Problem Drinkers Can Learn Moderation.
In the following viewpoint, Nancy Shute and Laura Tangley explain a new approach to.
alcoholism: programs that teach problem drinkers how to moderate their consumption of alcohol.
According to the authors, many problem drinkers can modify their drinking habits instead of .
giving up alcohol entirely. Shute and Tangley are reporters for U.S. News & World Report .
magazine.
There are 40 million problem drinkers in the United States - people whose drinking.
causes economic, physical, or family harm but who are not technically alcoholic. Since .
Prohibition was repealed in 1933, treatment for drinking problems in this country has focused.
almost exclusively on alcoholics, has offered abstinence as the sole cure for their problems, and.
has laid just two paths to that cure: Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), the spiritual self-help group.
founded in 1935; and a variety of related twelve step programs, originally developed at the.
Hazelden Foundation and other Minnesota clinics in the 1950s, which combine psychological.
and peer counseling and AA attendance.
In my opinion, the problem with the advice of one drink leads to two, is that for many.
people is not true. Drinkers may meet the clinical criteria for alcohol dependence but can .
sustain controlled drinking for months, even years, before getting into trouble. The majority of.
people who cut back or quit did so on their own. Many of those people binge drank in their early.
adult years at college parties, after-work happy hours, or during sporting events, then got a job,.
got married, got busy, and lost interest in getting smashed.
Problem drinkers are people who have had problems because of drinking (a DUI arrest,.
marital disagreement, showing up late to work). But they usually do not drink steadily and do .
not go through withdrawal when they stop. By contrast, someone who is alcohol dependent .
exhibits at least three of the following symptoms: tolerance; withdrawal; an inability to cut .
