Alcoholics Anonymous and the family: a systemic perspective

This paper is an attempt to utilize a cybernetic paradigm for understanding addictive drinking by those individuals defined as alcoholics. Their behavior is anomalous because it is so self-destructive and concurrently often produces a dysphoria that exacerbates the experiential state that is said to be its cause. A cybernetic perspective is illustrated by a description of two social systems: alcoholics and their families, and as members of Alcoholics Anonymous. For some alcoholics, alcoholism can be perceived as the "solution" to the paradoxical psychosocial context within which they find themselves, to which their addictive drinking is an adaptive response, and Alcoholics Anonymous a better "solution."