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Booze, Beliefs, and Behavior: Cognitive Processes in Alcohol use and Abuse

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Book cover Alcoholism

Part of the book series: NATO Conference Series ((HF,volume 7))

Abstract

The study of alcohol use and abuse has for the most part been steeped in the biomedical model that emphasizes the overriding importance of the pharmacological properties and physiological consequences of alcohol. Of course, alcohol is a potent drug and biomedical analyses are vital to our fuller understanding of its effects. However, the inappropriate overextension of the biomedical model to psychological phenomena that cannot be reduced to the physical effects of alcohol has retarded the development of effective means for the assessment and treatment of alcohol abuse. It is for this reason that perhaps the most important feature of the behavioral approach lies in the alternative conceptual model it provides for understanding and modifying patterns of alcohol use and abuse. The details of the behavioral model are discussed elsewhere (Bandura, 1969). Suffice it to state here that this model entails a rejection of the quasi-disease or psychodynamic model of psychopathology and regards abnormal behavior that is not a function of specific brain disturbance or biochemical disorder as governed by the same principles that regulate normal behavior. Examples of alcohol-related phenomena that are customarily ascribed to the alleged physiological or psychodynamic effects of alcohol but which are more accurately explained in terms of a cognitive-behavioral analysis are discussed below.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

    G. Terence Wilson

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  1. G. Terence Wilson
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

    Peter E. Nathan

  2. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA

    G. Alan Marlatt

  3. University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Tor Løberg

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© 1978 Plenum Press, New York

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Wilson, G.T. (1978). Booze, Beliefs, and Behavior: Cognitive Processes in Alcohol use and Abuse. In: Nathan, P.E., Marlatt, G.A., Løberg, T. (eds) Alcoholism. NATO Conference Series, vol 7. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2874-2_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2874-2_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-2876-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-2874-2

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