Alcohol abuse results in a variety of problems including employment difficulties and family problems. This study integrates a family systems model of alcoholism with a family crisis model for recovery to study spouses of alcoholics and their perceptions of family stress, coping styles, and quality of marriage. Participants (N=60) were husbands or…

Although alcoholism is increasingly recognized as a family disease, most research looks solely at the alcoholic, or occasionally at the alcoholic's spouse. However, there are a multitude of potential studies regarding the alcoholic family system, parent-child communication, marital communication, and sibling communication in the alcoholic home. To…

This study assessed the effectiveness of a brief group treatment program aimed at ameliorating some of the psychological reactions commonly seen in wives of alcoholics. The goals of the 8 week treatment program were: (1) to help wives identify their counterproductive attempts to cope with the alcoholism; (2) to develop constructive coping…

The main outcomes of the Prague (Czechoslovakia) longitudinal studies following over 1,000 children for almost 30 years are summarized. The children were either born from unwanted pregnancies, with alcoholic fathers, born out-of-wedlock, or in divorced families. A theory of psychological subdeprivation is offered and applied to children with…

Discusses research into parental alcoholism as the cause of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Reports that a study examined the family history of children in 18 schools in the Soviet Union. Concludes that intellectual deficiencies can be traced to various genetic and environmental factors. Calls for early intervention to prevent intellectual…