Stanton debates James Milam at 1988 NIAAA conference

At the 1998 NIAAA National Conference on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, in San Diego, I debated James Milam on the disease nature of alcoholism. Enoch Gordis and many other dignitaries were there — in fact, it was a full house. I staged my presentation as a series of questions to Milam, none of which he responded to. Instead, he gave a highly vindictive talk against the Sobells and Herbert Fingarette, the latter of whom he claimed he was originally supposed to debate (Herb told me when I mentioned this that he was never asked to participate). Milam's piece de resistance in explaining the disease and genetic nature of alcoholism was the case of native Americans, which I countered was no more evidence for genetic than for environmental and cultural causation. (Afterwards, Oscar Parsons — an alcohol and neurodeficit researcher at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center — accompanied by Gordis, joked to me about addled Milam was.)

After the presentations, Riley Regan, director of substance abuse services in my home state (New Jersey) rose to launch a tirade against me, saying it was a sad day when the NIAAA presented me at one of their conferences (they haven't in fact had me since). Hal Holder, who was moderating the debate, seemed incapable of any action, and I finally told Regan he had gotten his point across and now was a time for questions from the audience. Afterwards, I chastised Holder for his inaction in allowing both the inappropriate tone of Milam's ad hominem remarks against people who weren't there and Riley's tirade. Holder looked at me with the smoldering impotence of a man who knows he's a coward.