The author reports a prospective study of the mental health and alcohol
use of 184 men first studied during their college years. When the men were
50 years old a rater blind to all other data classified the subjects'
alcohol use as little (N = 48), social (N = 110), or abuse (N = 26). The
warmth of the men's childhood environment and their personality stability
in college were assessed by other raters blind to data on subjects' lives
after college. Vignettes identifying "oral" adult behavior (pessimism,
self-doubt, passivity, and dependence) were collected for each man by a
rater blind to subjects' alcohol use and childhood ratings. Poor childhood,
personality instability in college, and adult evidence of personality
disorder were correlated with oral- dependent behavior but not with alcohol
abuse. The 26 problem drinkers seem to have been depressed and unable to
cope as a consequence--not a cause--of their inability to control their
alcohol consumption.
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