Showing papers in "Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs in 1981"

Prediction of blood alcohol concentrations in human subjects. updating the widmark equation

Abstract: Equations are derived for expressing the relationship between alcohol intake and blood alcohol concentration in terms of total body water and the blood water fraction. These equations are more exact than Widmark's, and if used in conjunction with regression equations to calculate total body water, will give more accurate predictions of BAC.

Spontaneous remission in alcoholics. Empirical observations and theoretical implications.

Abstract: SvMMaaY. Life histories of 35 men and 16 women who resolved their chronic drinking problems without professional or formal treatment were analyzed to determine whether and by what means spontaneous remission of alcoholism occurs.

Burn-out: Stages of Disillusionment in the Helping Professions

Abstract: Bargaining with reading habit is no need. Reading is not kind of something sold that you can take or not. It is a thing that will change your life to life better. It is the thing that will give you many things around the world and this universe, in the real world and here after. As what will be given by this burn out stages of disillusionment in the helping professions, how can you bargain with the thing that has many benefits for you?

Alcoholic children of alcoholics.

Abstract: of the fathers and 8.0% of the mothers of female alcoholic probands. When estimated rates of alcoholism in a general population have been compared with those in the families of alcoholics (4-7), men alcoholics have been found to be 2.2 times as likely as men in the general population to have an alcoholic father and 1.6 times as likely to have an alcoholic mother; women alcoholics were 3.3 times as likely to have an alcoholic father and 2.4 times as likely to have an alcoholic mother. The present study attempted to determine the rates of alcoholism in parents of alcoholics, by sex of child and sex of parent, and the characteristics that differentiate alcoholics who have two, one or no alcoholic parents. Previous family studies (e.g., 8) have investigated only the risk and severity of alcoholism in the children of alcoholics. No study has reported risks of morbidity, lifetime risks, or the differential effects of having two, one or no alcoholic parents (9). Since the risk of alcoholism may be expected to be higher in children of two alcoholics than in children of one or no alcoholics, the results would have implications for both genetic and environmental theories of alcoholism.

Words and deeds: the validity of self-report data on alcohol consumption

Abstract: Social scientists have known for many years that there may be notable discrepancies, and even an inverse relationship, between reported and actual behavior. Yet this knowledge has had remarkably little effect on the extent to which reliance is placed on the validity of self-report data. Deutscher (1), in a paper entitled "Words and Deeds," has reviewed the famous LaPicrc experiment reported in 1934, and the reaction of other sociologists to the problem at that time. He notes LaPiere's contention that, although no one had ever challenged his argument that "what men say and what they do are not always in concordance," it had no effect on faith in the value of data gathered via the questionnaire. LaPiere's report was widely cited by surveyors, but when it came to the presentation of data, "each author promptly ignored the caution and proceeded to assume that his data was indicative of what people would actually do in real-life circumstances" (1, p. 30). It seems to us doubtful that LaPicrc would find reason to change his views today, especially were he to examine survey reports in the alcohol field. In 1974, Pernanen (2) reviewed this literature and showed that, on the average, estimates of consumption derived from surveys were about half the estimates based on sales statistics. Given that in most of the jurisdictions involved the latter are accurate and comprehensive, one may conclude that self-report data on the volume of alcohol consumed are likely to underreport actual behavior substantially. However, most surveyors have either ignored the problem or dismissed it on the grounds that the underreporting is consistent at all levels of consumption so that misclassification of individuals into broad categories of drinkers is unlikely. For example, Fitzgerald and Mulford (3), in their recent comparison of sales and survey data, note that "survey estimates significantly underreport alcohol consumption" but argue that "if this underreporting is consistent across all users, the rank ordering of users is preserved and the patterns of distribution of consumption derived from sales and survey data would be comparable" (p. 884). However, their contention that the underreporting is in fact consistent because the data of two surveys are reasonably well fitted by a J-curve serves only to confuse the issue. In Table 1, we present two distributions of alcohol purchases in Ontario. One is based on an analysis of a very large sample of sales records for a 1-month

Cross-cultural perspectives on developmental stages in adolescent drug use.

Abstract: SUMMARY, French and Israeli adolescents, like American adolescents studied previously, showed a cumulative sequence of drug involvement, with use of legal drugs preceding use of illegal drugs, and use of beer and wine preceding use of distilled spirits. The ordering of use of legal drugs was most pronounced in Israel, where the prevalence of use of these drugs was lowest.

