Alcohol and Asteroids

waybread

Well-known member
The question of whether alcohol and problem drinking can be seen in a chart is important for astrologers trying to understand human behaviour. Normally I would look to hard aspects between a person's Neptune and sun or moon. But it occurred to me that asteroids Dionysus (3671) and Bacchus (2063) might also play a part. They were named for the Greek and Roman gods of wine and drinking; and our word "dionysian" specifically refers to the kind of abandon and release that occurs for some people when they are drunk.

For example, I checked out the charts of two family members with drinking problems. Person "A" has been a heavy drinker most of his adult life, but recently is working very hard to control it. Person "B" turned to alcoholism only later in life. With asteroids, I would use a narrow orb, but it can be widened slightly where midpoints or other planets are also involved.

Person "A" has a natal moon/Neptune square, with Bacchus conjunct his moon. Dionysius squares his Neptune. Both asteroids make favourable aspects to his sun, suggesting the "feel good" quality of drinking that a lot of alcohol brings to some people.

Person "B" [deceased] had a natal sun/Neptune square, but no close Bacchus or Dionysius aspects to these planets. In her progressed chart, at a time when her alcoholism was full-blown, Dionysius closely squared her natal moon, her progressed sun and Bacchus were conjunct, and transiting Bacchus conjunct transiting Black Moon Lilith opposed her natal Neptune.

I would like to encourage you to check out these asteroids in the charts of people you know who have alcohol abuse problems. To find them, go to www.astro.com and log in. Go to the "Free charts" page, the "extended chart" selection, and then plug in your data. At the bottom of the chart construction page, you will see a blank space where you can input the asteroid numbers 3671 and 2063.

Oh, and we should probably look at charts of people without alcohol issues for comparison. Millions of people don't drink for religious reasons, so it is by no means an exercise in astrological determinism.
 

JerryRR

Well-known member
Dylan Thomas has D con Nep/Asc in Leo sq Sun in Scorpio,B con Ma/Me in Scorpio.

'An alcoholic is someone you don't like,who drinks as much as you do.'

Jerry :)
 
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How about in the charts of family? A close friend of mine grew up surrounded by alcoholics, though she herself never drank. Her Bacchus is conjunct her sun-moon midpoint, as well as conjunct Atropos, all falling in her 2nd house; her Dionysus opposes her Nemesis.
 

JerryRR

Well-known member
Brendan Behan has B con Sun in Aqu op Nep in Leo sq Ju in Scorpio.
D con Ur in Pisces,D = Ur/Me/Asc in Taurus.

'I saw a picture at an Airport saying 'Drink Canada Dry',so I thought I would come here and try.'

Jerry :)
 

waybread

Well-known member
Dylan Thomas has D con Nep/Asc in Leo sq Sun in Scorpio,B con Ma/Me in Scorpio.

'An alcoholic is someone you don't like,who drinks as much as you do.'

Jerry :)

Thanks for the insights, Jerry and air goddess. I think this topic does merit more investigation.

Jerry, I will take exception to your quote, though. If you have never lived with a violent or verbally abusive alcoholic, it might be easy to post something like this. I have never in my life drunk as much as the family members whose information I posted. With the first one, I put myself into Al-Anon for several years, after my ego couldn't take another drunken outburst, with all of this uncontrollable anger targeted at me. [This isn't Alcoholics Anonymous aka AA, but the one for family members of alcoholics.] Alcoholism seriously messes up the lives of both the alcoholic and people who live in its shadlow. The second family member got several hematomas near the end of her life, caused by falling and hitting her head while drunk. The family did not ask for an autopsy, but I firmly believe alcohol contributed to her relatively early death.

Also, I worked for universities for many years, sometimes in a student advisory capacity. I saw bright students scrub out because of binge drinking. Date rape, also, has long occurred under circumstances where predators try to get a girl drunk--or wait till she does so on her own--before making their moves when she is too drunk to resist--if not actually already passed out. As you know, second hand.

I drink my share. But alcoholism is not a disease to trivialize.
 
Hi Waybread,

As you know, I am very interested in asteroids, and I wanted to thank you for taking the time to write such an informative post.

I have two people in my life who have struggled with alcohol. One was an ex-lover, and the other, a family member. Neither are violent, fortunately. Out of curiousity, I ran their charts including the asteroids.

The family member has Bacchus conjunct Moon and Venus, precisely conjunct the mid-point of those two. They are all in the second house, which makes sense, as this family member prefers themselves under the influence of alcohol. These planets/asteroid also square a stellium in the 11th house, only increasing the belief for the member that drinking must be done in order to have a good time and be liked. Hopefully things will change once this person emerges from college, where drinking is normalized.

