COLUMN ONE : Drinking and Death in Japan : Nondrinkers struggle against the centuries-old-- and often fatal--practice of bonding through booze. But they face a lonely existence in Japan’s sake society.

He was 19, handsome and athletic, the eldest son and brightest hope of his family. And when Satoshi Kaku began downing glass after glass of booze at a party one night last October, he was performing the rite of passage that would give the Chuo University freshman entree into the clubby world of his college ski group for the next four years.

But he never made it. Within 24 hours, Kaku was dead.

In just a few hours, he had downed at least five cups of sake and five glasses of straight whiskey in a ritual called ikkinomi-- “one-breath drinking,” or chug-a-lugging.

That huge intake, consumed too rapidly for his body to digest, overwhelmed his system and caused him to collapse into a deep sleep.

His friends left Kaku alone until the next morning, when they tried to awaken him. But they couldn’t. By the time they arrived at the hospital, Kaku had died without regaining consciousness. The coroner reported that the youth had consumed so much alcohol that it dribbled from his mouth when his body was moved.

Kaku was yet another victim of a syndrome called acute alcohol poisoning--and the culture of Japan that at times pressures, even bullies, people to drink even if they won’t or shouldn’t.

In this stiff, formal society, alcohol is an essential elixir that lets people drop their masks and, under the guise of drunkenness, engage in otherwise taboo behavior, ranging from rude remarks to pawing the bar hostess. Such debauchery is widely tolerated in Japan because “showing your ugly parts, the parts you usually hold back, helps you gain intimacy with others,” said Tomomi Imanari, director of the National Citizens’ Assn. of Alcohol Problems.

As a result, drunks who get sick in public, accost young women on subways or hog five seats on a crowded night train barely rate a glance, much less a reprimand, and all is forgiven the next morning at work.

Bonding through booze helps build the trust that lays the basis for business and political partnerships. It serves as a passport to membership in the all-important group. The practice of seniors commanding juniors to drink reinforces and reaffirms this nation’s strict social hierarchy.

Although every society, including the United States, shares similar rituals, activists here say that Japan is particularly hard on those who opt out. Japanese who resist the after-hours boozing bouts are seen as rejecting the group and displaying defiance, gestures that may bring social ostracism, business failure, even getting fired.

“This is an alcohol society, where decisions are made at night over sake,” said Masanobu Shinokura, head of the Nondrinkers Assn., which claims 1,500 members. “People who don’t drink are always facing hardships. Most of us suffer from isolation and an inferiority complex.”

But now, outraged by Kaku’s death and a steady rise in alcohol poisoning cases, nondrinkers are rising to challenge this deeply ingrained social practice. They are promoting a “right to refuse alcohol” movement, trying to put aruhara , or alcohol harassment, into the national lexicon and consciousness on the same footing as sexual harassment.

Activists are mobilizing to strip the glamour from drinking, particularly ikkinomi , in television commercials, to place warning labels on alcohol containers, to beef up alcohol education in the schools.

There is litigation over the issue: One pending, potentially landmark case involves a woman from the southern island of Kyushu who was told by her boss she would be fired unless she drank with her co-workers; in a settlement of another case this year, a Tokyo university paid $320,000 to the parents of a student who died after ikkinomi , in exchange for their promise not to file a lawsuit.

But Susumu Asano, a lawyer in the alcohol movement, said they would prefer to change social mores through education rather than litigation.

Extreme drinking practices are said to be rooted in Japan’s agricultural origins. Since the poor, toiling farmers could afford to drink sake only during festivals a few times a year, they drank heavily during those times to release pent-up stress and used these moments to communicate with the gods and each other.

But now, nondrinkers or weak drinkers are not only struggling against the centuries-old practice of bonding through booze. They are also fighting the national inhibition against saying “no” even to things that imperil their own health--be it booze, secondary cigarette smoke or excessive overtime.

“To refuse is what Japanese are the worst at doing,” Imanari said. “We need a strong dose of assertiveness training.”

One of the most outspoken activists is Hitoshi Kaku, Satoshi’s father, who says his son was “murdered,” plain and simple, by Japan’s social mores. For two months after his son’s death, Kaku often would wake up in tears after dreaming that Satoshi came to him and forlornly declared he had never expected to die from alcohol. The anguished father decided to devote his life to educating students about ikkinomi ‘s dangers; he has helped arrange seminars on the subject, given lectures and mailed more than 500 letters to every college in Japan.