Cognitive dysfunction in the prediction of relapse in alcoholics.

Abstract: CUMULATING EVIDENCE (e.g., 1) has undermined the widespread belief that alcoholism is a unitary phenomenon. Associated with this new evidence is the realization that the attempt to find the alcoholic personality or the essential psychological or physical precursor of alcoholism is an exercise in futility. A major consequence of viewing alcoholism as a unitary disorder has been that population diversity has not been taken into account in the design and evaluation of treatment programs (2) even though it has been demonstrated repeatedly that hospitalized alcoholics are a heterogeneous group (3) and that a number of the intragroup differences have implications for treatment outcome (4). Investigators who have focused on patient variables in relation to treatment outcome have not attempted to determine the relative importance of these factors. Consequently, the major dimensions of patients that must be matched or statistically controlled in treatment evaluation remain obscure, and differences in treatment outcome from one program to another are confounded to an unknown degree by differences in patients' characteristics. Additionally, lack of knowledge as to the measures most closely related to relapse has hindered the development of treatment methods optimally tailored to individuals or clinical subgroups of patients. A large body of literature (e.g., 5, 6) documents the association between long-term heavy drinking and the deterioration and atrophy of brain tissue. This organic deterioration is, in turn, reflected in

Characteristics and Prognoses of Alcoholics Who Become Moderate Drinkers and Abstainers after Treatment

Abstract: StYMMaaY. Persons who began drinking moderately within 6 months a#er alcoholism treatment had a higher relapse rate at a 2-year )Collow-up than did 6-month

Differences in muscle-tension response to ethanol in young men with and without family histories of alcoholism

Abstract: T HAS BEEN HYPOTHESIZED that ethanol can decrease a person's level of tension. In turn, this effect has been invoked to explain why some people drink, why some drink to the point of intoxication, and why others go on to develop alcoholism (1). Ethanol's purported effect on tension as related to alcoholism can be seen in two ways.' one hypothesis is that alcoholics, compared with controls, have different baseline levels of anxiety; a second, that ethanol might differentially decrease tension levels in alcoholics (2). Unfortunately, even when the hypotheses are clearly stated, ethanol's role in tension reduction and the significance of this to alcoholism have never been clearly established (2). Regarding the possibility that alcoholics initially have a heightened tension level, most investigators (e. g., 3, 4) have been unable to demonstrate a consistent correlation between measures of tension at rest (such as the galvanic skin response or forearm blood flow) and diagnoses of alcoholism. Although findings are variable, data (5, 6) have more consistently indicated that, compared with controls, alcoholics respond to ethanol with a greater decrease in such physiological measures of tension as electromyogram (EMG) scores. The tensionreducing properties of ethanol are most prominent as blood alcohol

The impact of alcoholism on the family. Relationship between degree of alcoholism and psychiatric symptomatology.

Abstract: SUMMARY. The level of psychiatric symptomatology experienced by a nonalcoholic spouse (of either sex) was correlated with the alcoholic's perception of the extent of the social and behavioral consequences of his drinking.

Differential methods of family therapy in the treatment of alcoholism.

Abstract: cussed. in the development of differential treatment of alcoholism, that is, in specifying treatment methods to the varying needs of alcoholic patients (1-3). Similar differential development of family therapy techniques to match different patterns of family problems has occurred. However, as Orford (4) has pointed out, each clinical field has developed as a specialty, with minimal interchange. The family therapy field has, therefore, devoted little effort to the development of techniques directed to the unique problems of families with alcoholism. At the same time, in the field of alcoholism, family therapy has been viewed as a generic treatment, with minimal awareness of major variations in methods. There are several reasons for this situation. First, it appears that professionals in the family therapy field still hold to stereotyped negative attitudes toward alcoholics (5). Second, although family therapists may work with alcoholic families, the focus is often solely on family dynamics, ignoring the alcoholism (6). Third, psychotherapists in alcoholism treatment programs have only recently adopted widespread use of family therapy and many are not aware of the many techniques that may be modified for alcoholism treatment (7). In this article we shall first review the interaction between family psychodynamics and the dynamics of alcoholismic behavior. Second, we shall describe family therapy techniques that can be specif