Self-change from alcohol and drug abuse: Often-cited classics

Abstract

As maintained by Toulmin (1961), a certain event or condition can appear as a phenomenon-something that is problematic and needs explaining-only against the background of some inferred state of natural order. This proposition is worth bearing in mind when revisiting and trying to summarize the key findings and major implications of some of the studies that have historically been most often cited in the debate over the existence, incidence, and character of self-change in addictive behaviors. Admittedly, the selection of studies for the following brief review has been, by necessity, somewhat arbitrary. Nonetheless, it is evident that the vast majority of what may be termed the classics in this field originated in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. To some extent, this may be explained by the dominance, in a global perspective, of U.S. alcohol and drug research at the time. © 2007 Springer-Verlag US.