Motivation for Drinkers and Treatment Outcome: A Study of Personal and Nonpersonal Effects Drinkers

Abstract

Personal effects drinkers seem more likely than nonpersonal effects drinkers to benefit from an alcoholism treatment program emphasizing abstinence and self-actualization.

Why people drink alcoholic beverages has long fascinated students of human behavior. While social scientists have paid very little attention to the motivational factors involved in most of the typical activities of people, drinking, while rather typical itself, has usually been viewed as an activity requiring some sort of motivational understanding. More often than not, it is presupposed that there is usually something better or more useful for people to be doing than drinking. Therefore, in order to understand the phenomenon of drinking, it is believed that we must account for the motivational factors involved. While much of what people ordinarily do is not open to question, why people drink alcoholic beverages appears to be unquestionably questionable.