Women and Alcohol in Social Context

"The place of drinking in women's lives is explored by contrasting the lives of thirty professional women with those of thirty non-professional women. This demonstrates that social advantage provides increased access to the enjoyments associated with alcohol use but is not necessarily a protection against the risks. Different employment and social contact patterns are reflected in drinking styles. Drinking to 'drown sorrows' may be a folk idea but there is some truth in it, as some women try to cope with profound feelings of having failed as women, either as partners or as mothers. Two case-studies of women with identified drinking problems continue this theme of drinking as a constructive response to their differing social and material situations."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Self-Help, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.