Difference in medical history classified by ICD-10 between male and female alcoholics.

The drinking history and current medical history of patients with alcohol dependence were surveyed in Japan and they were analyzed by demographics; gender, age and changes with time (2 stages).

The results showed that in the course of continued habitual drinking by patients with alcohol dependence, a wide range of physical complications occurred.

The main complications

• in men were gastrointestinal diseases and
• in women were mental and behavioral disorders, showing a gender difference in the medical history.

This result suggested that there is a high possibility that this will contribute to early discovery and early measures against alcohol related problems in women, which are difficult to bring out into the open.

Better alcohol education including mental health is important from an early age.

Nihon Arukoru Yakubutsu Igakkai Zasshi. 2008 Feb;43(1):25-34. Difference in medical history classified by ICD-10 between male and female alcoholics. Shinoda R, Mizukami Y, Nakagawa Y, Maruyama K.

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Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice by Derald Wing Sue, David Sue Read more about this title…

Although the idea of "illness" helped many early and later members of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) to understand their alcoholism, Alcoholics Anonymous neither originated nor promulgated the disease concept of alcoholism.

The main contribution of A.A. in this area was the broadening of the extant concept to one of " threefold" malady [Spiritual, mental and physical], with an emphasis on "the spiritual."

Examining the political and medical historical contexts of the time as well as A.A. literature shed light on the culture’s changing understanding of alcoholism in the second half of the twentieth century.

Given the issues and prejudices involved, it is unlikely that the question of the historical relationship between A.A. and the disease concept of alcoholism will ever be definitely resolved. But this does not mean that study of the topic is useless.

AA members have had a large role in spreading and popularizing that understanding.

The closest that AA doctrine comes to defining alcoholism is "an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer."

Research report; Kurtz, E. Alcoholics Anonymous and the disease concept of alcoholism. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 20(3-4):5-40, 2002. (170428)

Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How Many Thousands of Men and Women Have Recovered from Alcoholism