teetotalism

teetotalism, the practice or promotion of total abstinence from alcoholic drinks. It became popular as part of the temperance movement in the early 19th century in Great Britain and North America. Unlike temperance advocates, who promoted moderation in alcohol consumption or abstention solely from hard liquor (distilled spirits), people who practice teetotalism, known as teetotalers, abstain from all alcohol, including beer and wine.

Teetotalers in the 19th century who belonged to temperance societies typically signed a pledge promising to abstain from alcohol. Some societies also issued a pledge card that featured the member’s name, the date of the pledge, and other details, such as the name and logo of the temperance society or illustrations depicting the miseries of drinking compared with the happiness of sobriety.

Various stories explain the origin of the term teetotalism. One story claims that tee stands for the capital letter T, as in the expression “with a capital T,” or “total abstinence with a capital T.” Another explanation is that some temperance societies marked a T beside the names of members in their society roster who had pledged total abstinence from alcohol rather than moderation. Yet another story claims that the term was coined improvisationally by an “unlettered” English temperance advocate who wanted to add emphasis to the notion of total abstinence during his testimony at a meeting in 1833. According to another account of that episode, the advocate who testified had a speech impediment, and, when he stuttered while saying “total,” it was heard as “teetotal.”

From the early days of the mass temperance movement, total abstinence from alcohol was promoted by some advocates, such as Presbyterian clergyman Lyman Beecher, who published Six Sermons on the Nature, Occasions, Signs, Evils, and Remedy of Intemperance in 1827. By 1836, when the American national temperance convention formally endorsed total abstinence, many temperance societies had switched from promoting moderation to advocating for abstinence. By this time, membership in temperance societies had reached about 1.5 million in the United States. It was also estimated that about a quarter of a million individuals were practicing total abstinence.

Members of temperance organizations sang songs, organized marches to shut down saloons or pass prohibition laws, circulated pamphlets about the cause, and gave speeches on the moral problems caused by drinking. Teetotalism was embraced by some religious groups and moral reformers as the answer to the problems of poverty, unemployment or work absenteeism, declining church attendance, crime, and domestic violence. It was encouraged among the working class, whereas moderation was more readily accepted among the upper classes, who could afford wine.

Whereas many temperance groups lobbied for prohibition, the Washington Temperance Society, whose members were known as the Washingtonians, emphasized individual reform over societal reform. The fellowship group for reformed alcoholics was founded in 1840 in Baltimore, Maryland, by six men seeking to help one another and others to maintain their sobriety. They recruited other people in their community, even non-alcoholics, and held regular meetings in which they shared their experiences with drinking and sobriety. Over time, the Washingtonians attracted as many as 600,000 members, with chapters throughout the United States. Notably, they welcomed many groups that other temperance societies excluded, including Roman Catholics and Black Americans. Women formed their own Washingtonian chapters, Martha Washington societies, and called themselves “Marthas.” By the late 1840s, most Washingtonian chapters had stopped meeting owing to declining membership.

In Ireland, a mass abstinence movement associated with the Roman Catholic Church attracted at least 4 to 5 million adherents. In 1838 Theobald Mathew, a Roman Catholic priest, founded the Cork Total Abstinence Society, which gained the support of Irish nationalist leader Daniel O’Connell and American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Mathew brought his crusade to the rest of the United Kingdom and later (1849) to the United States, where he preached to Irish and Roman Catholic communities, earning millions of supporters.

In Dublin, the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart (Pioneers) was founded in 1898 by another priest, James Cullen. The Pioneers wore a religious emblem to signify their abstinence and recited a prayer twice daily that asked for “the conversion of excessive drinkers.” Whereas Mathew’s group eventually dwindled out, the Pioneers remain active in Ireland and North America, although with much diminished numbers.

Although the temperance movement died out in the United States in the early 20th century with the failure of Prohibition, alcohol abstinence was the foundation for a new movement focused on recovery from addiction. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), founded in 1935 in Akron, Ohio, developed as a fellowship group for alcoholics seeking recovery through total abstinence. The basis of AA was the Twelve Steps program, which outlines the group’s principles and methods for recovery.

Studies in the late 2010s indicated a decline in youth drinking in Western countries, with more than one-fourth of English youth in their mid-teens to mid-20s and nearly three-tenths of college-age Americans claiming total abstinence. Informal annual events such as “Dry January” or “Sober October” also encourage participants to abstain from alcohol and promote their abstinence on social media.