Control, confront or collude: how family and society respond to excessive drinking

Research on excessive drinking in the family context has revealed the range of ways of coping used by close relatives. Case material from ongoing research in England and Mexico is used to illustrate this point. This research is also revealing the ways in which the family, close and extended, often fail to support the coping actions of close relatives. The analogy is drawn between coping with excessive drinking in the family and coping in the work setting. In the latter context explicit alcohol policies have been developed. These often recommend combining confrontative and supportive coping. It may be difficult for relatives, in the family setting, to adopt such a policy without support. The forms of coping identified in family research and in work policies correspond to basic and universal dimensions of interpersonal behaviour: dominance-submissiveness and friendliness-hostility. These forms of responding to excessive drinking may be identified beyond the microsocial systems of family and workplace. They are evident, also, in the responses of community agents such as police and social workers, and at the level of local and national government.