As I've noted before on this "list," Robin Room's "Socio-
logical Aspects of the Disease Concept of Alcoholism" (pp.
47-91 in *Research Advances in Alcohol and Drug Problems*,
vol. 7, NY & London: Plenum, 1983) remains the best single
overview of sociology's interaction with the disease con-
cept in the American literature.  After a brief historical
introduction, Room structured his discussion around socio-
logical research bearing on five aspects of the disease
idiom:  (1) its implication of "entitativity" (i.e., the
notion of alcoholism's objective & freestanding existence
as a platonic entity); (2) alcoholism's irreversibility;
(3) its involuntariness; (4) alcoholism's standing as "a
new scientific approach"; and, finally, (5) alcoholism's
merits as the organizing conception around which to or-
chestrate societal responses to alcohol problems.  A not-
able feature of Room's analysis is his general inclination
to regard the sociological agenda re alcohol problems as a
co-partner in reducing society's burden of such problems.
Room is offering, what Straus called in another context, a
sociology IN alcohol studies rather than a sociology OF
alcohol studies.  IN-work uses sociological research to
advance the societal goals of a broader scientific & clin-
ical assault on such problems; OF-work uses the alcoholism
field and its efforts re that mission as a case
study in the social handling of social problems--i.e.,
OF-work is aimed at advancing *sociological* theory rather
than reducing alcohol-related problems.///One of the re-
markable features of modern sociological research re
alcohol has been the general paucity of OF-work.  By and
large, alcohol sociologists (even that designation is re-
vealing) have preferred to operate within the movement
rather than as outsider students of it.  There are a num-
ber of notable works on the AA element of what has come to
be called the "modern alcoholism movement" (see, e.g., the
work of Bales, Blumberg, Denzin, Maxwell, Rudy, etc.).
Regarding the scientific & therapeutic side of the move-
ment--or, perhaps more importantly, *the movement as a
whole*--the sociological literature is remarkably sparse.
American sociologists have, IMHO, by and large dropped the
ball on describing, understanding, and, more generally,
offering an "outsider" perspective on the great social
transformations that have visited alcohol problems since
Repeal--i.e., covering the era of the modern alcoholism
movement's rise to hegemony and, after 1975, its challenge
from a new "public health paradigm."  Only three disserta-
tions and a single book may, I think, be said to consti-
tute the core of this sociological work--and disserta-
tions, of course, are notoriously obscure sources.  The
dissertations are:  (1) Bruce Holly Johnson, "The Alcohol-
ism Movement in America: A Study in Cultural Innovation,"
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1973; (2) Robin
Room, "Governing Images of Alcohol and Drug Problems: The
structure, sources and sequels of conceptualizations of
intractable problems," Univ. of Calif., Berkeley, 1978;
and my own "The American Discovery of Alcoholism, 1933-
1939," UC Berkeley, 1991.  The book is Carolyn Wiener's
*The Politics of Alcoholism: Building an Arena Around a
Social Problem*, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books,
1981.  There are a number of additional "outsider" soc-
iological authors/works that might be added here--e.g.,
Joseph Gusfield and Harry Levine--but the list is remark-
ably short.  In all, then, alcohol sociologists to a
remarkable degree have operated as co-workers rather than
"outsiders" re the development of the modern alcoholism
movement--even when their data and ideas offered criticial
or competing perspectives.  END OF PART IV