The etiology of alcoholism: A prospective viewpoint

Reviews previous prospective studies of alcoholism and analyzes data from a new 33-yr prospective study of 456 nondelinquent controls from a delinquency study (S. Glueck and E. Glueck, 1968). Data suggest that presence or absence of South European ethnicity (perhaps as a result of attitudes toward alcohol use and abuse) and the number of alcoholic relatives (perhaps more due to heredity rather than environment) accounted for most of the variance in adult alcoholism explained by childhood variables. Premorbid antisocial behavior also added significantly to the risk of alcoholism. When ethnicity and heredity were controlled, childhood emotional problems and multiproblem family membership explained no additional variance. Thus, the etiological hypotheses that view alcoholism primarily as a symptom of psychological instability may be illusions based on retrospective study. (47 ref)