family settings and communal binges during special occasions. Family members, including children, often took small doses of distilled spirits (drams) at mealtime, during breaks, and as nightcaps. Public binges also occurred: "Practically any gathering of three or more men, from the Mardi Gras to a public hanging, provided an occasion for drinking vast quantities of liquor, until the more prudent staggered home while the remainder quarreled and fought, or passed out" (Rorabaugh, 1979, p. 150). The coexistent of these two patterns of drinking continued until about the 1820s.
By the 1820s, alcoholic binge drinking had increased dramatically, although fewer Americans indulged in daily, small doses. Not only were more communal binges occurring, patterns of solitary binge drinking had also emerged. Controversy caused by the potential destructiveness of solitary binge drinking gave rise to the temperance movement in America: "It was the changing patterns of drinking rather than the increased consumption of alcohol that alarmed so many Americans . . . "
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