Barney Rickenbacker wrote:
 
>I wish to ask members of the Group why it is that some people encounter
>devastating setbacks in many areas of their life from alcohol use, say,
>in their 20s and 30s, and  why others, who are very heavy drinkers and
>who drink from an early age, never seem to experience difficulties
>except for perhaps physical problems late in life that are likely
>alcohol related.
>
>I am curious if this issue is discussed at all nowadays; and I preferred
>to ask the question in the usual, more general way.
>
>I thank those of you in advance who would like to reply.  I"ll be
>pleased to hear of articles, books, etc or receive a paragraph or two
>resolving this question "once and for all" -- the quick fix.
>
 
 
Age (and gender) and alcohol have fascinated me literally for decades.  Ever sin
ce
the commencement of general population survey studies in the post-Repeal era,
students of the matter have known that age, gender, and social class do an
extraordinarily good job of sorting out "the variance" on such variables as
drink/abstain, drinking patterns, and drinking-related problems.  In a sense--an
d
ironically--social scientists actually answered the question of how to explain
variations in drinking in the general population a long time ago!  I.e., just su
ch
demographic factors explain them.  Equally ironically, however, such variables
simply beg the deeper question of *why* these associations are what they are.  T
he
prevailing methodological and analytical orientations of survey research do not
tend to press questions "that far back"--survey analysts more often tend to be
quite happy to say that (for instance) that "age explains x% of the variance in
variable y" without also asking themselves *why* it does so.  Moreover, the
prevailing ideology of the modern alcoholism movement broadcast the (plainly
incorrect, from a survey perspective) view that "alcoholism was an
equal-opportunity disease"--i.e., that it struck anyone and everyone with equal
likelihood.
 
When survey studies discovered that the highest rates of drinking-related proble
ms
they measured were found in younger (rather than middle-aged) men, Don Cahalan
popularized the notion of "maturing out" as the process by which most men ended
up
moderating their drinking but a smaller proportion persisted with their youthful
practices into middle-age.  Hence, what we used to like to call "alcoholism" was
not so much a bundle of characteristics newly acquired in middle-age but instead
the persistence of practices that "should have" melted away with advancing years
.
 
My own belief is that alcohol sociology still needs a grand synthesis between th
ose
aspects of social structural theory that focus on "ascribed status" (i.e., age &
sex) and modernization theory.  One of the chief characteristics of
modernization--in the traditional sociological view of social structure at
least--is that "ascriptive" and "particularist" status gives way to "achieved" a
nd
"universalist" status.  That drinking's norms and structural associations with a
ge
and gender both reflect and have changed with this aspect of modernization--and
in
that sense drinking represents a very fertile territory for further theoretical
development re social structural transformation.
 
Please pardon infelicities of wording--in a rush!
 
Fascinating question.  Thanks for asking it!
 
 
--
Ron Roizen, Ph.D.
voice:  510-848-9123
fax:    510-848-9210
home:   510-848-9098
1818 Hearst Ave.
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U.S.A.
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