What is alcoholism?

Alcohol Health & Research World, Fall, 1991 by Daniel K. Flavin, Robert M. Morse

Herein lies the challenge to those of us who treat or research alcoholism: to identify our successes, accept our failures, and aggressively seek to improve our knowledge base and capabilities for treating alcoholism and addiction to other drugs. While the definition of alcoholism recently adopted by NCADD and ASAM reflects substantial research advances that have occurred over the last 20 years, much remains to be learned about the development, expression, and effective treatment of alcoholism.

(1) A lexicon refers to a vocabulary of terms specified for use in a particular profession or field--as in the field of alcoholism or addiction medicine.

(2) The National Council on Alcoholism is now known as the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.

(3) The American Medical Society on Alcoholism is now known as the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

(4) Alcohol-related disabilities refer to physical, mental, and social dysfunction in which alcohol use is implicated.

(5) In this study, problem drinkers were identified as those whose alcohol consumption averaged more than 8 oz of hard liquor per day and who reported either concern over their of drinking or others' concern over their alcohol abuse, or both (Vailant 1980).

(6) The euphoric and anxiety-reducing effects of alcohol are thought to motivate--or reinforce--continued alcohol consumption. There reinforcing properties may lead to alcohol abuse or dependence, and may contribute to craving for alcohol and preoccupation with alcohol use (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism 1990).

(7) Korsakoff's syndrome is an organic brain syndrome associated with prolonged, heavy ingestion of alcohol, characterized by annesia for recent events and an inability to form new memories.

REFERENCES

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition. Washington, DC: the Association, 1980.

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition, Revised. Washington, DC: the Association, 1987.

BERWICK, D.M. The double edge of knowledge. Journal of the American Medical Association 266(6):841-842, 1991.

BLUME, S.B. The disease concept of alcoholism, 1983. Journal of Psychiatric Treatment and Evaluation 5:471-478, 1983.

BLUME, S.; CLOUD, S.A.; AND LEIBER, C.S. The definition of alcoholism. Annals of Internal Medicine 85(6):764, 1976.

CAMPBELL, E.J.M.; SCADDING, J.G.; AND ROBERTS, R.S. The concept of disease. British Medical Journal 2:757-762, 1979.

Criteria Committee of the National Council on Alcoholism. Criteria for the diagnosis of alcoholism. Annals of Internal Medicine 77:249-258, 1972.

EDWARDS, G., AND GROSS, M. Alcohol dependence: Provisional description of a clinical syndrome. British Medical Journal 1(6017):1058-1061, 1976.

FLAVIN, D.K. Is alcoholism a disease. NCADD Medical/Scientific Quarterly 1(1):1-8, 1991.

GOODWIN, D.W. Inpatient treatment of alcoholism: New life for the Minneapolis Plan. New England Journal of Medicine 325(11):804-806, 1991.