Counselor Magazine - More on Defining Alcoholism

Newsflash

The Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse will hold its 32nd Annual AMERSA National Conference on November 6-8, 2008, in Washington DC.

The meeting will reflect on AMERSA's interdisciplinary strengths and the commitment to disseminate the latest developments in substance abuse education, prevention, treatment and research that challenge all health care professionals.

Confirmed plenary sessions include:

Carlo DiClemente, PhD and Thaddeus Herzog, PhD in a Spicy Debate - Contemplating Change: The Pros and Cons of the Transtheoretical Model for Understanding Changes in Substance Use

John Rodolico, PhD, Terence Keane, PhD and Susan Storti, PhD, RN in a Plenary Panel Session on Combat Stress and Substance Abuse in the Wake of War

Randolph D. Muck, MEd, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, speaking on Adolescent/Emerging Adults

John Cunningham, PhD, Senior Scientist Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, speaking on the Internet and New Media as Tools to Recovery

Jerome Jaffe, MD, University of Maryland School of Medicine, will be the recipient of the distinguished John P. McGovern Award

Stephanie O'Malley, PhD, Director, Division of Substance Abuse Research, CMHC, will receive the prestigious Betty Ford Award honoring her valuable contributions to the substance abuse field.

Call for Abstracts now open. Submit abstracts and workshops online by May 15.

For further information, visit www.amersa.org or contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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More on Defining Alcoholism

Columns - On the Web

Written by Stuart Gitlow, MD

Friday, 05 October 2007

For several months, this column focused on the difficulties experienced at Wikipedia with respect to the public entry there on alcoholism. I spoke of the debates among participants and contributors to Wikipedia regarding not only content of the entry but even the basics of definition. A good deal of bandwidth was taken with discussion as to what the very first line of the entry would be. How can one easily reduce “alcoholism” to a single sentence that comfortably fits into the paradigm for physicians, sociologists, clinicians, and the lay-public? The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) presents its perspective on alcoholism on a website targeting college drinking as a culture that needs to be altered. The site includes an FAQ at: http://www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov/OtherAlcoholInformation/facts/q-a.aspx#question1

There, NIAAA has defined alcoholism as a disease that includes four symptoms: craving, loss of control, physical dependence and tolerance. This is an unfortunate opening of the FAQ, since alcoholics do not necessarily have any of these four symptoms. Let me give two examples:

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