Social-Historical Origins:
Alcohol, Gambling,
Addiction, and other Popular
Substances
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
1
House Keeping
• Where to find slides, and future pdf readings
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
2
Beer as Old As Civilization
The oldest proven records of
brewing date back 6,000 years ago
to the Middle East (discovered by
accident, harvesting, grain, storage,
forgotten).
Archeologists uncovered a seal from
the Sumerian peoples who lived
between the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers.
The seal is dedicated to the
goddess of brewing and contains a
recipe for making beer.
Hymn to Ninkasi
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
3
Beer as Old As Civilization
• By 3000 BC, the Egyptians, who
grew many kinds of grain, were
brewing at least six different types
of beer.
• One could say that the Egyptian
pyramids were built on beer.
• Stonecutters, slaves and public
officials were paid in a type of beer
called ‘kash’.
• Straws created for the purpose of
drinking beer.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
4
Alcohol:
It really is a poison!
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
5
The Greeks and Romans
• Each society had its own god of wine
(Dionysus – Greek; Bacchus – Roman)
• The word symposium, derived from Greek,
means to “drink together.” We call
symposiums … [conferences]
• The Greeks and the Romans consumed
their “god” so it would inhabit their
bodies
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
6
Visions, Dancing, and Becoming
God…
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
7
Rules and Regulations
Beer is first regulated in
1215 when King John
signs the Magna Carta
William VI of Germany
legislates the
Reinheitsgebot of
1516; still used today
(German Beer Purity
Law, water, barley,
hops)
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
8
Toward Settling The Americas
• Harvard College opens in 1636 with a brewery on campus;
students revolt in 1639 when beer supply runs low
• In 1638 William Penn opens first large-scale brewery in the new
world
• Many founding fathers, including the first three U.S. presidents,
are brewery and distillery owners
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
9
Booze in America 1
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
10
Prelude to to War on Drugs?
• Bourbon is first made in 1789
• Alexander Hamilton asks Congress to institute a new tax on
whiskey
• 1,700 farmers revolt
• Washington calls up about 15,000 militia troops to put down the
“Whiskey Rebellion”
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
11
Booze in America 2
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
12
How about Canada you add…
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
13
Let’s Turn to Maybe the most the
ancient of all addictive behaviors…
GAMBLING
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
14
Gambling: Ancient Origins
• Supposition
• Risk taking has always been a part of
the human condition
• How does this relate to gambling?
• Are they the same at a deep level?
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
15
Social-Historical Origins
• Ancient story-tellers said that gambling was part of our
lives for a reason: A cunning god or hero taught people
to gamble.
• But they did not say if it was for the better or for the
worse.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
16
Social-Historical (contd).
• We do not know who invented gambling.
• But we do know that gambling developed around principles of risk,
superstition, religion, and divination.
• Thus, as our ancestors began to use tools more than a half million
years ago, they began to modify stone, wood, and “bones.”
• Originally, gambling was not based on amusement, but for the
purposes of using supernatural or intuitive means to tell the future or
reveal information hidden to reason.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
17
Odds and Evens: “The oldest Known
Divination Game”
• The oldest and most widespread divination games was “odds and
evens.”
• The essential elements of the game consist of using nuts or stones.
An individual(s) would ask a question of a priest/shaman and the
objects would then been thrown onto the ground.
• If the result was even, the answer to the question would be “YES,”
and if the odd the answer would be “NO.”
• However, such meanings and divination telling lacked colorful
interpretation . Thus, gaming/gambling would rely on more
meaningful interpretations and greater randomness.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
18
Enter the Bones
• Eventually rolling astragali
(hucklebone) became the
popular medium and object by
which divination was decreed.
• The astragali had four
unsymmetrical large sides each
standing for a particular
outcome.
• Eventually each side eventually
was given a value.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
19
Astragali and Throw Value
• Convex narrow
=1
• Convex broad
=3
• Concave broad
=4
• Concave narrow
=6
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
20
Rolling the Bones: Divination and Beyond
•
Adding a bit of value and creativity ,
the line between gambling and
divination becomes blurred.
•
For instance, hunter gather parties
would roll the bones asking for
guidance on which direction to look
for game. Thus, in this instance they
were employing divination.
•
However, when the hunter gather’s
returned with the kill and rolled the
bones to determine who would
receive the best cuts, they were
gambling.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
21
Gambling a Human Species Phenomena
• As we turn to examine
gambling worldwide, a
second supposition about
humans and gambling can
be entertained…
– People “somehow resolve
to tolerate or ignore
gambling and then adapt
ideas to it.
– Moreover, as we venture
to examine gambling
cultures, we learn that
gambling did not spread in
connection to a particular
game, but its spread as an
“attitude”.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
22
Middle East and Gambling
• Thus, it appears the
gambling and
societies go hand
in hand, with the
first astragali being
found between the
Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers,
present day Iraq.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
23
A Closer Look at Astragali
•
These astragali were
uncovered in Athens.
