Depression is flourishing. Less, of course, like a bank of daffodils and more like an irruption of dry rot: hidden, silent, pervasive, and a vast drain on national and universal wellbeing. According to The Depression Report produced by the London School of Economics' Centre for Economic Performance in June 2006, depression and chronic anxiety cost the UK £12bn a year in total loss of output. In Britain, nearly 9 per cent of adults suffer from some form of depression in any given week.

    抑郁症在泛滥。 当然，不那么像一堆水仙花，而更像是干腐病的爆发：隐秘、沉默、大面积肆虐，对国家和全世界福祉带来巨大消耗。据2006年6月伦敦政经学院(London School of Economics)经济效益中心(Centre for Economic Performance)制作的《抑郁症报告》(The Depression Report)称，抑郁症和长期焦虑导致英国每年产出总量减少120亿英镑。在英国，每周都有近9%的成年人遭受某种形式的抑郁症困扰。

    Why is it on the rise? Human misery has always caused depression, and there are now many more humans alive to endure misery than in the past. For those whose lives are not materially miserable, depression can be, paradoxically, a consequence of better education and the global communications revolution combined with a sympathetic imagination. Family breakdown and the hyper-mobility which cuts social roots are further factors

    抑郁症为何会增多呢？人类的苦难总是会导致抑郁症，而如今活着忍受苦难的人要比过去更多。对那些并非物质生活困苦的人而言，矛盾之处在于导致抑郁症的可能是更好的教育、全球通信革命再加上富有同情心的想象。家庭的瓦解和割断社会根基的高度流动性则是更深层次的因素。

    According to statistics assembled by the Samaritans, only 20 per cent of sufferers from depression ever seek medical help. The rest, if they do anything at all other than make the lives of intimates dank, will self-medicate. The self-medication of overwhelming choice is alcohol: the favourite drug of the non-Muslim developed world. The sensation of short-term wellbeing provided by alcohol is inexpensive, widely available and culturally acceptable. Yet alcohol and depression are closely linked, with 40 per cent of heavy drinkers showing depressive symptoms. Given that 38 per cent of men and 16 per cent of women in the UK drink above recommended limits, the size of the problem is unsurprising.

    据撒马利坦会(Samaritan)整理的统计数字显示，仅有20%的抑郁症患者曾经寻求医疗救助。其他人，要是自己真的会想想办法，而不只是让亲密爱人日子难过的话，则会自己用药。绝大多数人给自己开的药方选了酒精——非穆斯林发达国家的首选药物。酒精带来的短期良好感觉不贵，到处都可以买到，在文化上也能接受。然而，酒精和抑郁症有着紧密的联系，40%的酗酒者都有抑郁症状。鉴于英国38%的男性和16%的女性饮酒量都超过推荐标准，因此抑郁症的规模也就不足为奇了。

    Alcohol itself, following the initial rosy flush, is a depressant, and can cause depression in those who would otherwise not be depressed. The advice from the Royal College of Psychiatrists to those prone to depression is unambiguous: “Beware alcohol!” 

    酒精本身，在让你的脸色开始变红之后，就成了镇静剂，可能会导致本来不抑郁的人患上抑郁症。皇家精神科医学院(Royal College of Psychiatrists)给那些有抑郁倾向的人提出来十分明确的建议：“小心饮酒！”

    I am an alcohol worker, in that around two-thirds of my professional life involves tasting, drinking, talking or writing about alcohol, and my experience corroborates the findings of experts in this field. 

    我是一名酒工作者，因为我职业生涯的约三分之二都在品酒、饮酒、谈酒或写酒，我的经验证实了该领域专家的发现。

    The social context in which alcohol is consumed can be benficial when depressed but downing half a bottle or more may dramtically darken the hours which follow. 

    喝酒的社会环境，在感到抑郁时可能是有益的，但喝下半瓶或更多酒可能会让接下来的几小时变得昏天黑地。 

    I greatly enjoy entire days spent tasting wine when judging wine competitions for their sensual challenges and rewards. But thanks to the alcohol ingested during the process and the loss of vital fluids consequent on repeated acts of spitting, I usually feel drained and depressed afterwards. The best therapy is glass after glass of green tea. True drunkenness and its aftermath are unredeemed horror, both physical and mental.

