The purpose of the proposed research project is to investigate the extent to which identifiable socio-cultural pressures, race/sex-role identities, and self-concepts are major contributive factors to alcoholism among African-American women. The specific objectives of the proposed research are: 1.) To explore the nature of the self-concepts of African-American women alcoholics. 2.) To examine the internalized pejorative stereotypes and imagery of African-American womanhood among research subjects. 3.) To assess the socio-cultural entities that impact on African-american women alcoholics. 4.) To assess how the research subjects' treatment program specifically relates to their socio-cultural realities. 5.) To determine if there are specialized recovery patterns and processes of African-American women alcoholics relative to their interpersonal relationships in their families, workplaces, and communities. 6.) To produce case studies of African-American women alcoholics. This project will yield valuable qualitative data about the patterns, processes, and life realities of African-American women alcoholics based on their own self-defined, self-explicated experiences and race/gender acculturation. These data will have significant implications for the progressive development of preventative programs and services directed at African-American women populations as well as in the development of more effective treatment approaches. these data also will serve to promote relevant theoretical frameworks that could be used in the development of new social policies on alcoholism. The research setting will be the Sycamore Center, an outpatient treatment program and prevention/education services complex located in Greensboro, North Carolina.