“I don’t want my son’s death to be meaningless,” said Kaku, president of an Osaka plastics company. “I hope there will be no more victims.”

But every year, the victims mount. The Tokyo Fire Department reports there were 9,122 victims of acute alcohol poisoning rushed to hospitals by ambulance last year, an increase of 30% over the previous five years. Two-thirds of the victims were younger than 30 years old. Although males accounted for 71%, the number of women jumped by a conspicuous 57% during that same period.

Among the victims last year, 60 people were hospitalized for more than one week; six died.

In Osaka, the numbers have risen even faster, up nearly 100% in the last six years, with a total of 5,232 victims in 1991.

Overall, Japanese still drink less than their Western counterparts. In 1989, for instance, Japanese consumed an annual average of seven quarts of pure alcohol per person, compared with eight quarts for Americans, 9.3 quarts for Australians and 14.2 for the French. But while alcohol consumption has steadily fallen over the past decade in those other nations, it has steadily increased in Japan, according to Japanese government figures.

About 85% of adult men and 53% of adult women drink, according to the Leisure Development Center, a private research group. And fully 57% of men drink every day, compared with 19% of women. Women drinkers, specifically targeted by major sake makers, have more than doubled in the last decade.

The drinking trend is encouraged by the ubiquitous presence of more than 200,000 alcohol vending machines in Japan, the only nation in the world to sell the substance that way.

And relatively lax public attitudes toward alcoholism make combatting the problem difficult, activists say. Although there are an estimated 2.2 million “problem drinkers”--alcoholics or those whose behavior resembles alcoholism--few corporations in Japan offer employee alcoholism programs. In Japan, Alcoholics Anonymous has only 3,000 members, while the Japan Abstinence Federation has 45,000 members.

Researchers say that Japanese, along with others of Asian ancestry, tend to be more susceptible to alcohol poisoning because their livers have a limited absorptive ability. According to numerous studies in Japan, China and the United States, Asians are more likely to suffer from deficiencies in the enzyme known as aldehyde hydrogenase, which breaks alcohol down in the liver. Researchers here report that about 40% of Japanese have that deficiency.

A Japanese weighing 132 pounds will fall into the danger zone of alcohol poisoning after four to six glasses of double whiskey or half a quart of sake. In that stupor, he will have trouble standing, vomit violently and slur his speech incomprehensibly. After six to eight glasses of double whiskey or a quart of sake, he risks falling into a coma and failure of the brain cells that control his breathing and heartbeat, alcohol research groups say.

In Kaku’s case, the actual cause of death was heart failure triggered by acute alcohol poisoning.

Despite the dangers, ikkinomi parties continue to play an important bonding role in Japanese society. Most occur in the spring, when new students enter universities and new employees join companies, and during year-end holiday parties.

But on a recent balmy summer night in the Ichigaya area of Tokyo, about 30 members of a transportation company crowded into a local bar to celebrate the end of their new employee training period. The men were baby-faced and barely cutting 20, Japan’s legal drinking age. Platters of fried noodles, chicken skewers and other munchies lined the long tables. The star attraction, of course, was the cases and cases of beer.

One after another, each person was singled out and made to stand, exhorted by the chanting crowd to chug down glasses of the foamy brew. “One breath, one breath! Drink again! Drink again! If you stop now, you’re not a man!”

Several young men were targeted repeatedly. As the night wore on, the chanting became more frenzied, the peer pressure more intense, the group energy more abandoned. Some pulled off their neckties and draped them around their heads; one unzipped his trousers. Some began chugging straight from the bottle; others tried sake; still others went two or three rounds in a row. To escape the call to ikki! seemed impossible.

“Drinking is a part of work and builds the senior-junior relationships,” explained Nobuaki Kogure, 19. “During the daytime, there are a lot of things you can’t say. But when you drink at night, you can let it all out.”

Has he ever gotten sick? “Of course. But you can’t refuse your senior’s invitation to drink, so you just throw up and eventually train yourself to become stronger.”

Several members of this particular group were aware of the dangers of ikkinomi , having read newspaper accounts. And Masamichi Ono, the boss who arranged the party, had himself warned his young charges not to overdo it.