The ex-lover had Bacchus conjunct the Sun in the 7th house, opposite the ASC, and Dionysus conjunct Venus in the 5th. I met him during his second attempt to stay sober and was with him until I left the state (about 3 months.) While he never drank when he was with me, we spent a lot of time sorting out his issues with drinking. He very much identified with it, and felt he needed it to connect with others. The strange thing was that I was much younger than he was (me- 18, him- 36), so I wonder if the fact that I simply couldn't drink made it easier for him. He is now married to another alcoholic, which makes a lot of sense given his asteroid placements.

Out of curiousity, I ran my own chart with the asteroids. I never drank until college, and can count the number of times I've been drunk on one hand. Strangely enough, Dionysus falls in conjunction to my Sun and Mercury, and precisely conjunct their mid-point. I certainly like drinking for the express purpose that it "frees" me to say what I want, but I don't enjoy it frequently. Very interesting and counter to what I thought... I suppose the fact that Saturn trines these three helps me out a bunch, whereas in the other two Saturn was either squaring or not aspecting at all.


mod.
 
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Nexus7

Well-known member
There is someone in my family with a drink problem. Who still says moderately hurtful things after they have had a few. I know there is an AA in the city I live, as far as I know, no al-anon. No doubt al-anon would nod knowingly if I were to say that a very old friend of mine told me she may be dying last year, (cirhhosis and chronic liver failure certainly don't sound like good news), whilst astrologers would also nod knowingly if I were to produce my tight hard aspect between Venus and Neptune. Regarding thse others, the one has Moon/Mercury square Pluto, the other Mars/Neptune conjunction square Venus, I shall have to check fo Bacchus and Dionysus positions in their charts now.

I would imagine the orb would have to be less than 1 degree for such tiny bodies?
 

waybread

Well-known member
Modcleopatra, I think there are some possibilities here. One is that, as you and air goddess have implied, possibly the two asteroids show up strongly in the charts of people who don't drink heavily themselves, but who are affected by others' drinking. Two is that people who don't drink heavily might not have hard Neptune aspects to the sun or moon. I think the planets have to be considered first. Three is that a big sample would erase any impact that show up in a small sample, which could just be a fluke.

Also, I hope I am not being moralistic about alcohol in general. I am not a teetotaler. Rather, I was thinking about the kind of heavy drinking that does negatively impact people's lives.

I did check out these asteroids in my own chart. I have no major Neptune aspects to my moon or sun, other than very wide-orbed favourable aspects. Neither asteroid fits the pattern I suggested in my OP. However, both are in my 7th house, one conjunct my DC and square Uranus. Maybe that suggests why I see excessive drinking as a problem!

Also, in the case of someone whose heavy drinking picks up later in life, I think it is important to look at progressions and transits. I though of another family member ["C"] whom I believe drinks heavily--though without nasty consequences so far as I know--who has none of the signatures in her natal chart. About the time I think her drinking picked up, however, she did have progressed sun hitting Neptune, and progressed Bacchus hitting her progressed moon. I think many people who had a sudden major upset might drink heavily to numb the pain for a little while, but not prior or some time after the event.
 
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JerryRR

Well-known member
I wholeheartedly agree with you Waybread.
Alcoholism is not a disease to trivialize.
The quote is his,not mine.
I feel the quote illustrates the aspects in his chart that I provided.
His chart is available from Astrodienst.

I also feel he may have had difficulty accepting the first of 'The Twelve Steps.'
We admitted we were POWERLESS over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable.

An interesting and inspiring thread.

Jerry :)

Quote from 'Life of Dylan Thomas '(1965) ch.6 by Constantine Fitzgibbon.
 
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Ebenia

Well-known member
My mom is an alcoholic (been over 10 years now) and she has Bacchus exact conjunct to her Saturn in 10th squaring her Mars-Pluto conjunction in the seventh. Dionysos also conjunct her Sun in Leo.

She has always been a big drinker, but it went "over the board" only when she got divorced with my dad and well, she did not want to deal with it all and she took the bottle instead and she is down that road this day. Actually the drinking started already before the ending of the marriage and it was the reason for the divorce, but it all went worse after the actual divorce. Very sad really, she does not admit it and has ruined her relationships with her children (me and my brother) and her own family. Her health is going down the hill and she just does not seem to care.

So there might be something behind this asteroid thing...
 

JerryRR

Well-known member
Richard Burton has Ma/B/D in Scorpio con Dylan Thomas' Sun.
R.B.Su/Sa con D.T Me/B/Ma.

Burton narrated Thomas 'Under Milk Wood',and was buried in a red suit with a copy of Thomas' poems.

