The Sick Role, Labelling Theory, and the Deviant Drinker, Roman PM,
Trice HM, International
Journal of Social Psychiatry,
Vol.14, 245-251, 1968
“Much
effort in recent years has been directed toward educating the
public in the United States regarding the definition of alcoholism
and deviant drinking as medical problems rather than as criminal
offenses. 12,24 These efforts are reflected in the various
publications of the Rutgers (formerly Yale) Centre for Alcohol
Studies, the U.S. Public Health Service, and the National Council on
Alcoholism. Likewise, as the therapeutic effectiveness of Alcoholics
Anonymous has become increasingly visible, the public has become
aware of the assumption that is held by this organization that a form
of physical allergy leads to alcoholism. The A.A. concept is somewhat
different from the traditional medical model, but the two conceptions
share a strong tendency to reduce individual responsibility for the
genesis of alcoholism.
The
effects of this redefinition have been regarded as positive by most,
the most prominent being that alcoholics are committed to hospitals
for treatment rather than being detained in prisons .ll Medical
treatment is the natural corollary of the medical model and is aimed
toward "recovery" rather than toward the "character
reform" goal of incarceration. In any event medical treatment is
regarded as a more humane reaction to a form of behavior that may not
be inherently anti-social or criminal.
However,
disease or medical model conception of alcoholism and deviant
drinking is not without its adverse consequences. The concerns of
this paper are the possible social psychological consequences of the
use of the medical model and the development of a scheme of
preventive intervention which is based on the knowledge of these
consequences. Lest there be a misunderstanding about the position
taken here, we emphasize at the outset that the disease concept of
alcoholism is not being repudiated. Research has definitively
shown that the chronic intake of large amounts of alcohol may have
pathological effects on the human organism; likewise, the pattern of
physiological addiction which develops at the later stages of the
alcoholism syndrome may be viewed in itself as a major symptom of
disease. Thus, chronic abuse of alcohol may have as one of its
consequences organic illness. However, being sociopsychological in
orientation, the primary concern of this paper is the nature and
consequences of the social labelling process rather than the nature
and consequences of the alcohol ingestion processes.”
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