Perspectives on Person-Environment Interaction and Drug-Taking Behavior

Perspectives on Person-Environment Interaction and Drug-Taking Behavior is a comprehensive review of the interactionist approach to drug use from both a theoretical and applied perspective. This highly important volume offers a timely depiction of the complex multidimensional relationships involving the person, the environment, the drugs used, and the biological processes involved in drug-taking behavior. As drug-taking has escalated in the U. S., research has evolved to permit identification of different sets of attributes that may be associated with different patterns of drug-taking behavior. This valuable contribution to the literature on substance abuse explores how this multidimensionality allows us to identify specific interactions including one’s motive for taking drugs, choice of drug(s), selected personality characteristics and social factors, such as peer influence and the availability of drugs. Discussions include a review of recent developments concerning the interactionist approach--areas of weakness and suggestions for strengthening, an examination of the theoretical basis of the relationship between social sanctions and drug-taking behavior, with special emphasis on the methodological issues involved in such research, a description of the extent to which different aspects of the environment contribute to initiation into drug-taking behavior, a review of the history and theoretical background of the interactionist position, and a critique of the disease concept of alcoholism from a person-environment perspective.