•
These astragali were
uncovered in Pompeii.
•
These astragali were found
in uncovered in Russia.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
24
From Bones to Dice
• When the Mesopotamians began to file down hucklebones, the first
steps where taken to toward modern dice.
• It appears that the four sided astragali were at first transformed into
cubes, as theory would have it, so as to make them roll more
randomly.
• Because of variations in bone density and structure, though, these
cubical astragali wound have inevitably rolled unevenly.
• The next logical step was to carve more honest dice out of ivory,
wood, and other materials.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
25
The Rise of Dice
• Interestingly, all dice from the past to the present have
used dots and not numerals to indicate value.
• Such a system predates the numeric system by 500
hundred years.
• Mesopotamians utilized dice to play many games, five
games have been found in the Royal tombs at Ur,
suggesting that gaming was a respectable activity.
• These games used four sided pyramidal dice.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
26
The Royal Game of Ur
•
The rules for UR or a ‘game of
twenty squares' are talked about
in cuneiform texts. It was a race
game, with two players trying to
beat each other to the end of the
board.
•
People in many parts of the
ancient world played the 'game of
twenty squares' and boards have
been found from Egypt to India,
and date from around 3000 B.C.
up until modern times.
•
A’ La Backgammon and
Parchessi.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
27
Early Dice Games: Were the
Mesopotamians Gambling?
• While the games found and played in Mesopotamian
may have not been strictly gambling, their
archaeological history suggests that playing for
amusement, money, or strategy was more permeable
than it is today.
• For example, the game of Ur exemplifies “war
strategy,” a game of chance and risk-taking with the
highest possible stakes.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
28
Some Examples of Dice
• All in all, games of
chance continued to
proliferate across cultures
worldwide with dice being
the preferred tools of
play.
• Dice from Iran: 2300
years old
• Dice from Rome: 1100
years old.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
29
Some Examples of Dice
• Dice from Nepal: 500
hundred years old.
• Dice from
Switzerland 400
years old
• Dice from
Scandinavia 800
hundred years old.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
30
Some Examples of Dice
• Dice from Hawaii 900
hundred years old
• Dice from England
300 years old
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
31
Polyhedral Dice: Before Dungeons & Dragons…
• Are you sure?
Ancient Egypt
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
32
Gambling Cultures: Further East
•
While the culture of gaming and
gambling was thriving throughout
sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt and
the Mediterranean, so to was
gambling thriving in India.
•
And just as dice evolved from
astragali in the these societies, in
India, dice developed from brown
nuts of the vibhitaka tree.
•
Meanwhile, Indians also were
playing other games and possibly
could be accredited with the
domestication of chickens so as
to gamble on their ferocious
fighting known today as “cock
fighting”.
33
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
Cock Fighting – Cultural and Cruel
or a Gambling Pass-time?
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
34
India a Gaming Culture?
•
As popular as gambling was in
Mesopotamia, India appears to
eclipsed such a popularity.
•
For instance, one of the oldest
known religious book in the world,
the Rig Veda, an ancient collection
of 1000 religious hymns, which was
compiled over two hundred years,
provides evidence that gambling, for
better or worse, was a mainstay of
Indian culture.
•
Hymn 34 in the tenth mandala is
known as the gamblers hymn. The
creation of such a hymn is believed
to be have authored by gambling
sage apparently who had lost
everything through gambling. . .
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
35
The Gambler’s Hymn
SPRUNG from tall trees on windy heights, these rollers transport me as they turn upon
the table. The enlivening Vibhīdaka has pleased me like the draught of Soma from
Mujavant. She never vexed me nor was angry with me, but was ever gracious to my
friends and me. For a dice which scored one too much, I drive away my own devoted
wife. My wife drives me away, her mother hates me: the wretched man finds none to give
him comfort. [They say:] "I find no more use in a gambler than in an aged horse which is
for sale." Others embrace the wife of him whose riches the victorious dice have coveted:
Father and mother and brothers say about him [to the landlord's men]: "We know him
not: tie him up and take him away." When I resolve "I will not play with them, I will remain
behind when my friends [= fellow-gamblers] depart [to play]", and the brown dice, thrown
on the board, have rattled, like a fond girl I seek the place of meeting.
