ABSTRACT
Alcoholism is an extraordinarily complex phenomenon. The chapter begins with the conservative premise that it is both possible and profitable to conceive of elements of alcoholism as behaviour, and hence subject to analysis in much the same terms as any behaviour. The essential strategy of behavioural analysis is to isolate a phenomenon of interest into objectively observable and measurable components. The manipulation of the amount of work required to obtain a unit amount of alcohol also had a controlling effect on the amount of alcohol acquired. With the self-administration of alcohol established as a behaviour amenable to objective measurement and to some extent manipulable, it was not long before experimenters began systematically to assess the effects of various behavioural interventions on alcoholic drinking. The consumption of alcohol was seen as a mechanism for managing tension from a variety of sources.
