Bøker av Nick Heather

Originally published in 1981 and revised in 1983, Controlled Drinking was the first scholarly review of the literature on a controversial but increasingly practiced approach to the treatment of alcoholism. Nick Heather and Ian Robertson analyse all the pertinent questions that controlled drinking raises, starting with the need to examine the 'disease conception' of alcoholism and 'total abstinence' treatment. They look at the evidence indicating that some people, previously diagnosed as alcoholics, are able to return to normal, controlled patterns of drinking, and discuss therapies where controlled drinking is the treatment goal, fully reviewing the evidence for their success and failure. Concluding with a discussion of the theoretical and policy implications of controlled drinking, the authors recommend that the disease view of alcoholism be finally abandoned.For the revised paperback edition, as well as correcting and updating the text and references, the authors included an important postscript on the charges of falsification of evidence and their subsequent refutation which made up the Sobell affair. The wealth of other material presented in Controlled Drinking supports the authors' conclusions even if the Sobells' work were ignored. However, this revised edition was made more useful for student and professional readers by the postscript's discussion of the controversy surrounding the most widely known and quoted controlled drinking trial at the time.

In the 1980s the study of alcoholism was in a period of rapid change, this book, originally published in 1985, identifies and explores the three most controversial contemporary issues. The authors broadly reject the disease concept of alcoholism, but, as this volume shows, there is still scope for vigorous debate.

This handbook bridges the many disciplines involved in the research, treatment, and prevention of alcoholism and reviews the current knowledge over the whole field of alcohol studies. It also addresses the basic mechanisms of alcohol's effects on human physiology and behaviour.