend, right. This kind of the bond you feel to other people is what allows us cooperation to happen. The danger, of course, is if someone can fake those feelings. So emotions are what allows us to be cooperative. But there’s a danger that people could fake emotions. So if you fake being a really good friend, I’ll do all these things for you and then you’re conveniently busy when I need you. And so humans have also developed this amazing ability to read facial expressions and body language and smiles. So I show a picture in the book of a Duchenne versus a non Duchenne smile. So a sincere smile you make when you’re really amused versus the smile you make when you smile for a picture. They’re completely different muscle systems. They look completely differently. And that’s because one is under conscious control and the other one’s not. For most people, it’s hard to fake a genuine smile. So we’re constantly looking at signs of trustworthiness and other people.

Cultures have an interest in helping us do that well. They want to get rid of cheaters. And so one of my arguments is this again is where alcohol comes in as a cultural technology. If I’m worried I’m going to meet you and decide if we’re going to have a treaty together or if I’m going to agree to move your couch  if we have a couple glasses of wine while we’re talking about that, I’m down regulating your PFC. So I’m making it harder for you to fake, making it harder for you to lie. If you think about it, lying is a very PFC dependent thing. Because if I’m lying to you about my real intentions, I have to keep in mind both what I’m telling you is true and what I know is true. I have to keep my emotional and facial expressions completely separate. I have to fake ones that are consonant with what I told you, and suppress ones that don’t relate to what I told you. And that’s really PFC heavy. So one way to think of it is when we get together, we have a couple glasses of wine in a situation where we’re potentially need to trust each other or have differing interests.

Edward Slingerland 00:23:45 I compare it to shaking hands, so we shake hands to show that we’re not carrying a weapon in our dominant hand. In the same way we drink a couple of glasses of wine, we’re taking our PFC out and putting it on the table and saying I’m now cognitively disarmed. I am much less capable of lying than I was half an hour ago. So that’s kind of intuitive. It’s harder to lie when you’re drinking alcohol. We’re also better at detecting lies when we’re drinking alcohol, because we’re better at detecting lies when we’re not trying. We think we know what the signs are of lying, but we don’t. We do a much better job when we just relax and kind of let our unconscious figure it out.

Natalie MacLean 00:24:25 So alcohol helps both ways. It helps.  I got that. I was mistaken in that and I’ll correct that. But so it’s harder to lie, but it’s easier to tell when someone is lying under the influence. Okay.

Edward Slingerland 00:24:38 Yeah, we’re actually better at it when we’re not trying consciously. And then on top of that, it makes us less inclined to lie because, in addition to impairing our PFC, it’s boosting serotonin, endorphins, these things that make us more pro-social. And there’s again, for all these things, I look at experimental evidence and there’s good experimental evidence that you shoot serotonin up someone’s nose and they cheat less in the economic games. So we feel better about other people, and so we’re less inclined to try to cheat them. So this is why across the world throughout history  anytime you get people coming together where they have potentially different interests or they need to learn to trust each other, the alcohol comes out because it’s a really important tool for enhancing trust and cooperation.

Natalie MacLean 00:25:28 There’s so many rituals. I mean, we always hear about them, you know, whether it’s in China or wherever abroad. There’s toast, protocol, rituals, but it’s also a ritual way of getting drunk together often because they – at least traditionally – drank to excess. But time’s flying, so I just want to make sure we hit a lot of these points that I wanted to make sure of. I think you’ve noted in the past that about 15% of the population is prone to alcoholism. Why do a larger percentage of that drink excessively during the pandemic?

