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University of California Press

About the Book

Heavy Drinking informs the general public for the first time how recent research has discredited almost every widely held belief about alcoholism, including the very concept of alcoholism as a single disease with a unique cause. Herbert Fingarette presents constructive approaches to heavy drinking, including new methods of helping heavy drinkers and social policies for preventing heavy drinking and the harms associated with it.

About the Author

Herbert Fingarette, a distinguished professor at the University of California, has been a consultant on alcoholism and addiction to the World Health Organization, and a Fellow of the Stanford Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences. His work has had a significant influence on the U.S. Supreme Court, state supreme courts, and current national policy makers on substance abuse.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION
What Science Now Knows, but the Public Doesn't

PART 1
The Classic Disease Concept of Alcoholism

CHAPTER 1
Where Did We Get the Idea That Alcoholism
Is a Disease?

CHAPTER 2
Can Alcoholics Control Their Drinking?

CHAPTER 3
What Causes Alcoholism?

CHAPTER 4
Have "Alcoholism Treatments" Really Worked?

PART 2
New Approaches to Heavy Drinking

CHAPTER 5
Understanding Heavy Drinking as a Way of Life

CHAPTER 6
Helping the Heavy Drinker

CHAPTER 7
Social Policies to Prevent and Control
Heavy Drinking

AFTERWORD
WORKS CITED
INDEX