Recent developments in alcoholism:family systems.

Over the past decade, research on alcohol and family systems has made notable advances, as reflected by major publications. Concepts elucidated in these writings encompass issues of (1) risk and vulnerability (resiliency, vulnerability, at-risk groups, mediating moderating risk factors, multifactorial determinants, and predisposing and precipitating factors); (2) family process (regulatory mechanisms, homeostasis, morphogenesis, systemic maturation, developmental distortion, family rituals, family identity, and deliberateness); (3) drinking context (sobriety-intoxication cycle, steady-episodic drinking, and alcohol expectancies); (4) alcohol controls (coercive controls, informal drinking controls, and formal controls); and (5) family response to alcoholism (codependence, denial, and definitional careers). In the following review of some of the major contributions to this research tradition, we pay particular attention to how alcohol researchers have refined many of these concepts in light of new empirical data.