Dear ATHG-L: It is with some trepidation that I'm re-posting to you the following SEVEN PART series of longish posts I posted to another listserv group--called ADDICT-L--some weeks ago. ADDICT-L is a group of scholars, researchers, and also lay therapists involved in addiction treatment. As it happens, a discussion arose in that list regarding sociology, Stanton Peele, and the disease concept of alcoholism--and I, being the only "card-carrying sociologist" on the list, took the occasion to "defend the flag" and offer my own sense of sociology's unfolding historical relation to the disease concept of alcoholism in the U.S. This morning--in the process of sorting some old files--it occurred to me that some ATHG-L members might find this series mildly interesting. Others, I fear, will glare at me for silting up their in-boxes--and to you, my humble apologies. The seven-part series doesn't really end--it just stops (indeed, PART VIII is, in fact, "still in the typewriter"). In any event--& with all its incompleteness, warts, and other deficiencies-- here comes that series of seven posts FYI! Ron Roizen