Alcohol Consumption
Whun Oh
Abnormal Psychology
Professor Brown
March 6, 2008
Drinking
Summary
Caroline Knapp tells her own tale of alcoholism in her book “Drinking: A Love Story.” Chronology is constantly rearranged in this book, as she tells her story in episodes, and at times, from different stages of her alcoholism. The book is largely centered on her relationships with people, mostly with her family, and particularly with her two polar boyfriends, Mark and Julian. The reader is able to grasp the extent of how the alcohol is affecting her from the picture she paints with her interaction between people while inebriated. Notably, her vivid descriptions of the mental impulses that strike her during a path to drunkenness facilitate the understanding of why she drinks. The book is interspersed with statistics related to alcohol in the United States, and she also goes into great detail about alcoholics anonymous in explaining her road to recovery. Ultimately, she is effective at illustrating the disorder of alcoholism because of the amount of detail she includes in everything from the first drink to the last.
Diagnosis
Etiology and Treatment
Caroline never generalizes the causes for alcoholism, but she does go into great detail about her path to alcoholism. Rather than focusing on the reasons, she explains more about the process of getting into it. In her case, it was the stale nature of her household, where the sheer, emotionless state of her parenthood caused her to be uncomfortable in social situations. In an attempt to become a more sociable person, she professes to have learned the level of social ease that alcohol brings. Realizing that she became less shy and less timid in her interactions with people after consuming alcohol, it became a social habit. Following the social ramifications of the habit, it eventually became a necessity. Also, she mentions that ubiquity of alcohol, as well the...
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