One of my favorite shows on Netflx is Still Game; a sitcom, set in the fictitious suburb of Craiglang, which is located just outside the city of Glasgow in Scotland. The show follows the everyday lives of two old-age pensioners, Jack Jarvis and Victor McDade. Jack and Victor have been friends since childhood, live in flats right across the hall from each other, and are widowers. Craiglang is not a particularly nice suburb. In fact, on several occasions Jack and Victor refer to Craiglang as a shitehole. Much of Jack and Victor’s social lives center around the local pub – the Clansman. Jack and Victor can be found there most evenings, having a couple of pints of lager and hanging out with Craiglang’s other retirees; these include Tam (a tightwad), Isa (the local gossip), and Winston (a former shipyard worker always looking to beat the system in search of extra money). The Clansman is what urban sociologist, Ray Oldenburg, would call a Third Place – a place where friends gather and enjoy each other’s company; a place where conversation and humor are prized. It is Craiglang’s equivalent of Cheers.

Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist, has studied the social and mental health benefits of going to a pub. Numerous studies conducted by Dunbar has led him to conclude that “there are social and wellbeing benefits to be derived directly from drinking alcohol, especially in relaxed social environments”. According to Dunbar, hanging out with friends in a bar, drinking beer, telling jokes, exchanging gossip, etc. releases endorphins in the brain. These endorphins “generate a positive feeling in a person, similar to that of morphine. So we feel good. And crucially, alcohol also activates the endorphin system, which in itself will enhance social bonds among those who indulge together.” Dunbar also cites research that shows that the probability of still being alive twelve months after a heart attacks was higher for people with vibrant social networks. To quote Dunbar, yet again, “our social networks play a central role in our ability to survive the worst traumas that life can throw at us. And those networks are very clearly enhanced by the use of alcohol”.

Going to the pub and meeting friends for a drink also helps to combat loneliness. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Janet Adamy and Paul Overberg cite research which finds that “loneliness takes a physical toll, and is as closely linked to early mortality as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day or consuming more than six alcoholic drinks a day. Loneliness is even worse for longevity than being obese or physically inactive.” In 2018, The Economist called loneliness a serious public health problem. Today, single person households comprise 28% of all American households. Many of these single person households comprise elderly people.

As I write this blog entry, the world is in the grip of the global Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic. President Trump had declared a national emergency, while Governors all across the country have declared states of emergency in their states. Citizens are being asked to practice social distancing. To facilitate social distancing, bars and restaurants (as well as many other businesses) have been closed, and restricted to home delivery or curbside pick-up. “Stay-at-Home” orders, or their equivalent, have been imposed across most of the United States. Such orders make it difficult to get together with friends for a beer. And, it exacerbates loneliness., and all its attendant challenges. As astutely observed by Mike Pomranz, in a recent piece on FoodandWine.com,  “the coronavirus has stripped beer of half its powers”. For while it can still intoxicate, the inability to gather with friends means that it cannot “socially lubricate”.

A few days after bars and restaurants in Ohio were closed, my wife suggested to me that we contact our oldest daughter who lives in Cincinnati, OH to see if she and her boyfriend would be interested in having a virtual “Happy Hour”. Our daughter is a nurse at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati. She normally works in the heart failure unit. But with Covid-19 she has been temporarily transferred to the cardiac ICU unit to provide extra support for the staff there. While she is not working directly with Covid-19 patients, we still worry about her during this challenging period. Having a virtual Happy Hour would, we thought, be a great way to catch up with her and, as anxious parents, check in with her. She and her boyfriend are also craft beer aficionados so, for me, it would be an opportunity to us to enjoy a few craft beers “together”.

Being a nurse, my daughter does not have a normal 9-5 workday. She does twelve shifts that start at 7am in the morning. She sometimes works weekends and holidays. Despite her schedule, so far, we have been able to get together with her (and her boyfriend and cat) on either a Friday or Saturday evening. We connect via FaceTime. These have turned out to be fun and enjoyable times together. Our happy hours have all lasted well beyond an hour, even creeping close to the four-hour mark on several occasions. They are happy occasions, during which we simply engage in conversation. I am not sure whether we will continue to have them once the the threat of Covid-19 has gone. I suspect we might not – our Friday and Saturday evenings will be filled with other activities, such as visiting friends, and doing our part to support the local restaurant and bar scene. But if, indeed, we do not resume our virtual Happy Hours that will be ok – because it will mean that life is back to normal (or whatever the transitional new normal is like). I am sure that none of us will forget the year 2020. There have been so many negative aspects of the the Covid-19 pandemic. But there have been some positive ones as well – and our Friday/Saturday evening virtual Happy Hours with our daughter, her boyfriend, and Nelson the cat have been delightful and a bright ray of sunshine during these difficult days. The social distancing necessitated by Covid-19 gives me an enhanced appreciation of modern-day communications technology. In an e-mail exchange I had earlier this week with one of our department’s doctoral students we were discussing the use of FaceTime to connect with those from whom we were socially distanced. She made the comment that she was glad that all of this was happening in 2020 and not 1996.

We were not the only ones to participate in a virtual Happy Hour as a way to connect with family. Writing in the Grand Fork Herald, Nichole Philips, tells the heartwarming story of Andy Smallman, whose ageing parents live in a retirement community just outside of Seattle, WA. Mr. Smallman created an event which he called “Beer with Grandad“. Using Zoom, Mr. Smallman was able to simultaneously bring together twenty members of his extended family one Saturday evening. The importance of this virtual family reunion to his 80+ year old parents was immeasurable. When they emerge out of the other side of the Covid-19 pandemic, I am quite certain that the Smallman family will look back with joy and happiness on these virtual get-togethers. I know that my wife and I will.

Further Reading:

Dunbar, Robin I. M., Jacques Launay, Rafael Wlodarski, Cole Robertson, Eiluned Pearce, James Carney, and Pádraig MacCarron. 2017. Functional benefits of (modest) alcohol consumption. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, Volume 3, pp. 118–133.

Oldenburg, Ray. 1996-97. Our vanishing “third places”. Planning Commissions Journal, Number 25, pp. 6-10.