Story from my hometown paper yesterday entitled: Wisconsin has a reputation for drinking, but where is that leading?
By LIZ HOCHSTEDLER
liz.hochstedler@lee.net
Wisconsin and alcohol go together.
Like Georgia is known for peaches, Maine for lobsters and Florida for oranges, Wisconsin has a reputation for its breweries and drinking culture.
Alcohol is everywhere. Pick a city or town in the state, and you are liable to run into several taverns. Wisconsin boasts of nearly 60 breweries and brew pubs. Alcohol is served at almost every party, fundraiser, festival or get-together.
“That’s kind of our rap, our reputation, that we’re a state that uses a lot of alcohol,” said Tom Fuchs, director of L.E Phillips-Libertas Treatment Center in Chippewa Falls.
Alcohol consumption is woven deeply into Wisconsin’s culture. The state’s professional baseball team is named the Milwaukee Brewers. At music festivals, people can be seen playing drinking games at all hours of the day. At fundraisers — even those for children’s events and activities — beer is sold to generate extra money. At graduation parties, families share drinks with the new graduate to celebrate his or her success.
And on Sundays during football season, Green Bay Packer fans crowd area bars, sipping Bloody Marys and loading up on pitchers of beer at noon, while cheering on their team. Some taverns offer a two-for-one deal when the Packers make it into the end zone.
“We are a culture that drinking’s pretty expected and accepted,” said Chippewa County Public Health Nurse Carol Lendle.
The problem
Drinking can be a normal social activity. Many people drink responsibly, go home safely and never have trouble with alcohol. But overall, Wisconsin has many issues when it comes to drinking.
“Alcohol itself is not a problem. It’s our misuse of the alcohol that’s the problem,” said Pathways Director Pamela Radcliffe, who has been working with people having substance abuse problems for 14 years.
Wisconsin ranks No. 1 or near the top in several trouble drinking areas. The state has the highest rates of underage drinking, binge drinking and drinking among women of childbearing age (18-44 years old) in the United States, according to the 2008 Wisconsin Epidemiological Profile on Alcohol and Other Drug Use.
In 2006, 69 percent of Wisconsin adults — that’s two out of every three — reported they were current users, meaning they had consumed alcohol within the past 30 days, according to the same report. That compares to only 55 percent of people nationwide.
Wisconsin residents consumed 2.02 gallons of alcohol per person in 2005.
“We really have a prevailing attitude that alcohol is the fluid. It’s what we use to sort of loosen up the crowd in almost any environment,” Fuchs said.
While many people can stop drinking after one or two alcoholic beverages, it is clear that many Wisconsinites cannot.
Twenty-four percent of adults reported binge drinking within the past month when polled in 2006. Binge drinking is defined as five or more standard drinks on one occasion. A standard drink is 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of liquor.
“People are so accustomed to heavy drinking,” Lendle said.
The state also has the highest percentage of heavy drinkers at 8 percent, while the national average is 5 percent. Heavy drinkers are men who have more than two drinks per day and women who have more than one drink per day.
Though drinking initially only effects the user, others are put at risk when drinkers decide to drive while over the legal intoxication limit or choose to engage in other unlawful activities.
In 2006, 43,056 people were arrested for operating while intoxicated, and another 45,387 were arrested for violating other liquor laws. At least 1,678 people died that same year as a direct result of alcohol use.
Local issues
Chippewa County and the rest of western Wisconsin have nothing to brag about in comparisons with the rest of the state.
With 130 licensed taverns, a brewery, two large music festivals and dozens of events where drinking is featured prominently, Chippewa County’s 60,000-plus residents have many venues in which they can find alcohol.
“We rank even worse … than the state average,” Radcliffe said. “The western region actually has a higher incidence of underage drinking and binge drinking than the state average.”
Eighteen percent of adults age 18 and older in Chippewa County reported binge drinking over a three-year period.
The county had 746 OWI arrests per 100,000 people in 2006.
But it’s not just in the statistics, it’s in the headlines. Just two weeks ago, a man was killed when he was run over by a drunk driver, who was arrested for her third OWI offense.
Leonard D. Peil, 35, was arrested twice in one weekend recently — for his sixth and seven OWIs.
Frederick Rieper, 62, was sentenced in June to two years in jail after being convicted of his eighth and ninth operating while intoxicating offenses.
The examples could go on and on.
National notoriety
Wisconsin’s drinking culture is no hidden secret. Tourists flock to the state’s breweries for tours, and many people know beers such as Miller and Leinenkugel’s are made in Wisconsin. Once those tourists set foot in Wisconsin, many realize just how prevalent alcohol use is here.
Radcliffe said many people she’s talked to who live outside of the state are surprised by how much Wisconsinites drink, where they drink and why they drink.
Fuchs, a Minnesota native, said he’s heard the same thing, especially when it comes to accessibility of alcohol.
“We have a lot more opportunities to purchase alcohol,” he said. “We have less restriction on that.”
Minnesotans, for example, might be surprised to find alcohol inside gas stations and convenience stores or alcohol available for purchase at a liquor store on Sundays. Alcohol is not available at those places or times in our neighboring state.
Wisconsin’s drinking problem was brought to the forefront in November when one of the nation’s leading newspapers, The New York Times, sent a reporter here to chronicle Wisconsin’s liquor laws and habits. The state’s largest newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, devoted a five-part series to the subject, calling it, “Wasted in Wisconsin.”
Though those pieces have shared the state’s problem with the nation, little has changed in Wisconsin since then.
“We kind of have that attitude that that’s what we’re known for,” Fuchs said.
Reputations can be slow to change, and the same goes for legislation to toughen up laws dealing with problem drinkers. It seems as if there is more acceptance of the problems associated with alcohol than a desire to do something about them.
(Editor’s note: This is the first story in a four-part series exploring alcohol use in the area, its effects on drinkers and non-drinkers alike, and what’s being done to combat the problems it creates.)
Copyright © 2009 Chippewa Valley Newspapers
The best comment left was from this guy:
" Well, Wisconsin could secede from the union and join Canada. Not only would the USA then have a spotless alcohol record, but we in the Canadian province of Wisconsin would have free health care and a damn fine fishing season. Everyone would be happy. Problem solved. Please, don't thank me; I'm glad I could help out. "
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