Alcoholism: A Social Construct

1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kari Poikolainen

Alcoholism as a specific disease was discovered about 200 years ago in North America. The disease is thought to be characterized by loss of control over drinking and by certain “symptoms,” supposed to occur in a typical order during the “natural” history of the disease. The basic assumptions of the disease model are, however, untenable. Despite this, the model is still viable. There are at least four reasons for this: (1) The medical profession, originally against the conception of alcoholism as a disease, has been made to accept the disease concept, (2) Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) strongly believes in the disease ideology, (3) the disease model may relieve the moral stigma attached to socially unacceptable drinking, and (4) societies in which individual rights are highly esteemed prefer self-control to collective control. The benefits and disadvantages of the disease model should be reconsidered.

1990 ◽  
Vol 157 (5) ◽  
pp. 786-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. M. Jellinek ◽  
Brian D. Hore

Concern over those individuals who drink alcohol to excess goes back many centuries, this concern being directed at the effect alcohol has on the individual and on society. Levine (1978) pointed out that the idea of alcoholism as a progressive disease with the key symptom of ‘loss of control’ did not simply start with the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous or the publication of Jellinek's monograph. Such a concept is, in fact, at least 200 years old.


Author(s):  
Peter Ferentzy ◽  
Nigel E. Turner

Over the past 200 years, society has come to accept the idea that addictions such as alcoholism and pathological gambling (PG) are a type of disease that is chronic, progressive, and somewhat mysterious in terms of etiology. This conception has been most strongly associated with organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous. The chronic disease model alleviated stigma and encouraged many to seek help, but has been challenged by some experts. Confusing the issue is that the public health model, often presented as the main alternative to the disease model, is rooted in epidemiology and clearly a disease model itself. In this paper, we trace the history of ideas about PG as a disease and examine some of the assumptions and metaphors that underlie these models. In the final section, we examine what aspects of addiction in general, and PG in particular, are either revealed or hidden by these models.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-267
Author(s):  
Jonathan Wright

Manhood was a complex social construct in early modern England. Males could not simply mature or grow from boys to men. Instead, they had to assert or prove they were men in multiple ways, such as growing a beard, behaving courageously in battle, exercising self-control in walking, talking, weeping, eating, and drinking, pursuing manly interests, exhibiting manly behaviors, avoiding interests or behaviors typically ascribed to women, marrying a woman and providing for her physical, sexual, and spiritual needs, and living and dying as a faithful Christian. Once a male became a “man” in the eyes of others, his efforts shifted from “making” himself manly to maintaining or defending his reputation as a “true man.” All men could undermine their manhood through their own actions or inactions, but the married man could also lose his reputation through his wife's infidelity. Numerous literary husbands in early modern literature live anxiously with the knowledge they might suffer a cuckold's humiliation and shame. Matthew Shore, who “treasures” his wife to a fault in Thomas Heywood's two-part play Edward IV, is an exceptional example of such a husband. This critical reading of Edward IV explores the complexity of manhood in Heywood's day by showing various males trying to assert or defend their manhood; explaining why husbands had reasons to fear cuckoldry; analyzing how Jane Shore's infidelity affects her husband; following Matthew Shore's journey from trusting husband to distrusting, bitter cuckold, to forgiving husband; and examining his seemingly inexplicable death at the end of the play.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ольга Гапонова ◽  
Olga Gaponova ◽  
Любовь Данилова ◽  
Liubov' Danilova ◽  
Юлия Чилипенок ◽  
...  

Structurally, the book includes 59 short chapters, United in 14 thematic blocks. They include such traditional sections as: the concept, essence and content of management; basic approaches to the study of the history of management; basic functions of management; connecting processes; basics of conflict management; organizational culture; management of organizational changes; social responsibility and ethics of business organizations; management consulting, etc. But the form of presentation of the material is unusual – it is a programmed textbook, designed mainly for independent work of the student and equipped with a system of constant self-control.


