Natural History Of Alcoholism Research Articles

The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery-the virtues of an interdisciplinary perspective of alcoholism and alcoholism recovery.

Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery by George E. Vaillant was a pioneering longitudinal study about alcoholism and alcoholism recovery. Published in 1983 amid the competitive professional dynamics underlying a clash of the controlled drinking controversy, The Natural History of Alcoholism is a tacit exemplar of the virtues of an interdisciplinary perspective of alcoholism and alcoholism recovery. The book integrates a medical outlook toward alcoholism and alcoholism recovery with ideas from other academic disciplines; it conveys a multidimensionality of alcoholism and alcoholism recovery that necessitates contributions from an interdisciplinary collective of scientific perspectives. The Natural History of Alcoholism serves as a reminder that scientists and scholars need not approach alcoholism and alcoholism recovery by acclaiming the virtues of their own ideas about these matters while downplaying ideas with which they intellectually or ideologically differ. The Natural History of Alcoholism is a reminder of the virtues of an interdisciplinary perspective of alcoholism and alcoholism recovery.

Addictive behavior after solid organ transplantation: What do we know already and what do we need to know?

Addictive behavior after solid organ transplantation: What do we know already and what do we need to know?

A Study of the Temporal Course of Phenomenology of Alcohol Dependence

The natural history of alcoholism was first charted out in 1946 by Jellinek, whose original results have been replicated by multiple research groups. They have verified a general progression of alcohol dependence through a series of identifiable phases. The study investigated the sequence of events in the course of alcohol dependence and its deviations from randomness. The study consisted of 36 patients with alcohol dependence, subjected to a structured questionnaire containing 34 items describing the phenomenology of alcohol dependence, based on the lines of SCID. The items experienced by each patient were identified and then plotted on a timeline graph according to an important life event, the items being represented on cards given to the patients randomly. The subjects were re-interviewed after one week and asked to rank their symptoms again to analyze test-retest reliability. The analysis of the item ordering was determined by null hypothesis of randomness. The ordering showed three phases. The early phase was characterized by features of increased tolerance loss of flexibility, and salience. The middle phase consisted mainly of the need for alcohol, and the late phase was predominated by features of physiological withdrawal, tremors, nausea, panics, and hallucinations. There is a characteristic ordering of new events and symptoms, which suggests a developmental process of alcoholism, but this is apparent only if attention is confined to a limited part of the broad spectrum. This process is obscured by consideration of the social concomitants of alcohol dependence. The study of the natural history of alcohol dependence is essential in recognizing and treating the problem and determining whether an intervention appears to be working.

Conversation with George Vaillant

Conversation with George Vaillant

From one beer with friends to alcohol dependence: a synthesis about our knowledge of this path

Review paper about prospective studies concerning the natural history of alcoholism. Emphasizing Vaillant and the impact of his contribution to the evolution of the concepts of harmful use and dependence, as well as its most important therapeutic implications. The fact that the abstinence rates, in the treatment of a severe dependence, almost remaining the same in the last twenty-five years is highlighted.

Alcoholism as Sickness and Wrongdoing

It is now commonplace to call persons sick when their wrongdoing becomes entrenched, extensive, and extreme. This mixing of moral and therapeutic categories seems incoherent if we uncritically embrace a morality‐therapy dichotomy: Behavioral problems like alcoholism are either moral or therapeutic matters, but not both. This paper dissolves the dichotomy by arguing that chronically abusive drinking is simultaneously a sickness and wrongdoing. Alcoholism is at least partly a self‐inflicted impairment of responsible agency that has unhealthy consequences and usually requires therapeutic interventions. Morality and therapy are not inherently opposed. Morality enjoins compassionate helping and nonjudgemental therapy, and therapy is rooted in moral values of caring and respect. The polarized positions of Herbert Fingarette in Heavy Drinking and George E. Vaillant in The Natural History of Alcoholism are reconciled by paying close attention to their accounts of the condition, causes, consequences, and cure of alcoholism.

The natural history of alcoholism. Revisited

The natural history of alcoholism. Revisited

The natural history of alcoholism. Revisited

The natural history of alcoholism. Revisited

The natural history of alcoholism and its relationship to liver transplantation.

The natural history of alcoholism and its relationship to liver transplantation.

