Reality Of Alcoholism Essay Research Paper This

Reality Of Alcoholism Essay, Research Paper

This study will provide a critical analysis of David R. Rudy’s Becoming Alcoholic: Alcoholics Anonymous and the Reality of Alcoholism.

While Rudy’s perspective is certainly marked by an appreciation for the benefits of Alcoholics Anonymous for alcoholics who seek sobriety, he is nevertheless objective and balanced in his analysis of AA. As Rudy writes in the Notes section of his book, “Nearly half of the reviews that addressed my relationship to AA charged that I had gone ‘native’ [i.e., fallen under the spell of AA and lost scientific objectivity] while the other half argued that I have been superficial or ethnocentric [i.e., failed to deeply enough appreciate the worth of AA]. I interpret such disagreement as support that I have successfully straddled the middle of the road” (Rudy 134).

The perspective of Rudy is relatively unique in that he truly seems to seek such middle-of-the-road objectivity, in comparison to other works which seem to openly argue for or against AA as the primary avenue for recovery from alcoholism. Rudy offers the reader criticisms of AA, while at the same time making clear that there are indeed many benefits presented to alcoholics by AA, benefits which are not yet available from other sources. Rudy’s objectivity is emphasized by his honesty about his own feelings.

For example, it is an important, even crucial, element of the researcher’s effectiveness in dealing with groups that he be seen by the members of that group as at least an objective observer. If he is seen as an outsider, the members of the group will be less likely to be honest with him or to behave as they would if such a perceived outsider were not present. Rudy writes that, “Just when I felt ‘accepted’ in the field [i.e., in his field research into AA], an experience occurred that questioned my empathy skills.” Rudy was coming out of an AA meeting when he was approached by two inebriated individuals coming out of a bar nearby. One of the drunks shouted, “Hey, maybe we should try some of that AA stuff! . . . . There’s one of them now, right there.” Rudy had an experience which shows that no matter how objective he believed himself to be, no matter how much he might scientifically note the benefits of AA, no matter how much he might have been “accepted” by the actual members of the group, he was still not able to allow himself to be seen as one of the group by even these two drunken outsiders: “Before they turned and walked away, we briefly looked at each other. The words were forming on my lips, ‘But I’m not really one of them, I’m just . . .’” (Rudy 134).

This honesty about his own inherent, unavoidable, and even subconscious biases does not disqualify Rudy as a scientific observer, but rather causes the reader to be even more open to his analysis and findings, for we know that the author has faced and acknowledged his own fears and biases. Certainly Rudy’s approach and perspective are made unique by such honesty, which is not commonly found in scholarly research which too often seems to want to give the impression that it was created by a superior being or a mechanical force whose utter objectivity should never be questioned.

Such an aboveboard approach to the material is crucial in the study of alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous, due to the fact that there are a great number of areas of controversy and debate and uncertainty with respect to the definition of alcoholism itself, as well as with respect to the nature of AA as an effective means of dealing with alcoholism.

The theoretical approach of Rudy is that of symbolic interactionism: “Both the conception of deviance and social control underlying the present research as well as the theoretical underpinnings of participant observation and life histories draw heavily from a symbolic interactionist perspective. The symbolic interactionist perspective conceives humans as living in symbolic as well as physical environments, and it emphasizes that humans are stimulated to act by symbolic as well as by physical stimuli” (Rudy 119-120).

This theoretical perspective is especially useful, again, because it deals with the importance of symbols in human affairs and because AA is an organization which deals in spiritual matters, matters which are themselves more conducive to symbolic rather than concrete study.

If we briefly look at two other researchers’ perspectives, we can better appreciate the efforts of Rudy to remain in the “middle of the road” in his study of AA and alcoholism. Erich Goode, in Drugs in American Society, amazingly makes only three mentions of AA–and one of those “mentions,” listed in the index, is not even on the page the author claims. The other two mentions are included in the personal account of a recovering alcoholics That account first rejects AA, then seems to accept it as a path to sobriety, but after that it is not mentioned again (Goode 135-136). It is as if Goode refuses to recognize the organization and the spiritual path which have had more effect on bringing alcoholics into sobriety and keeping them there than any other organization or path. Every reputable alcohol and/or drug rehabilitation program in the country is deeply indebted to AA for its methods and philosophy, but Goode, writing a 320-page book on drugs in America, has only two insignificant references to AA.

Philip Flores, o