Author(s):  
Joseph Ben Prestel

Between 1860 and 1910, Berlin and Cairo went through a period of dynamic transformation. During this period, a growing number of contemporaries in both places made corresponding arguments about how urban change affected city dwellers’ emotions. In newspaper articles, scientific treatises, and pamphlets, shifting practices, such as nighttime leisure, were depicted as affecting feelings like love and disgust. Looking at the ways in which different urban dwellers, from psychologists to revelers, framed recent changes in terms of emotions, this book reveals the striking parallels between the histories of Berlin and Cairo. In both cities, various authors associated changes in the city with such phenomena as a loss of control over feelings or the need for a reform of emotions. The parallels in these arguments belie the assumed dissimilarity between European and Middle Eastern cities during the nineteenth century. Drawing on similar debates about emotions in Berlin and Cairo, the book provides a new argument about the regional compartmentalization of urban history. It highlights how the circulation of scientific knowledge, the expansion of empires, and global capital flows led to similarities in the pasts of these two cities. By combining urban history and the history of emotions, this book proposes an innovative perspective on the emergence of different, yet comparable cities at the end of the nineteenth century.


2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ndikho Mtshiselwa ◽  
Lerato Mokoena

The Old Testament projects not only a Deity that created the world and human beings but also one that is violent and male. The debate on the depiction of the God of Israel that is violent and male is far from being exhausted in Old Testament studies. Thus, the main question posed in this article is: If re-read as ‘Humans created God in their image’, would Genesis 1:27 account for the portrayal of a Deity that is male and violent? Feuerbach’s idea of anthropomorphic projectionism and Guthrie’s view of religion as anthropomorphism come to mind here. This article therefore examines, firstly, human conceptualisation of a divine being within the framework of the theory of anthropomorphic projectionism. Because many a theologian and philosopher would deny that God is a being at all, we further investigate whether the God of Israel was a theological and social construction during the history of ancient Israel. In the end, we conclude, based on the theory of anthropomorphic projectionism, that the idea that the God of Israel was a theological and social construct accounts for the depiction of a Deity that is male and violent in the Old Testament.


Author(s):  
Julie C. Garlen

Since the beginning of Western modernity, evolving perceptions of what childhood “should” be have shaped public discourse around what knowledge is of most worth and informed paradigms of curriculum development. Thus, “the child,” the discursive construct that emerges from dominant ideologies about the nature and purpose of childhood, is a critical artifact in understanding contemporary curriculum in the United States. Significantly, “the child” has operated as a key mechanism to reproduce and expand particular logics about who counts as fully human. In this way, curriculum is implicated in social injustices premised on the protection and futurity of “the child.” Tracing the history of conceptions of “the child” as they relate to curriculum development and theory illuminates the ways that childhood and curriculum are intertwined, and illustrates how childhood operates as a malleable social construct that is mobilized for diverse and sometimes contradictory political purposes.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 1033-1033
Author(s):  
THOMAS E. CONE

This book offers the reader an enormous amount of information about the history of medicine in America and at the same time is a delight to read. One would expect nothing else from Professor Shryock who is, in my opinion, our foremost medical historian. No one has been more successful than he in showing that the history of the medical profession represents a significant phase of our social and cultural evolution. Excellent work has been done in this area previously by Doctor Packard in his well received History of Medicine in the United States and by Doctor Sigerist in his superb study Amerika und die Medizin.


2009 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-7
Author(s):  
A V Dreval ◽  
B P Kovachev ◽  
E G Starostina ◽  
I V Misnikova ◽  
O. A Dreval

The study included 18 patients (10 females and 8 males) with a not less than 2 year-history of type 1 diabetes (T1D), who had received insulin therapy since its diagnosis was established. The patients ’ mean age was 32.9± 13.0 years; the mean duration of TID was 15.1+11.5 years; the mean daily dose of insulin was 40.1+16.0 units; the mean level of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbAJ was 9.4±2.1% (the normal value 4.4-4.9%). The glycemic curve symmetrization method proposed for statistical analysis of glycemic self-control is also quite suitable for the statistical monitoring of a continuous daily glycemic curve. The high and low glycemic indices calculated from the symmetrized glycemic data correlate well with the level of HbAk and with the duration of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia and hence they may be used as additional criteria for a risk of diabetes complications. The criteria, calculated from the symmetrized data of glycemia for the risk of hyper- and hypoglycemia, adequately reflect the behavior of a continuous glycemic curve and may be used as integral indices of the efficiency of glucose-reducing therapy in clinical practice.


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