The dimensions and variables of alcoholism.

Abstract

This study offers support for the idea that alcoholism may be related to developmental traumatic neurosis that is usually induced by the paternal parent. The idea was tested against data gathered clinically from interview and observation. A review of the literature revealed that alcoholism results from biophysical and sociocultural influences as well as a psychological disorder. Within the dimension of culture, the study identified the variables of nation, religion, race, gender and age. The variable of genetics was defined as physical tolerance and that of psychology as traumatic neurosis. The variables were reduced to two-category or dichotomous variables to test the hypothesis that a patient who meets the diagnostic criteria of Alcohol Dependency (303.9) will also meet the diagnostic criteria for Posttraumatic stress Disorder (309.81). To identify these variables, the research focused on a larger, representative national alcoholic treatment population, defined by the National Drug and Alcoholism Treatment Unit Survey (NDATUS, 1991), a control group, which was an outpatient clinic (OPC) sample population (1991) and a smaller clinical (Au/Ab) group (1991), consisting of one clinical caseload from the outpatient clinic. When the preselected variables were shown to be common across groups of alcoholics, the alcoholic profile was identified. The findings from this study suggest that alcoholism is most likely to develop in specific American subcultures and families and that alcoholism in the parent engenders traumatic neurosis in the child, which, in turn, leads to alcoholism in the adult. This information will be useful for clinicians at the intervention level as well as for teachers, counselors and other professionals who work with individuals from families with alcoholism. Education or prevention programs and treatment interventions can then be designed that will address each variable and therefore all of the dimensions of the alcoholic environment.