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Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Family Violence

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Abstract

That excessive alcohol use may be related to family violence is by no means a new idea. William Hogarth’ s drawing of life in “Gin Alley” presents a striking visual image of the ills of alcohol: an intoxicated woman who neglectfully allows her small infant to fall from her arms. Temperance tracts in the 1830s and 1840s promulgated the view that alcohol, even in somewhat moderate doses, resulted in neglect of the basic needs of the family. Expenditures of family resources on alcohol rather than food and clothing and unusually cruel violence directed at children and spouse were repeatedly discussed. In 1832, for example, the Fifth Report of the American Temperance Society devoted several pages to instances where a father, while intoxicated, had murdered his wife or children:

In the State of New York alone, in the course of a few weeks, not less than four men, under the influence of ardent spirits, murdered their wives, and with their own hands made their children orphans.... One of these men put to death not only his wife, but six of his children. (American Temperance Society Documents, 1972)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute on Alcoholism, Buffalo, NY, 14203, USA

    Kenneth E. Leonard

  2. Division of Child Development and Family Relations, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

    Theodore Jacob

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  1. Kenneth E. Leonard
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  2. Theodore Jacob
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of California Irvine Medical Center, Orange, California, USA

    Vincent B. Van Hasselt

  2. Medical College of Pennsylvania at the EPPI, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Randall L. Morrison  & Alan S. Bellack  & 

  3. Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Michel Hersen

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Leonard, K.E., Jacob, T. (1988). Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Family Violence. In: Van Hasselt, V.B., Morrison, R.L., Bellack, A.S., Hersen, M. (eds) Handbook of Family Violence. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5360-8_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5360-8_16

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