Dan's point about gambling research reminds me that most of us--social
scientists and others--study drinking, drugs, or whatever as a
social/medical/legal PROBLEM.  For certain disciplines--maybe anthropology
is an appropriate example--drinking, drugs, or whatever may be studied as
part of NORMAL life and not as a problem.  Some scholars, for instance,
study alcoholic drink as part of  historical research on food or of leisure
behavior or of social ritual or of business enterprise.

David Fahey

At 09:30 AM 3/29/2005, you wrote:
>Not that I can answer for social sciences, but I convened a group here at
>Brock of "addiction" scholars--a couple psychologists, a sociologist,
>and  few others--and have found this tremendously useful for my own work
>and perspectives. Especially in the area of different conceptions of
>addiction, and also in research methodology.  Also, about half of these
>scholars research gambling, so the issues we deal with converge and diverge
>in very interesting and useful ways.
>
>Dan Malleck
>
>At 06:59 PM 3/28/2005, you wrote:
>>I benefited greatly from the responses to my last question, so I feel
>>emboldened to ask a broader and more controversial question:  what can
>>alcohol/drug historians learn from the social sciences?  The old, sad
>>joke is that historians are a generation or two out of date in their
>>borrowings from the social sciences.  What do ADHS social scientists
>>think?  What would they recommend historians read?
>
>Dan Malleck, PhD
>Assistant Professor, Community Health Sciences
>Brock University
>500 Glenridge Ave
>St. Catharines, Ontario
>L2S 3A1
>905 688-5550 ext 5108