The gamester seeks the gambling-house, and wonders, his body all afire, "Will I be
lucky?" The dice run against his desire, giving the best throws to his adversary. Dice,
verily, are armed with goads and driving-hooks, deceiving and tormenting, causing
grievous woe. They give gifts like boys [do], and then snatch them back from the
winner,[they are] sweetened [as] with honey with magic power over the gambler. Their
troop of three-times-fifty plays [as undefeatably] as Savitr the god whose ways are
faithful. They bend not even to the anger of the mighty: the King himself pays homage
and reveres them.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
36
The Gambler’s Hymn
Downward they roll, and then spring quickly upward, and, handless, force
the man with hands to serve them. Cast on the board, like lumps of magic
charcoal, though cold themselves they burn the heart to ashes. The
gambler's wife is left forlorn and wretched: the mother mourns the son
who wanders homeless. In constant fear, in debt, and seeking money, he
goes by night to the home of others [probably to steal]. Sad is the
gambler when he sees a woman, another man's wife, and his wellordered dwelling.
He yokes the brown horses [= the dice] in the early morning, and in the
evening he sinks down beside [his] fire, a beggar. To the great captain of
your mighty army [of dice], who has become the host's imperial leader, To
him I show [my] ten [extended fingers]: "I speak the truth: No wealth am I
withholding.""Play not with dice, [but] cultivate your corn-land. Enjoy the
gain, and deem that wealth sufficient. There are your cattle, there your
wife, O gambler": So this good Savitr himself has told me. Make me your
friend: show us some little mercy. Do not forcibly bewitch us with magic
power. Let your wrath [and] emnity now come to rest. Let the brown [dice]
now snare some other captive.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
37
In your opinion. . .
• What is the meaning
of the gamblers
Hymn?
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
38
DSM-IV Pathological Gambling Criterion
To be conferred /deemed a pathological gambler an individual must exemplify 5 of the following characteristics
1) Preoccupation with gambling;
2) Need to gamble with increasing amounts to achieve a elevated arousal;
3) Unsuccessful efforts to control, or stop gambling;
4) Agitated or irritable when attempting to reduce gambling;
5) Gambling as a way to escape dysphoric moods;
6) Returning after a losing day, to get even;
7) Lying to family and others about extent of one’s gambling;
8) Performing illegal acts to finance gambling;
9) Putting at risk a job, significant relationship or education to gamble;
10) Relying on others to provide money to help financial status caused by
gambling.
The sole exclusionary criterion where an individual is not deemed to be a pathological
gambler, despite having the latter 10 characteristics, is that their gambling is better
explained as being due to bi-polar disorder (DSM-IV-TR [APA, 2000] p. 199).
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
39
Similarities Between
DSM and Gamblers
Hymn?
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
40
Asian Culture and Gambling
• East of India, the cultures of eastern Asia can be
said to rival the greatest of any gambling culture.
• Here, gambling for stakes was held the highest
of intensity, beginning in the Shang dynasty
nearly 4000 years ago.
• Again divination and seeking to interpret events
led the way, with Chinese oracles holding great
power for their adeptness.
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
41
Asian Culture and Gambling
• 1700 years later, gambling for stakes became
entrenched in the Chinese mindset.
• Types of games played during the next two
thousand years included:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Animal fighting (from quails to crickets)
Board games
Dog races
First lottery (1000 AD)
Dice games turned into dominoes
Mahjong
Forerunners of bingo and keno
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZaogu88pc0
42
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
Opiates
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
43
Antiquity
Homer (The Odyssey) called poppy juice “nepenthe” (nə-ˈpen(t)-thē\) .
Poppy seeds and capsules have been found in neolithic
dwellings (3000 B.C.) in Switzerland.
Minoan cultures venerated the poppy and made goddess
figures with poppy seedpod crowns.
MIDDLE AGES
Opium was brought from Turkey, China and India along the
caravan routes in the middle ages.
Opiates
• Widespread use in 19th century
– Primarily middle-, upper-middle-income women,
Civil War soldiers
• Problems develop
– Highest levels of opiate addiction in history
• Reform/Laws
– Passed in states
– Lead to Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914
Impossible to talk about medicines
without talking about addictive drugs
• Addictive drugs have been used as
medicines throughout history
– Opium and heroin
– Cocaine
– Cannabis
– Alcohol
Put in perspective. . .
• Anesthetics not developed until 1840s
• Modern pharmaceuticals, medical
procedures developed even later
Pre-1840s “anesthetics”
• Got patients very drunk
• Knocked them out with blows to the head
• Hired several large men to hold them down
Advances in chemistry,
technology:
• Morphine isolated from opium
(early 1800s)
• Cocaine extracted from coca leaf (mid-1800s)
• Hypodermic needle invented
(mid-1800s)
Opiate addiction spread in
th
last half of 19 century via:
• Medical administration
Doctors gave morphine to relieve symptoms, treat
gynecological problems and “nervousness” in women
who could afford doctors
• Civil War
Doctors gave morphine to treat Civil War injuries
• Self-administration via patent medicines
Opiate addiction spread, cont.
• Medical use to “cure” addiction
Denarco, Opacura
• Non-medical administration
Opium smoking, eating
Patent medicines also contained other
addictive drugs
Modern Drugs: Where Did
we go Wrong?
(Solowoniuk, 2007-2009).
58