Not all Japanese are so fortunate, however. According to an alcohol hot line set up for 20 days in April, 86% of 101 callers said they, their family or friends were forced to drink; 72% said medical attention was required.

One 20-year-old attended an ikkinomi party with his judo group to celebrate passage into adulthood. After downing half a gallon of sake over several minutes, he lost consciousness and died the next day.

A 20-year-old female new recruit was forced to drink by her boss at the company’s welcome party. Although she vomited midway through, she was forced to drink again. She fell into a coma and lost all control of her bodily functions. After one day, however, she was revived.

Although ikkinomi is an old social ritual, Imanari and others say bullying is on the upswing. Although refuseniks were respected in the past, today, “even if you get sick, you’re made to drink,” she said.

Some juniors are hit by their seniors if they refuse; others are made to drink sake from a dirty ashtray littered with cigarette butts or spiced with hot sauce. Several respondents said they tried to decline but were reprimanded by their boss: “Won’t you drink my sake?”--a question layered with the threatening nuance that such insubordination would not be tolerated.

Imanari cited one case of a company worker who ordered juice, saying alcohol was against his doctor’s orders. But his boss still poured sake into the juice, telling him, “Even I have liver problems.”

And those who are forced to drink and end up sick somehow feel they are at fault.

One Tokyo firefighter lost consciousness at an ikkinomi party and had to be rushed by ambulance to the hospital. Since the fire department operates ambulances in Japan, the firefighter was mortified that he had so troubled his own company. After he recovered, he made the rounds and apologized to each person at the party, bringing a box of candy in contrition. The bill for the sweets was $250--a sum that still irks his wife.

“Now that I think of it, why did we have to do that?” she asked.

So difficult is it to refuse alcohol that the National Citizens’ Assn. on Alcohol Problems coaches people on how to successfully say no. Disarming honesty is one way: If told you’re a wimp, admit it with a smile. Or participate in the raucous chug-a-lugging--but with tea or juice. The other strategy is to throw a different kind of meat to the hungry crowd, such as to display a talent for karaoke (singing to recorded music) or tell jokes.

When all else fails, there’s always counterforce.

Take the case of the father who visited his son’s college dormitory and saw a senior pressuring his son to drink. Outraged, the father belted the senior and took his son home. “Parents have to protect their children,” the father said in a letter to the citizens’ group.

Activists don’t believe they can ever stamp out ikkinomi itself, alcohol vending machines or TV commercials pitching booze. But they are trying to educate society on the potential dangers. On that front, they have made some gains.

Two years ago, they succeeded in getting the word, kenshuken , or the right to not drink, added to dictionaries. The Ministry of Education has agreed to begin offering health education classes on the dangers of alcohol, tobacco and drugs in junior high schools starting next year and high schools starting in 1994.

The citizens’ group has also enlisted the support of three major sake makers, including Suntory, to sponsor a public awareness campaign that will help people identify their alcohol tolerance levels. And they are planning to hold an assertiveness training seminar in August.

“We’re not saying sake is bad, we’re just saying people have to take responsibility for their drinking,” Imanari said.

Most recently, the group persuaded Japan Railways to pull a TV commercial featuring three well-known actresses on vacation. Two of the women urged the other to drink sake from a large bowl; when she refused, they began to clap and sing, “One breath! One breath!” Finally, the woman relented and drank up.

But despite gains in educating the public, nondrinkers still face a lonely existence in Japan’s sake society. For them, Shinokura and his group sponsor no-booze group trips, cherry blossom parties and year-end banquets.

To raise their battered self-esteem, they have also compiled a list of famous teetotalers. The late Emperor Hirohito was one. So was former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, who was allergic to booze even though his father was a sake brewer. Other nondrinking celebrities include the former Nippon Telegraph and Telephone President Hisashi Shinto, Nobel laureate novelist Yasunari Kawabata, warlord Nobunaga Oda and Takamori Saigo, a founder of modern Japan.

And, says Shinokura, even if the numbers are still against them, the flow of history is not. In today’s world, Japanese have no choice but to learn to speak from the heart without the crutch of alcohol--just as people do in the West, he asserts.

“Everyone is talking about internationalization, but the real test is whether we can do it without sake,” he says.

Chiaki Kitada, a researcher in The Times’ Tokyo Bureau, contributed to this report.