Jerry :)
 

waybread

Well-known member
Jerry, thanks for the clarification!

Frank, thanks for the link. I had no idea there was an Astro-data Bank newsletter, so that was also useful to learn.

I have no wish to revisit "statistics wars" but I wish that Terri McCartney had conducted this study a little differently. There is a big discrepancy between her number of alcoholic test subjects and her control group. I don't know how she got the latter, but I've spent some time acquainting myself with the Astro-Databank, and the amount of biographical information on the cases varies tremendously. It is possible that some members listed in the control group did have an alcohol problem. She apparently took her initial "markers" from a very small sample (n=13) from another study, based upon psychiatric patients, some of whom were also drug users; with this author's control group of n=24. I don't think this author's [Dr. Gibson's] small sample is representative of alcohol abusers as a whole; many of whom are not drug abusers and not psychiatric patients [even if, perhaps, they should be!:unsure: ] McCartney happily admitted that this study produced no meaningful differences.

Then she also converts her raw data into percentages, without indicating what might be the margin of error between her test subjects and control group results. It appears that the only percentages that vary by more than 3% was Moon vs. Neptune! This kind of margin might just be due to sampling issues.

Her retest using a set of combined variables didn't come out much better--not only because of the similarity of results between the test and control groups (+/-3%) with a couple of exceptions, but because each factor squished together so many variables that we run into the problem of an "anything-everything" signature. In fact, in the most eye-catching result [the mildly stressful aspect to the sun or moon from outer planets, incl. Neptune] the control group actually had more correlation than the alcoholics!

Statistics tests generally come with measures of significance. I wish she used them.

Finally, her 60/40 split is so broad as to be difficult to operationalize. I wouldn't want a doctor not sending me to a specialist grounds there was a 40% chance I was cancer-free. I would want a second opinion, with those odds.

But I give McCartney credit for research that does go well beyond most of the small scale studies from client files. Which is all my OP is.
 
Hey Way,

I didn't get the sense you were being a teetotaler about alcohol; I think anyone who has been personally impacted by alcohol abusers would probably be a bit heavy in their attentions to it.

That said, I appreciate the reminder about Neptune. While Neptune is rising for me, it is in Capricorn. The effects of Capricorn would indicate that I probably find my "escape" through situations which require me to be overly-responsible. :likes this: Neptune, however, despite a minor inconjunction to my Mercury, does nothing else much in my chart besides a few nice sextiles and a trine.

By contrast, the family member is a Pisces, with Sun square Neptune, Venus square Neptune, and Bacchus square Neptune. Ah ha!

The ex-lover has Sun, Moon and Mars all square Neptune, with Dionysus conjunct the Sun. Second ah ha!

I'd like to point out here, as a reminder to myself an others, that asteroids, are conceptual too, not just literal. Dionysus and Bacchus did represent drinking, but also, the life of the party, joviality, and the ability to cut-loose, relax, and have a good time. I have Sun Trine Jupiter, so Dionysus conjunct Sun probably just adds to that feel-good quality.

And on that note: cheers! (with sparkling water)

mod.
 

labelledujour

Well-known member
Very interesting post, deary!! In fact, I just checked them out and I do have Dionysus very tightly conjunct my Sun at 20 degrees. Since I was a past alcohol addict and it got intensely triggered when transiting Saturn was conjunct both my Sun & asteroid, you only can imagine...and my mate, a past alcohol addict, has Dionysus conj his Moon and Bacchus conj his Mars...when transiting Pluto was conj his Bacchus & Mars he did display the first signs of excesses and when transiting Pluto in the 12th started conjuncting his natal Moon, Dionysus and later Neptune, back in the mid '80s until the beginning of 90s, he was in heavy alcohol and drug abuse...for some reason, this is getting creepily illuminating!!
 

waybread

Well-known member
Mod, thanks! I would imagine that people who have Bacchus and Dionysius in favourable positions might experience only the pleasant side of alcohol--or perhaps be wine connoisseurs or wine-makers.

Belle, congratulations on your sobriety, and thanks for your data!
 

labelledujour

Well-known member
Hi waybread!!

Thank you, deary!! Around end of June, I will complete 4 years of being clean and on April, 2 years without smoking! Yeah, I couldn't help sharing those because it was too spot on to pass up!! :andy:
 

R4VEN

Well-known member
Just thought I'd add something to the mix. I have found this thread very interesting. My take on it would be to do with what the soul has come in to do, and what role the alcohol plays in the soul's journey. I am interested in Bigger Pictures.