    在给酒类竞赛做评委，评判他们的感官刺激和奖项时，我非常享受花整天时间品酒。但在品酒过程中喝下的酒，以及其后反复吐口水所损失的生命液，通常都让我在事后筋疲力尽而且抑郁。解酒的最好办法是一杯又一杯地喝绿茶。真的醉酒及其后果都可怕得无法挽回，在生理上和心理上都是。

    Yet there are nuances which sensible blanket advice necessarily overlooks. The balance of evidence is that small quantities of alcohol are physically beneficial, and physical health promotes mental wellbeing. 

    不过，明智的普遍性建议必然有忽略的细节。客观地说，少量饮酒对身体有益，而身体健康会促进精神健康。

    More important, though, is the understanding that not all alcohol is alike. For me, red wine – and particularly dense, dark, extractive and tannic red wine – will raise spirits, if taken in small quantities, in a no less satisfactory way to that of the neurotransmitter-lubricating SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), such as Prozac, or Citalopram, which are the usual prescription. A small quantity of vodka and Red Bull, or gin and tonic, does not achieve the same effect.

    但更重要的是要明白，并非所有的酒都是一样的。对我而言，红酒——特别是浓郁、深色、萃取且含有丹宁的红酒——可以提神，假如少量饮用，其效果可媲美润滑神经传递素的选择性5-羟色胺再摄取抑制剂(SSRI)，例如百忧解(PROZAC)或者西酞普兰(Citalopram)，这些都是常见的处方。少量的伏特加和红牛(Red Bull)，或者杜松子酒和汤力水都达不到相同的效果。

    The area is under-researched, yet it seems at least possible that this is an additional benefit of red wine's phenolic compounds – those same compounds which are already thought to be behind the other benefits of moderate red-wine consumption in preventing heart disease and strokes, keeping the neurotoxins associated with Alzheimer's at bay, retarding or inhibiting certain cancers and decreasing the likelihood of thrombosis. Phenolic compounds are derived from grape skins – and, when not drinking, I try to eat dark-skinned table grapes (though the quality of the bloated waterballs sold as table grapes by British supermarkets is execrable).

    这一领域的相关研究还不够充分，但似乎至少有一点是可能的：这是红酒酚化合物的额外益处——人们认为，适度饮用红酒的其他一些好处，也是这些相同的化合物在起作用，像预防心脏病和中风，阻止与阿尔茨海默氏病(Alzheimer)相关的神经毒素，延迟或抑制某些癌症，降低患血栓症的可能性。酚化合物来源于葡萄皮——在不喝酒的时候，我会去吃深色皮的鲜食葡萄（虽然英国各超市拿来做鲜食葡萄卖的“发胀水球”质量糟透了）。

    There is something more fundamental and more impalpable at work, too. All of our nourishment comes from earth and sky, and in no other food or drink substance can one get quite the same sense of tasting soil and stones and light as from dark red wine. SSRIs are no doubt a dandy invention but the drug feels alien in the blood, with a strange lurching sensation which rarely goes, whereas a glass of good Madiran or Bandol not only feels wholly tonic but brings, for an hour or two and without unpleasant regress later, a sense of universal connectedness, wholeness and compassion which briefly fills the void.

    起作用的还有些更为基本，更为无形的东西。我们的营养都来自于地下和天上，在其他的食物或饮料当中，人们都无法获得喝深色红酒时品尝到的土壤、石头和光的感觉。选择性5-羟色胺再摄取抑制剂，无疑是一流的发明，但药物在血液里的感觉是陌生的，还有一种挥之不去的奇怪挫折感，而一杯上好的Madiran或者Bandol不仅感觉让人完全精神振奋，而且会带来一两个钟头的普遍联系感、圆满感以及暂时填补空虚的悲天悯人感，事后也不会令人不爽地抑郁再现。