Alcoholism and Other Drug Problems

CHAPTER I Alcohol and Alcohol ProblemsMost are aware that drugs are a major factor in our biggest social problems: violence, crime, poverty, AIDS, family disintegration -- but many do not think of alcohol as a drug at all, only as a social beverage. We shall see that alcohol causes immense problems, of which alcoholism is only one. (The other drugs are dealt with in Chapters 2 and 5.)The facts about alcohol are distorted by our emotionally charged attitudes toward drinking, drunkenness, and alcoholism. Those attitudes are the result of many factors: family situation, sociocultural experience, biological differences, prohibition, differing religious beliefs, and political, economic, and personal feelings unique to each individual. Obvious as they may seem, we must spell out some distinctions that are ignored in most arguments on the subject.Drinking.Abstinence from alcohol is the opposite of drinking. Technically anyone who drinks alcoholic beverages, however rarely and moderately, is a drinker. About 60 percent of Americans over eighteen drink at least occasionally (down from 71 percent a dozen years ago); most are neither drunkards nor alcoholics. In fact, about 11 percent of drinkers consume 68 percent of our beverage alcohol, whereas many of those technically classed as drinkers have only a New Year's toast or the like. Less than half of American "drinkers" use alcohol more than once a month.Drunkenness.Temperance is the opposite of drunkenness. In Chapter 3 we shall see how the prohibitionists created untold confusion by assuming that everyone who drinks is a drunkard. Actually, anybody can get drunk on a given occasion; they might not even be a drinker in the usual sense of the term. To the naive guest at a wedding reception or the person honored at a retirement banquet, the champagne seems much like ginger ale; a subsequent arrest for driving while intoxicated is not presumptive of alcoholism. However, intoxication even by nonalcoholics is a major source of both civil and criminal problems: battered spouses and children, rape, fights, homicides, unwanted pregnancies, poor health, suicides, lawsuits, family disruptions, job loss, and a sizable share of accidents -- not only traffic but also home, boat, small plane, and industrial. The degree of intoxication need not be that required to be legally drunk, as we shall see in Chapter 4, Section B.Alcoholism.Alcoholism is the state of a person whose excessive use of alcohol creates serious life problems. An alcoholic may never get drunk, as in the Delta type (maintenance drinker) common in France and described in Chapter 6. They may not even drink, as in the case of the 2 million or so recovered alcoholics who still identify themselves as such (Chapter 8).AlcoholicsIn most minds, the word alcoholic conjures up an image of a skid-road bum. Yet only about 3 percent of alcoholics are on skid road. (Incidentally, Skid Road is the original term, named for Yesler Way in Seattle, where logs were skidded down to Yesler's mill; skid row is a later version, by analogy with Cannery Row.)What kinds of people are alcoholics? Alcoholics may be young or old, male or female, black or white, banker or bum, genius or mentally retarded. A large body of research data has accumulated on this subject, and there have been intensive educational efforts to make these facts known to the public. Yet the old stereotypes persist and must be dealt with before any meaningful discussion of alcoholism can occur.Skid Road?It is essential to eradicate right now the stereotype of the alcoholic as a skid-road, old, male, weak-willed, inferior derelict. If 3 percent of alcoholics are on skid road, the other 97 percent of American alcoholics have jobs, homes, and families. About 45 percent of alcoholics are in professional and managerial positions, 25 percent are white-collar workers, and 30 peRoyce, James E. is the author of 'Alcoholism and Other Drug Problems', published 1996 under ISBN 9780684823140 and ISBN 0684823144.