ABSTRACT
This book addresses the problems of children from drug-addicted families, with the term drug addiction used in its generic sense. In this spirit, we begin our account from this perspective, with a discussion of the epidemiology of adult drug abuse and dependence and its implications for the ecology of childhood in the families where the drug-involved adults reside. As we proceed, we describe how the more circumscribed focus of this chapter, the clinical and social ecology of children in alcoholic families, fits into this larger picture. We then describe an etiologic study, begun in the late 1970s, whose implementation required us to address a great many of these ecological issues. The bulk of the chapter provides an account of that work and uses it as a springboard to address the broader scientific and social policy questions that are the focus of this book. In our account, we use the term alcoholism as a broader umbrella, to cover both of the more specific descriptors of alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence.
