r all adults, "10% of drinkers consume 50% of the total alcohol consumed" (p. 173). Considering that 35 percent of adults in the United States abstain from alcohol consumption, thus, 6.5 percent of American adults consume 50 percent of all alcohol consumed, and most such individuals are males in the 21-34 age group.
Alcohol is the most widely abuse chemical substance (Sandahl & Ronnberg, 1990, pp. 453-476). The causes of the abuse of controlled substances have been classified into four principal categories of theories (Kaplan & Sadock, 1993, pp. 544-547). These four categories of theory are as follows: learning theories, which hold that individuals learn to use chemical substances as a means of coping--a use which eventually becomes an addiction; physiological theories, which variously hold that nutritional deficiencies and genetics lead to chemical substance abuse; psychoanalytic theories, which variously hold that childhood experiences, self destructive drives, feelings of inferiority and insecurity, and locus of control orientations lead to chemical substance abuse; and sociological theories, which hold that societal conditions lead some individuals into chemical substance abuse (Jenkins, 1990, pp. 331-336). All of these theories have some degree of validity. Some of the theories apply to some individuals in some circumstances, while they do not apply to other individuals or even to the same individuals in other circumstances (Pardeck, 1991, pp. 341-347). Further, a multiplicity of causes is required to explain the development of alcoholism by some individuals (Engs, 1990, pp. 452-547).
The essential feature of Psychoactive Substance Dependence is an indication that a "person has impaired control of psychoactive substance use and continues use of the substance despite adverse consequences" (American Psychiatric Association, 1994, p. 166). Substance dependence is "conceptualized as having different degrees of severity . . ...