Drunkenness and Alcoholism: Chapter 9

• The Cost of Alcoholism:

Industry lose large sums of money because of problems caused by excessive alcohol consumption in the form of absenteeism, inefficiency on the job, and accidents. • Other costs are poor health, emotional distress and the loss of relationships, and the ultimate cost is death.

• Problem Drinker:

Those who experience some problem as a result of their drinking, regardless of how much they consume or the circumstances surrounding that consumption. • Distinguished by the consequences of alcohol rather than the characteristics of the drinker or the quantity and frequency of consumption.

Religious Differences in Excessive Drinking:

Those who tend to declare religious preferences tend to abstain more often and to drink heavily less often than those who declare no such preference

• Regional Differences:

Alcohol consumption is lower in the South compared with other regions of the country. • Although more residents abstain in the South, southerners who do drink tend to consumer more than drinkers in the other geographical regions.

Alcohol

Alcohol is the most popular mood-altering drug consumed in the U.S. today. • Society's norms determine when alcohol consumption "steps over the line," and becomes deviant behavior. • There are physical and behavioral consequences of alcohol consumption.

• Drunk Driving:

Alcohol plays a major role in the number of traffic crashes resulting in death. • More than 120 million Americans are licensed drivers, and close to 100 million of them drink. • Current law in all states defies drunk driving as operating a car while one's blood alcohol level (BAL) exceeds 0.08 percent. • Interlock System prevents drunk drives from starting their cars and is used to block opportunities for future drunk driving. • States enact implied consent laws that define acceptance of a driver's license as implied consent to alcohol testing by law enforcement officers

• Public Drinking Houses:

Bars & Taverns are public drinking houses where proprietors sell alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises.

Drinking as a Social and Group Activity

Drinking patterns are learned behaviors that are passed from generation to generation.

• Social Background:

Drinking varies with levels of education and income and between religions and regions of the country. • Those with more formal education also drink more than those less-educated. • Drinking is more common in large cities than in smaller towns and among unmarried people than married people.

• Alcohol-Related Crime:

High rates of arrest for public drunkenness among lower class. • High recidivism rates apply to the revolving door • The flow of public drunkenness cases through the criminal justice system. • Drunkenness plays a role in violent crimes.

The role of group and subculture factors in producing excessive drinking and alcoholism in many ways:

Gender differences • Choices of companions when drinking • Skid-row drinking • Occupational differences in excessive drinking • Religious differences • Ethnic differences

• Alcoholics Anonymous:

In 1939, the book Alcoholics Anonymous was published, which was to provide the core philosophy of the organization: the 12-step philosophy. • AA has developed the most widely known program and possibly the most successful. AA works to "de-label" the alcoholic and move the person back into society as a contributing, independent individual. • Evaluating success for AA is difficult because the groups do not maintain attendance records. AA members describe themselves as recovering alcoholics and discredit claims that "once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic." • According to AA, an alcoholic may never return to drinking again without becoming a problem drinker.

• Ethnic Differences in Excessive Drinking:

Irish people have a long-established reputation for excessive drinking. • Irish society has advocated a pattern of high socioeconomic aspirations, late marriage, etc. • This resulted in bachelor groups which is where married men often help socialize young men into their drinking practices. • Italians maintain a tradition of high alcohol consumption which mainly includes wine with meals. • 70% of men and 94% of Italian women do all their drinking at mealtime. The French develop alcoholism at a much higher rate because of their drinking patterns: • The French consume distilled spirits and aperitifs between and after meals. • French parental attitudes either favor or oppose wine drinking among children. • France has a higher acceptable alcohol consumption quantity than the Italians. • The French associate drinking, particularly copious amounts, with virility. Asian Americans consume very little alcohol compared too other races in America. • Asians consumer alcohol largely as part of social functions. • These groups disapprove of public drunkenness and educate children to observe these patterns. • Native Americans experience a higher rate of problems with alcohol consumption. • Drinking patterns reveal excessive alcohol consumption mainly by young, unemployed males. • Alcohol related causes contribute to a large proportion of Native-American deaths. Hispanic men display relatively high rates of alcohol use and heavy drinking. • Hispanic adolescents have the highest rates of heavy alcohol use among minority populations. Drinking in general and excessive drinking seem associated with acculturation (acceptance and adaptation to the social and cultural norms of a new environment) to life in the U.S. • African Americans experience higher rates of alcoholism than do whites. • As the frequency of heavy drinking increases, rates of drinking problems rise faster among black men than among white men (Herd, 1994). • Culture—not race or biology—determines patterns of alcohol consumption by blacks (Larkin, 1965)

• Gender Differences in Excessive Drinking:

More men than women drink alcohol. • Men are more likely than women to frequent public drinking houses, and they generally consume larger quantities of alcohol (Nusbaumer et al., 1982). • Gender roles may result in society stigmatizing women's drinking as socially unacceptable (McCord and McCord, 1961).

