Word: vaillants
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...result of alcoholism, not the cause. This is the most startling and original conclusion of a new landmark study, The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery (Harvard University Press; $25), on the affliction that hits one American family in three. The author, Dr. George Vaillant, 48, a Harvard psychiatrist, is one of the most respected researchers in adult development. Vaillant tackles other key questions that specialists in the disorder have been debating for years: Can an alcoholic return to social drinking? Is there a genetic cause for the affliction? Why are some ethnic groups more likely...
...mark of Vaillant's achievement that his book, instead of sparking more controversy on a disputed subject, is being hailed by leaders in the field as a major breakthrough. Dr. William Mayer, acting head of the Federal Government's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, considers Vaillant's work to be "an unmatched contribution and a reasoned approach to solving the massive health and social problems relating to the excessive use of alcohol." Last week the American Medical Society on Alcoholism gave Dr. Vaillant its annual award "in commemoration of outstanding contribution and unstinting dedication...
...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...
...Everybody's grandmother will say. 'Of course, I told you so,'" Caroline Vaillant said yesterday, adding, "The only thing that was unexpected about our findings was that Grandmother's values still hold true today...