Edward Slingerland 00:26:02 So alcohol is historically come with two safety features. One is the one we talked about natural fermentation. And we then remove that by inventing distilled liquors. The other one is social. Social helps ritual practices to have private access to alcohol is historically unprecedented. Every culture I know of throughout history, you only drink in public with other people and you typically don’t even have private access to alcohol in your home. It’s something that’s done in public with other people. When you’re doing that, the culture can regulate your drinking. And again, historically you see all these different ways we do that. So in ancient Greece, the symposium, the wine drinking party, was hosted by the symposiarch. That was a person in charge. They were in charge of passing around the wine when it was time to drink. They were in charge of watering it down. So the Greeks didn’t drink their wine straight. They watered it down. And if things were going a little sluggish, maybe they put a little less water in, get things going. If things were getting out of hand, they would water it down a bit more or they would wait a couple more minutes before they passed it around again. So you did not even have personal control over how much you drank. It was determined by the host. And you see a very similar structure in China. And this is really true today and even today in more formal situations, you don’t drink it well you have a little shot glass at your side and then when it’s time for a toast, it gets filled and you come and you shoot it and everyone drinks. Who can toast is richly regulated. It’s not just anyone can do it. Typically, that’s another way to control drinking.

Edward Slingerland 00:27:49 So I decide what pace we’re all going to drink as a group, even in very informal situations, like a pub. Going to a pub together with some friends, you typically order and rounds. So I have a problem with alcohol and I drink my beer really quickly and I want another one. I’ve got to wait until everyone else finishes and we order another round. So we have all these ways of regulating each other’s drinking when we’re doing it socially, which is the way we’ve always done it. What’s new about modern industrial societies is you can have alcohol in your house and drink as much of it as you want, which is kind of crazy. You can have a liquor cabinet at home in Vancouver that has enough alcohol in it to kill a small village. There’s no one there telling me how much I can drink. And then imagine the pandemic, suddenly not we can’t even go out and do it socially anymore. We’re stuck in our houses. And so there’s really good data that problem drinking went through the roof during the pandemic because we still have access to distilled liquors, these very addictive, powerful forms of alcohol and the normal social norms around drinking are gone because we can’t drink in public anymore. I mean, it was crazy. I was traveling back and forth between Canada and the US, my partners here in the US, and I was the only one who could travel because I have passports on both sides. And when I came back to Vancouver, each time I had to quarantine for two weeks, I had to be alone in my apartment, couldn’t leave my apartment but I could call up my local taqueria. And in addition to bringing me some pulled pork, they could deliver me a case of tequila if I wanted it. So that’s crazy, right? You’re alone in your house, but you can have as much alcohol as you want. Humans are not designed for that.

Natalie MacLean 00:29:38 Right. So, do you know if it recalibrated after the pandemic? Like, has it gone back to pre-pandemic levels or.

Edward Slingerland 00:29:44 I don’t think so. And it’s because it’s really hard to go down again. Because of the addictive quality of alcohol, once you upped your consumption, it really takes a conscious effort to bring it back down again. So I think I’m not sure what the current data is on that, but I think we still are in the kind of aftermath of this excessive drinking that happened during the pandemic.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:05 That’s what I hear as well, that it hasn’t recalibrated. What was the most surprising insight you discovered while writing the book Drunk?

Edward Slingerland 00:30:13 I was surprised about the distillation thing. I had always assumed that just we always had access to liquor, and discovering that it really was a story that goes back 10 million years to our primate ancestors who adapted to eating, fermenting fruit, something that happened in the 1600s is like yesterday. It’s a blink of an eye. And so that was really surprising to me that distilled liquor is such a recent discovery. And the whole beer before bread thing is something I didn’t know about before I started doing the research. The fact that it does seem like the desire to make fermented beverages is what started agriculture. That was new and really interesting.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:57 That was big. Is there anything that you’ve discovered since then that would go into a new edition or another book on a related topic?

Edward Slingerland 00:31:04 In the end last chapter, I talk about the dangers of alcohol and kind of how we have to recognize that it’s got these dangers but also if we see the benefits, we can make intelligent decisions about how to use it. I wish all the stuff that has happened in Canada around Health Canada, and the only safe level is well there’s no safe level and we recommend you should have two drinks per week. I wish that had happened in time for me to address the book, because I think it’s a classic example of how our public policy around alcohol is completely distorted by this medicalized lens, where we look at everything through just risk mitigation and don’t take into account any of the benefits, including pleasure, which should be in that mix but these other benefits social, mental health, creativity. So I think that that’s the latest Health Canada guidance on this is absolutely nuts, and I wish I could have had a chance to address it in the book.

