Life events in the biography of French male and female alcoholics.

The fundamental research techniques used for stressful life events (i.e. questionnaires about main life events and rating of their consequences) were applied to study the biographies of 119 male and female alcoholics. Findings were compared with those of 60 non-alcoholics. The alcoholic sample was heterogenous with regard to age, sex and social and cultural level as well as with regard to the troubles induced by alcohol intake. However, despite the disparity, great homogeneity was seen in the representation of the biography of alcoholics. Most alcoholics attach great importance to events occurring during the first year of alcohol dependence (which seems to be rich in events, particularly negative ones) and alcoholism is the determinant factor in their weighting of events.