The Gerontology Alcohol Project, a treatment/research program investigating the characteristics of the late-life onset elderly alcohol abuser, was used as a model for a new program which emphasized teaching the elderly abusers how to break down their personal drinking behavior chain and deal with the antecedents of drinking behavior, to use…

Two types of elderly alcohol abusers are described. Early onset or long-term alcohol abusers are abusers with long-standing behavioral problems considered well known to the social service delivery system. Late-life onset elderly alcohol abusers are those whose drinking problems began in the later years, after age 50, often in response to stresses…

Alcohol studies, like most psychological studies, have traditionally focused on males. Several psychosocial theories have been used to explain male alcoholism, including dependency, the power drive, and sex role theory. This latter stance may provide a theoretical framework for the etiology of drinking which will apply to both sexes; however,…

Alcoholism is frequently called a family disease; encouraging and even insisting that family members participate in the treatment of alcoholics has become routine practice in almost every treatment setting. This study examined the relationship between treatment participation by a family member and two measures of recovery for three birth cohorts…

"Going home again," a financially secure return to the homeland in old age, is easily accomplished by, and constitutes an economically efficient strategy for, urban American Indian elders if they have maintained their ethnic identity. Emphasis on ethnicity varies with life stage: full immersion in early life, eclipsed ethnicity in middle…