I have (the dreaded) Moon-Neptune square, and in my late 20's - age 40 used alcohol to dull my emotions, since at that time I had no idea what to do with them, or how to express them without tearing someone apart with my words. I also have Dionysus squaring Uranus, and Bacchus (perhaps too widely) conjunct Chiron, both in Scorpio.

My oldest son has used alcohol regularly since his early teens (he's now mid-30's) and my theory is that without it he feels invisible. He is quiet, intellectual and sensitive, and I've never seen him aggressive or surly with it. In the last 18 months I can see signs that his alcohol use is easing up, as he makes decisions to better himself and the quality of his life. He has quite a close conjunction between Bacchus and Chiron in Aries in the 8th, and D. forms a T-square with his nodal axis. My feeling (intellect out to lunch here...) is that the alcohol use is in some way - as it was with me - a drug-of-choice in his own healing journey into the dark recesses of his own nature (Chiron-Bacchus in the 8th). It acts as a dulling agent as he journeys deeper into himself. I have been there, and I understand the necessity for something to help a person not go crazy in the process.

For 10-12 years I drank every day, and sometimes I drank way beyond what was healthy for me. I had blanks in my memory, and close calls when driving under the influence. Part of this behaviour - I am now able to see - was about seeing how far I could go without offing myself. My son has said similar things about dicing with death and then coming back from the brink. This particular experience is very Chiron in 8th/Scorpio.

Just another perspective.
I am not saying that alcohol abuse is good, but just that for me - and I believe my son also - it has been a tool, and a useful one. I was not a happy person during my time of alcohol abuse, and nor was I pleasant to be around. Stopping or not stopping this behaviour has been part of the test.
 
Not sure if this is 'tongue in cheek' or valid just thought I'd add something

"Thus:
of Virgo 11°....An astrological degree,
and of Leo 25°....Alcoholic (25°-26°);
then of Leo 27° ....astrology (25°-29°).
And of Aquarius 22°: Astrological area (22°-28°).

There is no astrologer=x configuration, however, as we all know "the stars incline, they do not dictate."

So that aside, I have found an original source from Nicholas DeVore "The Encyclopedia of Astrology" (Philosophical Library 1947):

Incidentally, for the points, yes, Alan Leo had his ascendant at 27 Leo as well and mentioned it specifically as a factor. I would say that anything within a 2° orb of any point has to be significant, at least from what I've read on the subject."

http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10112

http://chirotic.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/the-astrologers-degrees-a-study-of-the-evidence/

http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum...ghlight=carter


http://www.astrologycom.com/fixedstars.html
Fixed stars and their meanings

http://www.angelfire.com/empire/serpentis666/Degrees.html

I have only known one person who was 'near' alcoholic my Ex Saggi Asc, now these two asteriods diony squares node in 8th and bacch trines Neptune in 1st. So maybe he was able to control his drinking. thankfully when drunk he was a quiet pussycat, rather than the other violent abusive nasty kind of drunk --

I wonder why Neptune aspects have such bad press espec the square like Raven. I would have thought Neptune in 12th could be a major indicator of 'secret drinking' and poss deception indicators-- hey could be wrong though. Has there not been any other common dimonator other than these two asteriods?
 
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waybread

Well-known member
R4ven, it is interesting to contemplate alcohol as part of the purpose in a soul's earthly journey. On the one hand, I could agree with this, in the sense that most things that happen to us [or that we cause to happen to others] can be interpreted as the soul's tests, challenges, tool kit, or what have you.

But I think the real test is for the heavy drinker to consider the impact of his/her habit [addiction in many cases] on other people. If you've ever been pinned by your spouse in a drunken rage, pounding your head against a cement floor [as I have,] you might be just as happy to have your soul miss that particular bit of growth. Then there's fetal alcohol syndrome, and so on. You are an intelligent sensitive person, so I know you are not advocating such behaviours; but the soul's growth probably comes more from developing the ability to curb them.

If people feel they need alcohol to socialize or numb the pain, maybe the test is to be sociable and in a less painful emotional state without them. Builds character.

Back when Dionysus/Bacchus were worshipped, their followers used alcohol and probably hallucinogens to get their minds into an ecstatic state. But this frenzy apparently sometimes turned bloodthirsty and deadly, as per Euripides' play, The Bacchae.

Neptune is a lot of things, but one view is that it really symbolizes the longing to merge with the divine. If we ramp that down slightly, we get a longing for escapism of some sort. Neptune tends to dissolve what it touches, so with harsh aspects to the sun, moon, or Asc it is one's sense of self that gets pulled out to sea by Neptune's tides. Maybe a more empowering use of a Neptune square to a personal point is to develop a healthy spirituality, to take up sailing, to develop an artistic talent such as writing, or to serve misfortunate people in some way.
 
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