The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited

The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited

The Dependent Personality

Dependent Personality Disorder, a diagnostic category that is only a decade old, is attracting extensive research attention. Robert Bornstein's purpose in writing The Dependent Personality is to review the empirical literature on Dependent Personality Disorder and integrate the findings for a broader perspective on dependency. The amount of research reviewed is staggering (there are 37 pages of references), yet Bornstein still must limit himself to investigations where dependency was directly assessed. His intended audience is developmental researchers, social psychologists, and clinical researchers and his efforts should be a welcome overview for that group. The Dependent Personality will be less helpful to clinicians, however, because, through it all, it teaches us more about the category of Dependent Personality Disorder than about the people who struggle with dependency.The Dependent Personality begins with a review of theoretical models, particularly psychoanalytic and social learning models, followed by a review of empirical testing methods for dependency. Then there is a discussion of the etiology of dependency and a review of the influence of dependency on social behavior. There is an extensive review on the correlation between dependency and other areas of psychopathology: depression, phobias, alcohol abuse, tobacco abuse, substance abuse, and eating disorders. Bornstein found a strong correlation between dependency and depression, phobias, and smoking. He found inconclusive results for obesity and substance abuse, and, most interestingly, he found counterintuitive results for alcohol abuse. Consistent with Valliant's classic work on alcohol abuse, The Natural History of Alcoholism, Bornstein found that alcoholism seems to cause dependency traits rather than the other way around. There is also a detailed discussion of the category of DPD, a review of dependency and physical disorders, and a review of dependency and patienthood.The final chapter develops an integrated model of dependent personality disorder. Bornstein concludes that overprotective, authoritarian parenting and rigid sex-role socialization for women are the primary causes of dependency. He leaves some room for the possibility that parental overprotection could be a response to an unusually needful childhood constitution, but his focus is on the environmental causes. Authoritarian parenting and rigid sex-role socialization result in cognitive structures of powerlessness, motivational desires for excess nurturance, extensive help-seeking behaviors, and affective fears of abandonment and failure. Bornstein gives suggestions for further research, particularly in the cognitive structures of dependency. …

Ten years after – the post-treatment course of alcoholism

SummaryThe natural history of alcoholism is still a matter of debate. Very few studies have addressed the issue of the post-treatment course longitudinally. We present the results of a long-term follow-up study in ninety-six alcohol dependent patients who were treated in a combined in-patient and out-patient treatment programme. Two, five and ten years after the initial treatment in 1976, they were re-investigated. Ninety-four percent of the patients could be located ten years after treatment. Fifty-one percent were abstinent, 22% were deceased, 14% of the patients’ drinking was unchanged and 7% had improved. This outcome is discussed and compared with the results of other long-term studies.

Imaginal, sensory, and cognitive experience in spontaneous recovery from alcoholism.

Although alcoholism is often regarded as an intractable disorder that requires intensive treatment, studies of the natural history of alcoholism indicate that unaided, spontaneous recovery may be the most common pathway to remission from alcoholism. Negative environmental consequences of alcoholic drinking have been invoked to explain spontaneous recovery, but a more compelling reason for sudden changes in drinking behavior concerns shifts in the personal meanings surrounding alcohol use. Extensive interviews in a multimodal format were conducted with two groups of alcoholics: one group comprised of 7 subjects who spontaneously recovered without treatment and the other group comprised of 9 people who believed formal treatment was necessary to abstain from drinking. Spontaneously recovered alcoholics reported experiencing vivid sensations and images at the time they decided to quit drinking, and they reported subsequent transformations of their personal identities. Active alcoholics reported no comparable experiences in imaginal, sensory, and cognitive modalities. Implications of the results for current alcoholism treatments are discussed.

Psychoanalysis and substance abuse: toward a more effective approach.

Psychoanalysis and substance abuse: toward a more effective approach.

The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery

The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery

The Natural History of Alcoholism. By G. E. Vaillant. (Pp. 360; illustrated; £8.50.) Harvard University Press: London. 1983. - Problem Drinking. Report of the Detoxification Project. (Pp. 177; illustrated; £5.95.) Bedford Square Press: London. 1985.

The Natural History of Alcoholism. By G. E. Vaillant. (Pp. 360; illustrated; £8.50.) Harvard University Press: London. 1983. - Problem Drinking. Report of the Detoxification Project. (Pp. 177; illustrated; £5.95.) Bedford Square Press: London. 1985.

The Natural History of Alcoholism

George Vaillant is of the new breed of psychiatrists who acknowledge that alcoholism is not a cluster of symptoms of psychopathology, but rather a disease in and of itself, complex and variable though it may be, and elusive of strict definition. Not that there is anything really new disclosed in this rather remarkable attempt at synthesis of modern-day knowledge of alcoholism etiology and development. Those in the alcoholism field will learn little they do not already know about such topics as biogenic causality, treatment efficacy, and controlled drinking by recovered alcoholics. Even the author's own research, which forms the information base for much of the volume, has been reported in the scientific literature in recent years. But there is something really different in this book that distinguishes it from most of its predecessors in the genre: Vaillant grinds no axe. Instead, he comes down forcefully on the side of demonstrable

The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery

The Natural History of Alcoholism: Causes, Patterns, and Paths to Recovery

Book Review: George E. Vaillant: The Natural History of Alcoholism

Book Review: George E. Vaillant: The Natural History of Alcoholism

Abstinence Rates in an Alcoholism Treatment Program-Reply

In Reply.— In response to the letter of Dr George P. Susens, we furnish a table listing the additional numbers. They were not included in the original article because our intent was to study the effect of a treatment program, not the natural history of alcoholism. These additional 201 patients were, therefore, not followed up for one year, as the original group was. They seem to be a similar group in that their mean age was 53.2 years and that 80% were male and 20% were female. We know of 11 who died within a year of the original hospital admission; there may well be more. Forty-five of the group were readmitted for treatment at a later date and are not included in the outcome study. Currently, we are gathering data for a five-year follow-up report that will include follow-up ofallpatients, whether treated or not. We hope