Talk:Alcoholism

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Uncertain as to how to fix

There is a section of the article: "Benzodiazepines, whilst useful in the management of acute alcohol withdrawal, if used long-term cause a worse outcome in alcoholism. Alcoholics on chronic benzodiazepines have a lower rate of achieving abstinence from alcohol than those not taking benzodiazepines."

Alcoholism has long been defined differently from alcohol dependence in that it involves all cross-tolerant substances. No addiction expert would prescribe an alcoholic benzodiazepines for anything other than acute detox. And all would recognize that abstinence from alcohol is useless if the patient is using benzodiazepines. That would break the sobriety date and leave the patient in an actively using state. You may as well prescribe two cans of Budweiser per day.

This portion of the article seems to ignore this and approach benzodiazepines from the other direction. There are plenty of references as to the information noted in my ¶ above. Should we reword this section? Drgitlow (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:35, 20 March 2011 (UTC).

Gin Lane

It's a great little image, but it's not actually about the damaging effects of alcohol. It's only half the picture - the other half is Beer Street, where everybody's healthy, happy and prosperous. There was a panic about gin specifically in eighteenth-century London; drinking huge amounts of beer was considered perfectly fine.82.36.138.46 (talk) 07:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Social barriers

Your social barriers section should be changed to more gendered language such as "Gender and alcoholism." This is because social barriers exist in a wide variety of contexts. Gender is one of many ways to categorize social contexts. What about culture? Class? Etc?

Second, your cited research under that section is outdated. The Blum, et al. article (although very important) is thirteen years old. You are making a great argument for 1998, but I'm sure there is more research on this issue today. I read the Karoll article. It is more current than Blum et al., but is still nine years old, and it merely pulls together even older research (as old as Blum et al.), but it does make a good argument that women were more likely to seek help from mental health professionals instead of physicians in the late 90's. Do you know of any recent (2001-present) empirical critical feminist research that explores this issue of gender and alcohol abuse? The Karoll article is more of a meta-analysis and only cites research from the late '90's on this. This research needs to be refreshed.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.9.122.211 (talk) 00:54, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Disability-adjusted life year

What is this crap? I've read enough documents and news articles to know that US rates of alcohol use do not match UK rates per capita or in any other relevant fashion so why the higher US disability adjustment?

Seems as dumb as trying to make out alcohol is responsible for silly little crimes rather than the broad spectrum such as murder it really is and trying to pretend it's a harmless little substance rather than categorizing it with crack where it belongs instead of safer than cannabis. Ignoring this true but emotionally taxing to the deluded paragraph the former paragraph needs attention. 87.112.178.244 (talk) 23:02, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Alcoholism as a "disease" =

This is horse manure, anyhow.

Alcoholism is one hundred percent a decision that selfish or weak-minded people make to escape their situation, rather than facing it. That is a fact and no amount of holistic, "sympathetic" BS can alter that fact.

People make bad decisions, and there's no excuses to be made; this article is a sham. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.1.218.210 (talk) 11:20, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Like it or not, it is the prevailing viewpoint of the medical community as there many similarities with traditional "biomedical" diseases, though it is not entirely free from controversy, as mentioned under "Dissenting opinion". See Disease theory of alcoholism#Criticism. This talk page is primarily for constructive discussion to improve the article, not a forum for opinions on the article content. If you think the article is lacking in some way, and have reliable and preferably peer-reviewed sources, improve it. Dallas (talk) 09:31, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Trying to improve the lead

I've taken a bit of a stab at this, but honestly I'm attempting to make use of my vague familiarity but fundamental ignorance of medical topics to try and rewrite the leads of articles so that they aren't horrifyingly technical. Unforunately, the lead of this article is not only technical, it's also got some other issues, so I'm doing a bit more than just replacing and explaining jargon. Feel free to revert. SDY (talk) 18:15, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to do with what I've left as the last paragraph. The Thombs thing looks out of place, it should really be in the article proper with some sort of summary in the lead rather than in the lead as a whole bit. Not sure where to put it though. Social effects? SDY (talk) 19:59, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

do prohibition of alcohol good or bad

i dont think it will help . i want the comment and reason for your justification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.240.120.223 (talk) 15:13, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

GA review

This article seems to need some work. Lots of primary research presented as fact. A bunch of formatting issues. Will try to address some of it but may need to delist it.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:46, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Evolutionary perspective

I think some addition of evolutionary perspective might improve this article a bit, I just saw this study today. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:22, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Causation

What causes poison ivy? Or malaria? How come, as a city feller (living in New York), I'm not catching these diseases? It's because I stay out of the woods (or when I go, I wear long pants, tucked into my boots or socks. I stay away from places where there are lots of mosquitoes, too. In other words, my choices have a great deal of bearing on whether I "catch" these diseases.

Why aren't I an alcoholic? It's because I've chosen to avoid drinking - largely because I don't want to turn into a drunk (i.e., alcohol addict).

We've listed all sort of "causes" but given hardly any attention to what may be the primary cause: taking that first drink.

Now I haven't come to Preach The 12-Step Gospel - never fear. I'm just saying that if there are WP:RS which emphasize the role of free will in this matter, we should include them. If not, then it's a fringe view, and forget I ever brought it up! :-)

File:The children - victims of adult vices (bahus).jpg Nominated for Deletion

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opening sentence for 'alcohol dependence'

since thetalk page foracoholdependence redirectsheri willask/suggest thishere. currenty theopening sentence at that article reads:

    Alcohol dependence is a psychiatric diagnosis (a substance related disorder DSM-IV) describing an entity in which an individual uses alcohol despite significant areas of dysfunction, evidence of physical dependence, and/or related hardship, and also may cause stress and bipolar disorder.

i don't think entity is the correct word in this situation. i think it should be 'describing a situation'...an entity for me is a tangible, sentient, thing; something that has a real existence; i.e., not a concept. if i haven't seen a respnse in a few days i will change this. cheers.Ruraltexas (talk) 10:48, 25 February 2012 (UTC)