Alcohol addiction and its treatment

Abstract

In the problems of alcohol, alcohol addiction and other forms of abnormal drinking occupy the central position and all other issues, except the immediate effect, emanate from these. Not that the other issues of alcoholism are less important, but they cannot be divorced from the phenomena of abnormal drinking. Problems relating to the immediate effects of alcohol, however, would obtain even if abnormal drinking were nonexistent. On the other hand, while the study of the immediate effects sheds some light on certain aspects of all forms of drinking and of chronic alcoholism, it is really a secondary consideration. Acute intoxication and even the manifestations of subclinical intoxication, through their impairment of judgment, coördination, perception and other functions, play a considerable role in all types of accidents, in delinquency and in the lowering of industrial efficiency. Nevertheless, the medical and the social problems of the immediate effects of alcohol, are incomparably smaller than the problems of abnormal drinking and chronic alcoholism. Despite its crucial significance and the considerable speculation which it has provoked, alcohol addiction has received much less attention from research than either the various manifestations of chronic alcoholism, or the immediate effects of alcohol. It is important to state this fact, since it bears on the planning of future research activities. One of the many reasons for this anomaly is the elusive nature of addiction, which makes its course difficult to trace.