Abstract
One reason to believe alcoholism is a real disease—as real as a houseboat or rose bush or double pneumonia—is that it has a natural history. Houseboats have a natural history. Say “houseboat” to someone and he’ll probably have a pretty fair idea what it’s made of and what will eventually happen to it. A rose has a natural history. A rose is a rose is a rose because it stays a rose. It doesn’t change into a chrysanthemum. If it does change into a chrysanthemum, it was an unusual rose. It may not have been a rose. It may have been a chrysanthemum that looked like a rose.
The follow-up is the great exposer of truth, the rock on which fine theories are wrecked and upon which better ones can be built. It is to the psychiatrist what the post-mortem is to the physician.
—P.D. Scott
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© 1984 Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing
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Goodwin, D.W. (1984). A Paean to the Follow-up. In: Goodwin, D.W., Van Dusen, K.T., Mednick, S.A. (eds) Longitudinal Research in Alcoholism. Longitudinal Research in the Behavioral, Social and Medical Sciences, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5644-5_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5644-5_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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