Natalie MacLean 00:32:04 It is nuts. I just add there only because I’ve been researching and writing about it recently TED. Health Canada hasn’t changed its guidelines since 2011, but the Canadian Center for Substance Abuse, which is not government run, came out with that study that scared the heck out of everybody that said no level. So did the World Health Organization. So these are scary headlines, but they also ignore the J curve on regular not distilled, but there are actually still health benefits in moderation. But you know, I’m biased too. So I read the studies I want.

Edward Slingerland 00:32:41 Yeah, but I also don’t think that’s where the hill we want to defend is the physiological thing. Because even if it turns out, which could be the case, that it’s a net physiological negative, I think it’s been a mistake for people defending moderate alcohol use to play their game, to play the physiology and medical game, because that’s not the right game. We have to in the same way that what if we took the same attitude toward driving cars…

Natalie MacLean 00:33:10 Flying, it is all dangerous. Exactly.

Edward Slingerland 00:33:10  It’s all dangerous, right. So it kill us but we still do it. So if we all we cared about was maximizing our lifespan and risk mitigation, we should wrap ourselves up in bubble wrap and never leave our apartment, right. Because it’s dangerous world out there, but that would be miserable existence. And so I think it’s a mistake to play the medical game. I think you need to change the conversation and say, look  let’s just figure out what the physiological risks are, but also have a kind of decision making process we use with anything else, which is if we want to have a happy, successful, well-rounded life what’s the role of this substance in our lives? And I think that one of the reasons I wrote Drunk is because I think public policy and public debate on this is really stunted. We don’t have the big picture. And so what I’m trying to do is – through history and anthropology and archaeology and modern psychological science – explain what the big picture is. And then we may still say, no, it’s too dangerous, but at least then we’ll be making an informed, intelligent decision. And I just don’t think that’s been the case so far.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:27 Well said. Well put. All right. So I just want to wrap up a little bit with a few questions. And off here in the museum of Ted Slingerland, which three objects would be in the central display?

Edward Slingerland 00:34:39 I don’t know, that’s really hard. Maybe a kayak paddle. Kayaking is one of my passions. A wine glass, a nice wine glass. Yeah, and a book. Those are kind of my three favorite things to do probably.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:53 Awesome. And if you could share a bottle of wine with anyone in the world, living or dead, who would it be?

Edward Slingerland 00:34:58 Probably Drums, who is this early Taoist thinker who no one knows about which is a shame. One of my trade books is going to be introducing people to Drums. He is a really fascinating and incredibly creative thinker in the Warring States period in China. He’s the one who had the analogy about a sage is like a drunken person. So yeah, I would like to meet him.

Natalie MacLean 00:35:22 And what would you drink with him?

Edward Slingerland 00:35:24 I would drink just a mind blowing wine. There are wines I’ve had in the past that have made me just think life would be really sad without the substance. I guess off the top…. the Loire Sauvignon Blanc. I had an experience drinking that in the early 2000s. It was a religious experience. He’s kind of one of the innovators in small, you know, biodynamic small crops and just these wines have just power and depth and clarity that it’s artistically beautiful. So something like that. I feel like Drums would appreciate.

Natalie MacLean 00:36:12 And is there any question you’ve never been asked but would like to be asked?

Edward Slingerland 00:36:16 I’ve been asked every question you could imagine [laughter]. I think I’ve done probably 150 podcasts.

Natalie MacLean 00:36:23 Okay, so you have been asked them all. Your favourite question then would you like a top up [laughter]?

Edward Slingerland 00:36:28 Yeah. Right. It’s been great too. And actually I wish, you know, it’s a shame I couldn’t kind of go back and rewrite the book because I’ve been asked so many questions. Oh, yeah. I should have said something.

Natalie MacLean 00:36:39 You have to have a sequel.

Edward Slingerland 00:36:40 So yeah. Yeah, maybe.

Natalie MacLean 00:36:43  A follow up. How can people best get in touch with you online and find your books and everything else?

Edward Slingerland 00:36:49 I have a website. So just EdwardSlingerland.com and it’s got everything.

