Alcoholism in Women: Social and Psychological Concomitants. I. Social History Data

Abstract

A group of alcoholic women attending voluntary outpatient clinics are compared, in terms of social history, with a group of alcoholic men attending the same clinics and a group of alcoholic women incarcerated in a state farm. The men and women outpatient alcoholics appear to be drawn from similar social backgrounds; there are, however, differences between them in drinking history and drinking patterns. Striking differences in social background appear in the comparison of outpatient and State farm women alcoholics. It is suggested that a differentiation needs to be made between different groups of women alcoholics, analogous perhaps to the differentiation made between addictive drinkers and nonaddictive pathological drinkers among male alcoholics. The literature on the woman alcoholic is reviewed and the bearing of the present data on questions raised in the literature is discussed.