People are different, authors claim and prove in great detail. Some 10 to 15% of us have a gene, which creates different enzymes within our system, which in turn make highly addictive chemicals while processing the ingested alcohol within our bodies. Human brain is uncapable to resist the craving for alcohol, caused by those chamicals, which are never produced by the bodies of non-alcoholics. Therefore, alcoholics are not more guilty of having alcoholism, as cancer patients are guilty of having cancer, or diabetics being ill with diabetis.
The only solution to the disease of alcoholism is professional, medical treatment, followed by warm and sensitive care of the family, support groups, and society. Punishment, consisting of creation of severe stress, humiliation and application of strong mental and spiritual pain won't work, only making condition worse. Much worse! Primitive and superficial psychological counseling won't work, either. Only complex, modern, professional treatment will.
Great reading for anyone affected by or interested in the disease of alcoholism. A must for judges and prosecutors, busy sending ill people into the sewer pipe of industry of "corrections"! And those few members of MADD, who REALLY want to decrease incidents of drunk driving by fighting its causes, not symptoms, by helping alcoholics to get well, not just looking for an outlet of their hate and anger, which are the most destructive and counterproductive of all human emotions.
The main point the authors make is that alcoholism is a disease that anyone who has the susceptible internal chemistry can get, be he saint or sinner, tower of strength or shriveling weakling. It doesn't make any difference. Your personality or moral fiber are irrelevant. We tend to think that alcoholics are somehow immoral or possessed of a character flaw. But, as Ketcham, et al., demonstrate here, there is only one flaw that leads to alcoholism, and that flaw is one of internal chemistry and not of character. Furthermore, despite some pollyannaish delusion to the contrary, there is only one cure and this book makes it clear exactly what that cure is.
The updated material presented here (in the main, a greater appreciation of the power of Alcoholics Anonymous, a more in-depth discussion of the relevant chemistry, an elaboration of the spiritual aspects of recovery, an incisive attack on "The Booze Merchants," a clearer inventory of how alcoholics can be diagnosed before the onset of the latter stages of the disease, and a delineation of how recovery can be achieved) make this a very superior book and for the most part a worthy update. However these additions also make Beyond the Influence less accessible than UTI, which was more direct, and was smaller and weighed less. This last may seem a minor point, but I could pocket the old book while the new one needs to go into my backpack.
Politically speaking, the authors call for greater taxes on liquor; they insist on alcohol being labeled a drug; and they allow that psychotherapy can be (providing that the counselors are educated about the true nature of alcoholism) useful in helping alcoholics recover. They do not directly call for an end to liquor advertising but given the tone of their words, I have little doubt that they would like to see that come about, and I think it might some day. The liquor industry, driven by its need to increase consumption, is increasingly aiming its ads at young people, children even, with its frogs and lizards and other cute spokespersons, and so will someday find itself in the same position that tobacco companies find themselves in today. At least one hopes so. I should add that the authors are not prohibitionists, recognizing that prohibition does not work.
Readers looking for a distinction between hard (distilled) liquor which is typically forty to fifty percent alcohol by volume and beer and wine (six and twelve percent) will not find it here. The authors insist that booze is booze, and no useful distinction can be made. I agree that for alcoholics that is exactly the case; and in fact I always worry about a person who can drink Thunderbird with the same appreciation as say a Beaulieu Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon. The truth is however, that beer and wine, regardless of how they are used by alcoholics and so-called "problem drinkers," are in a different class than distilled or fortified liquors because beer and wine are naturally appearing products of fermentation while whiskey, rye, vodka, etc., are the result of human engineering and did not exist in the environment until the rise of modern science. As such they are dangerous not only to alcoholics, but to others as well. As the authors point out, some ethnic groups are more susceptible ("sensitive") to alcohol than others. One of the probable reasons for this is that susceptible peoples have not had a long cultural history of alcohol use, at least not for as long as say the Italians and Greeks, and therefore their inherited chemistry has not had enough time to adjust.
As far as insisting on alcohol being labeled a drug goes, I think that to win such a battle would tend to lose the war since then alcohol would be conjoined with heroin, codeine, cocaine, etc., and a useful distinction would be lost. After all, the percentage of people susceptible to opiate and cocaine addiction is much greater than the ten to fifteen percent that the authors estimate are susceptible to alcohol addiction. Beyond that, the general public will reject the label, and its advocates will lose influence thereby bolstering the position of the liquor industry. Personally I don't believe that beer or table wines should to be called drugs. Wine especially is seen as a food by southern European peoples, and is an important part of a larger cuisine. I think that a careful look at consumption practices will show that drinking to get drunk or to get high can and should be distinguished from drinking as a complement to a meal. (Except for alcoholics!) At any rate, whatever labels are attached, alcohol itself is a food, containing by weight fifty percent more calories than carbohydrates with about seventy-five percent of the caloric value of fat. These are "empty calories" of course, as found in white flour and white sugar.
Anyone who drinks alcohol ought to read this book If everybody did, literately thousands of lives would be saved, and untold millions of hours of misery avoided. If you have any doubt about whether you or someone you love is or could be an alcoholic, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to READ THIS BOOK. If you are as certain as the morning sun that you are NOT an alcoholic and never could be one, then you should especially READ THIS BOOK. If you're right, you can cite chapter and verse like an expert, and if you're wrong, you'll know why and what you can do about it.