UP YOUR SPIRITS!

A Loyola psychiatrist offers his toast to alcohol: an attempt to clear up misconceptions and establish the truth about fermented beverages. Dr. Smith's point is that drinking as a habit is here to stay. Rather than question its worth we should learn to live with its liquid realities. But his question-and-answer format (on hangovers, alcoholism, teenage drinkers, effects on health and sexual activity) is alternatively informative, irritating, and ""funny""--the kind of humor that seems funnier after you've had a few. ""Q: Does booze make people lose their hair faster? A: No, it just makes it harder to find, or at least to recall where you may have left it."" And his examples of alcoholics and their families are trivialized by the breezy tone. Of life with a husband whose bouts are frequent: ""Most wives respond to repeated trauma such as this with anger, and some with a transient frigidity or a brief affair with a transient."" With books like this, abstinence pays off.