Bout and Continuous Drinking in Alcoholism

Summary 100 alcoholics were classified according to their drinking patterns, sex, social class, and preferred alcoholic beverage. The continuous form of drinking (delta alcoholism) predominated in male patients, and the bout variety (gamma alcoholism) in females; as male subjects were more numerous the continuous pattern was the most frequent in the series. The types of alcohol beverage consumed did not affect the relative incidence of drinking patterns, but in males continuous drinking was significantly more common in subjects from social classes I and II (professional and managerial occupations), while patients from these social strata were also more liable to drink spirits. It is suggested that the ambiguous phrase “loss of control” has prevented full recognition of the common occurrence of the continuous form of drinking among United Kingdom alcoholics. The high relative frequency of this pattern, in which marked intoxication is generally avoided, helps to explain some of the difficulties of case finding in alcoholism, as well as the ability of certain alcoholics to drive after heavy drinking without an invariable gross impairment of performance. Thirty per cent of the patients (63 per cent of females) usually drank wine preparations that, whether fortified or not, were commonly inexpensive.