[The problem of juvenile alcoholism. An analysis of the literature (author's transl)].

In contrast to drug addiction juvenile alcoholism now also common in West Germany, has hardly been investigated. This is meant to be an analysis of the literature, based mainly paper on German and American writings which the author tries to link to his own experience. The older papers from around the turn of the century are particularly evaluated. Essentially the following may be said: Transition between the use, misuse and dependence on alcohol is fluid, particularly in juvenile alcoholism. In our type of Society drinking in adolescence is part of an anticipatory socialization process and so a normal transitional phenomenon. More attention has lately been paid to influences arising in the primary group (family and peers). Girls tent to accept the traditions of the family more readily and follow in alcohol consumption more their mothers than their fathers. The epidemiologic papers published in German on drug addiction of juveniles can hardly be compared with each other, even if they take account of alcohol consumption. Individual control investigations on comparable populations during the last few years show an increase of excessive alcohol intake particularly among the young. In West Germany there are no reliable statistics on alcoholism in adults, even less in juveniles. The methodic difficulties in assessing prevalence of juvenile alcoholism are specific, but they mirror the general difficulties of definition in research into alcoholism. Clinical experience suggests that alcoholism runs a different course in juveniles--and in women--from that seen in adult men. Literature on juvenile alcoholism is sparse compared with that on drug addiction. The question of a correlation between primary alcoholism and drug-addiction - the role of alcohol as initiator to drugs - cannot be defined in general, only in individual terms. In drug addicts alcohol had and has the function of an addition to/or replecement for drugs. The alcohol problem started under the cover of drug addiction but without the preceding wave of drugs it would not have reached the present level...