Women and alcohol: use and abuse.

National surveys of the quantity/frequency of drinking, conducted over the last half century, show that the percentage of nonabstaining women has remained at about 60%. Although male/female differences in drinking are smaller than they were a generation ago, this appears to relate primarily to drinking by young adults. Study of social attitudes toward male and female intoxication has consistently indicated more disapproval of female intoxication. Alcoholism in women has a complex etiology that includes biological factors, positive family history, difficulties in impulse control, depression, and drinking by significant others in the social environment. Male/female differences in patterns and consequences of alcoholic behavior are summarized, as are differences among alcoholic women with earlier or later onset.