Alcohol: The Ambiguous MoleculeAlcohol can be an item of diet, a medicine, sometimes an element in religious ritual. It is a valued object for the connoisseur, a traded commodity and a symbol of national pride (wine for instance in France, whisky in Scotland). But at another level it is just a molecule. That molecule is an instrument both of pleasure and of destruction and hence the fundamental ambiguity. The range of social and medical problems associated with alcohol and the history of related treatment methods (including the temperance movement, prohibition, aa and a range of contemporary approaches) are considered here. Griffith Edwards identifies what can be learned from this experience and the accompanying science so as to set more rational and effective policies in the future. What will happen about alcohol is in part embedded in what society will do about dangerous, pleasure giving drugs in general. |
Contents
The American Prohibition Experiment | 73 |
Calling Alcoholism a Disease | 93 |
In the Name of Treatment | 118 |
Copyright | |
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abstinence Addiction alcohol as medicine alcohol consumption alcohol dependence alcohol-related Alcoholics Anonymous American Anti-Saloon League apomorphine bacchanalia become beer belief beverage Bill W bottle brain breast cancer British campaign cancer cannabis cause cent chapter Christian cirrhosis clinical countries culture Davies's dependent drinker disease concept distillation doctors Dr Bob drinking behaviour drinking problem drunk drunkard drunkenness effect evidence expectations experience fact follow-up given glass habit hospital idea inebriate inebriety institution intake intoxication Jack Mullins kind level of drinking liquor litres look molecule national prohibition nineteenth century normal drinking Oxford Group patients per-capita period person probably produce published recovery recreational drug repeal reported Richard Doll risk ritual scientific Skinner box Sobells social society spirits story suggested talk temperance temperance movement therapeutic transubstantiation troubled drinker twelve-step programme Volstead Act whisky wine