Diseasing of America - 6. What Is Addiction, and How Do People Get It? - Diseasing of America - Notes

Written by Stanton Peele

Notes

1. H. Kalant, "Drug research is muddied by sundry dependence concepts" (Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, June 1982; described in Journal of the Addiction Research Foundation, September 1982, 12).
2. D. Anderson, "Hunter on the hunted," New York Times, 27 October 1988, D27.
3. I summarize and reference the host of data on overlapping addictions in The Meaning of Addiction. Some popular (but neither theoretically nor empirically grounded) biological theories try to explain all these addictions through the agency of endorphins (opiatelike chemicals produced by the body). For example, perhaps an endorphin deficiency causes the addict to seek pain relief from a range of addictions. This model will not explain why a person would both drink and gamble addictively, or drink and smoke—since nicotine is not an analgesic and does not affect the endorphin system. Indeed, even analgesic or depressant drugs operate through totally different routes in the body, so that one biochemical mechanism can never account for addicts' interchangeable or indiscriminate use of alcohol, barbiturates, and narcotics. In Kalant's words, "How do you explain in pharmacological terms that cross-tolerance occurs between alcohol, which does not have specific receptors, and opiates, which do?"
4. N. B. Eddy, "The search for a non-addicting analgesic," in Narcotic Drug Addiction Problems, ed. R. B. Livingston (Public Health Service, 1958).
5. H. B. McNamee, N. K. Mello, and J. H. Mendelson, "Experimental analysis of drinking patterns of alcoholics," American Journal of Psychiatry 124(1968):1063-69; P. E. Nathan and J. S. O'Brien, "An experimental analysis of the behavior of alcoholics and nonalcoholics during prolonged experimental drinking," Behavior Therapy 2(1971):455-76.
6. T. E. Dielman, "Gambling: A social problem," Journal of Social Issues 35(1979):36-42.
7. L. N. Robins, J. E. Helzer, M. Hesselbrock, and E. Wish, "Vietnam veterans three years after Vietnam: How our study changed our view of heroin," in The Yearbook of Substance Use and Abuse, vol. 2, eds. L. Brill and C. Winick (Human Sciences Press, 1980).
8. R. R. Clayton, "Cocaine use in the United States: In a blizzard or just being snowed?" in Cocaine Use in America, eds. N. J. Kozel and E. H. Adams (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1985).
9. R. Jessor and S. L. Jessor, Problem Behavior and Psychosocial Development (Academic Press, 1977).
10. J. Istvan and J. D. Matarazzo, "Tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine use: A review of their interrelationships," Psychological Bulletin 95(1984):301-26.
11. O. J. Kalant and H. Kalant, "Death in amphetamine users," in Research Advances in Alcohol and Drug Problems, vol. 3, eds. R. J. Gibbins et al. (Wiley, 1976).
12. H. Walker, "Drunk drivers hazardous sober too," Journal (Ontario Addiction Research Foundation), March 1986, 2.
13. M. K. Bradstock et al., "Drinking-driving and health lifestyle in the United States," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 48(1987):147-52.
14. Associated Press release, "Lions' Rogers out to prove himself," 31 July 1988.
15. R. Ourlian, "Obituaries," Detroit News, 23 October 1988, 7B.
16. C. MacAndrew, "What the MAC Scale tells us about men alcoholics," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 42(1981):617.
17. H. Hoffman, R. G. Loper, and M. L. Kammeier, "Identifying future alcoholics with MMPI alcoholism scores," Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 35(1974):490-98; M. C. Jones, "Personality correlates and antecedents of drinking patterns in adult males," Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 32 (1968):2-12; R. G. Loper, M. L. Kammeier, and H. Hoffman, "MMPI characteristics of college freshman males who later become alcoholics," Journal of Abnormal Psychology 82 (1973):159-62; C. MacAndrew, "Toward the psychometric detection of substance misuse in young men," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 47(1986):161-66.
18. C. MacAndrew, "Similarities in the self-depictions of female alcoholics and psychiatric outpatients," Journal of Studies on Alcohol 47(1986):478-84.
19. G. A. Marlatt, "Alcohol, the magic elixir," in Stress and Addiction, eds. E. Gottheil et al. (Brunner/Mazel, 1987); D. J. Rohsenow, "Alcoholics' perceptions of control," in Identifying and Measuring Alcoholic Personality Characteristics, ed. W. M. Cox Jossey-Bass, 1983).
20. K. J. Hart and T. H. Ollendick, "Prevalence of bulimia in working and university women," American Journal of Psychiatry 142(1985):851-54.
21. E. R. Oetting and F. Beauvais, "Common elements in youth drug abuse: Peer clusters and other psychosocial factors," in Visions of Addiction, ed. S. Peele (Lexington Books, 1987).
22. J. P. Pierce et al., "Trends in cigarette smoking in the United States," Journal of the American Medical Association 261(1989):56-60.
23. R. K. Siegel, "Changing patterns of cocaine use," in Cocaine: Pharmacology, Effects, and Treatment of Abuse, ed. J. Grabowski (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1984).
24. P. Erickson et al., The Steel Drug: Cocaine in Perspective (Lexington Books, 1987).
25. L. D. Johnston, P. M. O'Malley, and J. G. Bachman, Drug Use Among American High School Students, College Students, and Other Young Adults: National Trends Through 1985 (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1986).
26. C. E. Johanson and E. H. Uhlenhuth, "Drug preference and mood in humans: Repeated assessment of d-amphetamine," Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior 14(1981):159-63.
27. J. L. Falk, "Drug dependence: Myth or motive?" Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior 19(1983):388.
28. P. Kerr, "Rich vs. poor: Drug patterns are diverging," New York Times, 30 August 1987, 1, 28.
29. Most information in this box is from B. Woodward, Wired: The Short Life & Fast Times of John Belushi (Pocket Books, 1984), although any interpretations are my own.
30. S. Cohen, "Reinforcement and rapid delivery systems: Understanding adverse consequences of cocaine," in Cocaine Use in America, eds. N. J. Kozel and E. H. Adams (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1985), 151, 153.
31. S. W. Sadava, "Interactional theory," in Psychological Theories of Drinking and Alcoholism, eds. H. T. Blane and K. E. Leonard (Guilford Press, 1987), 124.
32. D. B. Kandel, "Marijuana users in young adulthood," Archives of General Psychiatry 41(1984):200-209.
33. Robins et al., "Vietnam veterans," 222-23.
34. C. MacAndrew and R. B. Edgerton, Drunken Comportment: A Social Explanation (Aldine, 1969).
35. P. E. Nathan and B. S. McCrady, "Bases for the use of abstinence as a goal in the behavioral treatment of alcohol abusers," Drugs & Society 1(1987):121.
36. G. A. Marlatt, B. Demming, and J. B. Reid, "Loss of control drinking in alcoholics: An experimental analogue," Journal of Abnormal Psychology 81(1973):223-41.
37. C. Winick, "Maturing out of narcotic addiction," Social Problems 14(1962):6.
38. Robins et al., "Vietnam veterans," 230.
39. Robins et al., "Vietnam veterans," 221.

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