ABSTRACT
Alcoholism is a disorder of great destructive power. Depending on how one defines alcoholism, it will afflict, at some time in their lives, between 3 and 10 percent of all Americans. In the United States alcoholism is involved in a quarter of all admissions to generai hospitals, and it plays a major role in the four most common causes of death in males aged 20 to 40: suicide, accidents, homicide and cirrhosis of the liver. The damage it causes falls not only on alcoholics themselves but on their families and friends as well—and this damage touches one American family out of three.
