The current image of alcoholism is that of families devastated by violence and torn by dramatic conflicts.
The authors of this guidance book paint a very different picture and offer strong evidence that the majority of chronic alcoholics carry on their lives in intact, relatively quiet family environments. But they show that living in an alcoholic family-in which alcoholism is the central theme around which family life is organized-exerts profound effects on its members, both those who drink and those who do not, and that these effects can be extended from generation to generation, in complex ways. Based on more than ten years of intensive research, including in-depth interviews and observations at home, the authors - three psychiatrists and a cultural anthropologist - use the theory of family systems to chart the course of alcoholism development in families . They put into question many current ideas in general, and show, for example, that the alcoholic identity of a family keeps it united as often, as the disintegration, and that families in which alcoholism does not invade routines and rituals They do not tend to transmit their alcoholic identity to their children. In the last section, the authors describe a family therapy model for the treatment of alcoholism with a developmental perspective. His book is a vitally important contribution to the literature on alcoholism and the family.