ABSTRACT
One of the major advances in alcohol studies over recent years has been concerned with analysis of alcohol consumption statistics. The idea that alcoholism is a discrete entity has been undermined by a second major line of advance — the survey investigation of population drinking practices. In any culture where alcohol is an accepted recreational drug, dependence on alcohol is in a statistical sense a normal condition -most people will have some degree of drive toward seeking alcohol actuated by a variety of external or internal cues. Traditionally a distinction has been made between psychological dependence and physical dependence. In Anglo-Saxon literature the ‘psychopathic’ alcoholic is a familiar stereotype. Alcohol withdrawal symptoms are typically experienced on waking, but with the highly dependent person careful questioning may reveal that he experiences sub-acute withdrawal during the day, or indeed wakes during the night disturbed by withdrawal symptoms.
