Word: vaillants
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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...
...alcoholic predetermined by his genes? Vaillant believes there is a connection, noting that one out of three victims has a close relative who is alcoholic. But he doubts that researchers will ever find the biochemical marker. "I think it would be as unlikely as finding one for basketball playing," he says. "The best analogy is most coronary heart disease, which is not due to twisted genes or to a specific disease. There is a genetic contribution, and the rest of it is due to maladaptive lifestyle: too much fat, too little exercise. One gets alcoholism not because one does something...
Certain ethnic groups, Vaillant found, are collectively maladaptive. Irish men in the study generally grew up in families where alcohol was forbidden, drinking took place apart from meals and away from home, and male drunkenness was tacitly admired. The Irish in the survey also became alcohol dependent seven times as frequently as the Italians, who as children learned that drunkenness was frowned on and drank with family groups and with meals (thus diminishing the addictive effect of the alcohol "high"). To Vaillant, these sharp differences (which are also true of the more alcoholic Northern Europeans as contrasted to moderate Jews...