Natalie MacLean 00:36:53 Got everything. Okay. Cool. Great. Well thank you. Please don’t log off just yet. But thank you for this. It’s fascinating. I could talk for hours, but we probably need to get wine sooner or later.

Edward Slingerland 00:37:04  [laughter] Yes. Right.

Natalie MacLean 00:37:08 Enough, PFC, for now. But thank you, Ted. I wish you all the best. And hopefully next time it will be over wine?

Edward Slingerland 00:37:12 Yeah. Thanks a lot. This was a lot of fun.

Natalie MacLean 00:37:14 Okay. Cheers.

Natalie MacLean 00:37″18 Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our chat with Edward. Here are my takeaways. Number one. What is the connection between alcohol and wine and innovation? Edward explains that it’s a double effect in enhancing individual creativity and reducing inhibitions. He cites the study that examined the number of patent applications during prohibition in the US, when people couldn’t drink socially. It found that when prohibition was imposed on a wet county, patent applications nosedived and didn’t come back for another three years. Edward believes the recovery is because people figured out speakeasies where they could drink socially again.

Number two, how does wine improve the quality of brainstorming? Edward believes that wine and alcohol also enhances group creativity because individual members are more creative. They’re also less nervous about saying something that their prefrontal cortex would judge as not worthy when perhaps it’s a great idea.

And number three, why is it important not to think about wine consumption through a medical lens alone? Edward believes that we have to recognize both the dangers and the benefits of alcohol and wine to make intelligent decisions about how to use it. He wishes he had been able to address the inaccurate information about the health risks in the book as a classic example of how public health policy, in this case in Canada, regarding alcohol is completely distorted by this medicalized lens.

In the show notes, you’ll find the full transcript of my conversation with Edward, links to his website and books the video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my book online now no matter where you live. If you missed episode 168, go back and take a listen. I chat with Jamie Lewis about wines buzz, Italy’s food culture, and Audrey Hepburn’s influence. I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite.

Jamie Lewis 00:39:20 To be a writer about cars, a writer about tech, a writer about alternative medicine, whatever it is, you first must be a writer because you cannot communicate about anything unless you have the skills, the creativity, and I think the curiosity to do that, and perhaps a tiny bit of the mental illness [laughter]

Natalie MacLean 00:39:39 [laughters] That helps…

Jamie Lewis 00:39:40 To draw connections between disparate things is an important part of the craft of writing. But a big part of why I transitioned out of the drinking is  it’s impossible to keep up. Wine, I’ve heard before, is the number one consumer product with the most SKUs of any product. People are opening up different wineries. They’re starting new labels. Every year, it doubles. Well, I can’t keep up with that.

Natalie MacLean 00:40:05 No, it is true.

Jamie Lewis 00:40:06 I don’t work in a wine shop. I don’t have close ties to anybody who would be willing to share with me at a wine shop. And I’m the mother of two and a very busy person. I can’t possibly crack that many bottles at a time.

Natalie MacLean 00:40:22 You won’t want to miss next week when we chat with Martin Janz, the chief winemaker at Pelee Island Winery, who will tell us not only about his wines but also what differentiates the wines of southwestern Ontario from Niagara and Prince Edward County.

If you liked this episode or learned even one thing from it, please email or tell one friend about the podcast this week, especially someone you know who’d be interested in learning more about how wine contributed to our civilization. It’s easy to find my podcast. Just tell them to search for Natalie MacLean Wine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, their favourite podcast app, or they can listen to the show on the website at nataliemaclean.com/podcast. Email me if you have a sip, tip, question, if you’d like to win one of two copies of Edward Slingerland’s book, or if you’ve read my book or listening to it at [email protected].

In the show notes, you’ll also find a link to a free online food and wine pairing class with me called The Five Wine and Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner and How to Fix Them Forever at nataliemaclean.com/class. And that’s all in the show notes at nataliemaclean.com/301. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your glass this week, perhaps a wine that sparked a creative idea for you.

You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at nataliemaclean.com/subscribe. Meet me here next week. Cheers.

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