Word: vaillant
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Vaillant's work is that it is the first long-term study of alcoholism as it develops in individual lives. The usual approach is to examine alcoholics to see how their sickness evolved, a technique that is always blurred by the distortions of the victim's memory. Vaillant was able to begin at the beginning. For the past 16 years he has been the director of a unique research study that since 1940 has been following the lives of 200 Harvard graduates and 400 innercity, working-class men from Boston and Cambridge. In 1977 Vaillant published the first...
...begin drinking socially for a myriad of reasons, including, most notably, peer pressure. But the answer to one question remains elusive: Why do people become alcoholics? In the continuum from a few too many drinks at a party to loss of control over drinking, where is the trigger point? Vaillant says that it is impossible to say, but at some level the casual drinker becomes physiologically and psychologically addicted to liquor. "You are an alcoholic," says Vaillant, "when you're not always in control of when you begin drinking and when you stop drinking...
...some people become addicted to alcohol if most do not? The reasons, says Vaillant, are as complex as people. Once hooked, argues Vaillant, an alcoholic drinks from habit and not to resolve conflict...
Although no one is predisposed by personality to become an alcoholic, Vaillant believes that a person is likely to drink too heavily-and find himself some day addicted-if he is demoralized, feels that he is a social outcast, is "susceptible to heavy-drinking peers," or can seemingly "handle" his liquor well, drinking everyone under the table. People who drink for a specific reason, such as a death or illness in the family, are more likely to be able to control the practice than those who use liquor for unknown reasons. Vaillant claims that a serious drinker does not proceed...
Recognizing alcoholism is simpler than pinpointing its causes. Says Vaillant: "The warning signs of alcoholism are when a person finds himself doing things when drinking that he regrets afterward, or if he has ever gone on the wagon, or tried to change brands to control his drinking." Some other danger signals: five or more drinks daily; problems with family or friends or at work over drinking; two or more blackouts while drinking...