With the recent increase in the scope of drug and alcohol problems has
come an awareness of the need for solutions. In this context, federal
support for research on drug problems increased tremendously during the
last 10 to 15 years with the establishment of the National Institute on
Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
Alcoholism (NIAAA). Funding from these and other sources has led to a
substantial increase in the quantity and quality ofpublished work
related to substance abuse. As data accumulate, it is becoming more
apparent that substance abuse problems are extremely complex and are
influenced by a variety ofbiological psychological, and environmental
variables. Un- fortunately it has proved difficult to go beyond this
conclusion to a de- scription of how these multiple factors work
tagether to influence the development of, and recovery from, drug and
alcohol dependence. The purpose of this book is to try to meet that
objective by including, in one volume, Iiterature reviews and
theoretical analyses from a wide variety of drug researchers. We chose
the authors in an attempt to assure that each of the various Ievels of
analysis appropriate to the substance abuse problems would be included.
In each case, the author was asked to consider how the variables in is
or her particular domain might con- tribute to the appearance of
individual differences in both alcohol and drug problems.