• Psychological Effects:

Moderate quantities can relax tensions and worries, and it may ease the fatigue associated with anxiety. • Research identifies non universal behavioral consequence of drinking alcoholic beverages. Drunken actions are largely learned behavior sensitive to cultural and social contexts.

• Physiological Dimensions:

The immediate effects of alcohol depend on the rate of absorption into the body and the physical characteristics of the individual drinker (i.e., body weight) • Large quantities disturb the activities in the organs controlled by the brain and cause symptoms termed drunkenness.

• Occupation and Excessive Drinking:

The percentage of drinkers in a group tends to increase with rising occupational status. • Alcohol is associated with some forms of business settings (i.e., sales, negotiators, lawyers, etc.). • Male dominated occupations such as the military and construction and building trades also include a high proportion of excessive drinkers. • Overall, drinking may become a part of business practices or a way to be accepted by coworkers.

Society's Response to Alcohol Use and Alcoholism

• Alcoholism and problem drinking violate social norms concerning moderate and otherwise appropriate use of alcohol. • Drinking that goes beyond accepted group practices result in applied sanction and other forms of social control.

• Variations in Drinking Behavior:

• As a social behavior, drinking follows a socially determined pattern. • Drinking frequency varies by age, education, income, size off community, marital status, and religion.

• Age:

• Consumption of alcoholic beverages tends to decline with increasing age, but it may begin early in life. • Generally, after the age of 35 drinkers decrease their consumption patterns.

• Strategies of Social Control:

• Early attempts included the Prohibition which outlawed manufacturing and sales of alcoholic beverages. • Legal regulation strategy applies the law to established standards, backed by legal sanctions, for acceptable practices in manufacturing, distributing, and consuming alcohol. • Educating people about the consequences of using alcohol. • Encourage alternatives to alcohol (i.e., nonalcoholic beverages).

• Characteristics of bars & taverns

• Facilitate group drinking • Drinking is a commercial activity • Serve alcohol rather than other drinks • Bartenders serve as functionaries • Customs influence each establishment

• Heavy Drinker:

• Frequently uses alcohol, perhaps occasionally consuming sufficient quantities to become intoxicated. • Someone whose frequent and repeated drinking exceeds community standards for social use to the point that it interferes with health, social, or economic functioning.

• Drinking among Homeless & Skid Row:

• Group drinking plays a major role in the lives of homeless men living on skid row. • These people drink as a symbol of social solidarity and friendship, and the culture fully accepts group drinking and collective drunkenness

• Gender:

• Men drink more frequently and larger amounts than women do. • Heavy drinking appears to peak at different ages between both sexes - at age 21 to 34 for males and at age 35 to 49 for females

Types of Drinkers

• Norms set standards for consumption of alcoholic beverages, indicating to drinkers: • Which beverages suit specific occasions and times. • How much they should consumer. • What kind of behavior society will tolerate after consumption.

• Community-Based Treatment Programs:

• Provides counseling and other services to problem drinkers through: • The development of community-based referral and treatment centers for problem drinkers • Providing outpatient counseling • Emphasizing hospitalization • Facilities spread in communities as a result of the Uniform Alcoholism and Intoxication Treatment Act of 1971.

• Models of Alcoholism:

• Psychoanalytic Model - alcoholism is a symptom of some underlying personality disorder. • Family Interaction Model - regards alcoholism as a family problem, not an individual one Behavioral Model - conceives alcoholism and treat it as a behavior (or set of behaviors) rather than as a disease. • Biological Model - focuses on biological antecedents of alcoholism attempting to explain it is a biological predisposition to the condition. • Medical Model - considers alcoholism a disease and focuses on treatment by medical measures (Jellinek, 1960). • Combined Perspectives - claims alcoholism can occur from a combination of biological, psychological, familial, social-class, and sociocultural risks

• Chronic Alcoholics:

• Results after consuming large quantities of alcohol over long periods of time. • Characteristics of compulsion, solitary drinking, morning drinking, general physical deterioration. • Alcoholics cannot escape problems caused by alcohol consumption by terminating drinking.

• Social or Controlled Drinker:

• Someone who drinks for reasons of sociability, conviviality, and conventionality. • Social drinkers may or may not like the taste of alcohol and the effects that it produces. • Primary characteristic is the ability to take alcohol or abstain at will. • Often refrain and use alcohol only in certain social circumstances.