Journal of Drug Issues

Although there have been both scientific studies of the substance alcohol and also applications to alcohol-related “problems” and programs of scientific research from other fields, there has been little use of scientific orientation in study of the phenomena of alcohol beverage uses and users or of the nature of “problems.” The destructive impact of lack of objective terminology, data and questioning both for research and for resolving “issues” is illustrated. Promises of scientific study and difficulties facing its development are discussed.

A multivariate natural processes model for thinking about alcohol use and abuse is offered as an alternative to the traditional static-entity, single-cause way of thinking that historically generated a series of formal institutional attacks on different supposed causes of alcohol abuse, but which failed to solve the alcohol problem. The work seeks a model that better fits what is known about the alcohol problem, and one that leads to more effective informal constraints on alcohol abuse.

Alcoholics are viewed as being at some stage of an alcoholic process, a rehabilitation process, a labeling process, a clinicalization process and a dissocialization process. This way of thinking challenges the traditional notion that alcoholics are all-of-a-kind entities and that there is a single cause, or even a single set of causes, that account for the drinking of all alcoholics, or that explains the drinking of the same person at different times.

Rather, it directs us to consider the dynamics of the changing combinations of interacting social, psychological and physiological forces influencing a person's drinking behavior as he progresses in the several processes.

A new public, official, and scientific discourse on alcohol has developed in the last 20 years. This discourse can he distinguished from previous concerns with “alcoholism” and “alcoholics,” first of all, by the key terms it uses to name the problems. The new focus is on “alcohol problems,” “alcohol-related problems” or “alcohol abuse.” The paper examines several significant examples of the new discourse with an interest in what, in fact, is being talked about and referred to by the terms. Like other observers of alcohol writing, this paper reports: that key terms have been defined vaguely and used ambiguously; that statements which sound authoritative and factual are often guesses, opinions, and ideology; and that different authorities use the central terms in wildly different ways.

Representation of alcohol studies in major sociology journals is very limited. The articles which do appear are of considerable significance as a window to the sociological community of the alcohol research specialty. A review of three articles appearing in these major journals reveals substantial problems in methodology, and gaps between the data and the stated conclusions. These problems are considered within the framework of broader issues, especially the impact of excluding non-drinkers from statistical analyses and medicalized assumptions about the meaning of alcohol use. Cross fertilization between alcohol studies and prominent sociological literature is recommended.

This paper presents a general sensitizing model for the analysis of societal differences in alcohol use. This model incorporates three general processes; (1) the relative position of a society within a world-economic system, (2) the effects of such changes upon both societal members and social structure and (c) the potential ameliorative and disintegrative results of alcohol use in the face of such change. These changes and resultant alcohol use are mediated by two general mechanisms. The first is the infusing of a society's industrial products with symbolic meaning and the second is a change in the tolerance quotient level for alcohol use to adjust to individual and system stress. This model is discussed in terms of its potential utility for providing a more general approach for the study of epidemiology of alcohol use.

“In broad terms the problem as the sociologist sees it centers on the use and nonuse of alcohol in different societies. Along with his anthropological stablemates he is directly concerned with the use and nonuse of alcohol as they are affected by social organization and culture—culture taken here to mean the patterned regularities of behavior which are socially derived and transmitted cumulatively by societies and groups.” (Lemert 1956:306)

The structuration model is described as a strategy for the sociological analysis of alcohol and other substance use and abuse. The method centers on the derivations of social meanings of objects and behaviors that are neglected through the use of other strategies. An expansion of understanding of alcohol use through the development of positive explanations is illustrated through data on drinking-related expressions among Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews, focusing upon the avoidance of alcohol problems.

Reconsideration of a 1966 theory about the interplay between predisposed personalities and drinking groups in the genesis of alcoholism is presented. Observations about both sets of variables have been sustained and reinforced during the intervening years, and a new conceptualization of the nature of drinking groups is offered. The emergent perspective fits closely with differential association theory, and is then applied to job-based alcoholism programs to demonstrate the applicability of the perspective in the reversal of alcoholic behavior.

Factors associated with the need to drink too much alcohol are considered within a biobehavioral frame of reference. The determination of how much is too much is traced to the nteraction of factors that include the nature of alcohol, biological variations in individual responses to alcohol, psychological processes, socio-cultural norms, medical advances affecting the average life span and the perception of alcohol's potential benefits and harms, and major societal and technological changes affecting the liabilities of intoxication. The concept of social dependency is suggested as a way of explaining persistent needs to drink excessively that originate outside the individual and are not impelled by physiological or psychological dependence.

In this paper an attempt is made to integrate two frames of reference for the analytic understanding of alcohol use among teenagers: social learning through peer influence and learning through media exposure. Social learning principles as they have been applied to alcohol use among adolescents are reviewed, followed by a review of perspectives on the socialization of adolescents as consumers. It is clear that both sets of factors impinge upon adolescent drinking, and the integration of these two theoretical and research traditions reveals linkages for future research analysis that set the stage for a considerably more comprehensive sociopsychological explanation of adolescent drinking behavior.

This paper proposes dimensions and elements which are salient for the development of a model about resolution processes among those experiencing alcohol-related problems. A general model with proposed variables is presented. Problems relating to the conduct of research on these phenomena are briefly discussed, and implications for prevention and treatment research are explored. The need for studies of varying types of alcohol-related careers and types of resolution pathways, i.e., institutional and non-institutional, is emphasized as a means of conceptualizing change through the life course.

Despite its prominence among common sense explanations of alcohol use and drinking problems, the phenomenon of boredom has received remarkably little attention among alcohol researchers. This study focuses on two distinctive kinds of boredom identified in an earlier survey and relates them to drinking behavior in a student sample. A scale of Existential Boredom (e.g., frequency of boredom, a lack of purpose in life) was found in multiple regression analyses to have a strong, positive relationship to frequency of alcohol use among males. A scale measuring Interpersonal Boredom (e.g., boredom with “small talk” versus feelings of “happiness with people”) was inversely related to quantity of alcohol consumed by both males and females. These and other findings suggest that the mundane situational experience of boredom has important consequences that are worthy of further sociological investigation.

“Fall, 1981” was printed in error at the foot of the pages in Volume 13, Number 4, The correct issue date should have been “Fall, 1983”.