Jellinek Species Alcoholism

Jellinek, the bio statistician,

also talked about

Species of Alcoholism. He

listed five. Strangely, not all

of these are considered to be

a disease. Some he considered

more psychological in nature.

Alpha Alcoholism represents a psychological dependence on alcohol. There is no loss of control and the person can abstain whenever they want. The most noticeable sign is that if anything goes wrong, the Alpha alcoholic will start looking for a bottle. To many, this is called problem drinking.

Beta Alcoholism is where you aren't dependent on alcohol but, you have medical problems created by it. This usually happens to people who live where there is lots of alcohol and very poor nutrition. Hundreds of years ago alcohol aboard a ship would have been plentiful but, nutrition would have been terrible. These sailors would have been Beta Alcoholics.

Gamma Alcoholism is distinguished by cellular changes, an increase in tolerance, and withdrawal when alcohol isn't consumed. There's physical and psychological dependence. This is the alcoholism that goes through the four phases listed on the phases of alcoholism page. This is the type that AA talks about.

Delta Alcoholism has both physical and psychological dependence. There is no loss of control once they start drinking but, they need to drink everyday of withdrawal sets in. Some of my oldest friends are like this.

Epsilon Alcoholism is the binge drinker. It wasn't studied in detail but, Jellinek believed it wasn't just the relapse of the GammaAlcoholic. I'm this kind of drunk.   

Raging Alcoholic