Publication (142 pages).

Similar Social Problems
The complex nature of hoarding as a social problem mirrors
several other behaviours in society that have debated. Alcohol
use is a social problem that has had several different claimants
advocating multiple claims. Similar to hoarding, it has been
considered within frames of medicalization and morality, and
has had advocates from unaffiliated individuals to organized
groups to state bodies, being both morally regulated and legally
regulated through legislation. Most importantly, the
problem has shifted stances various times, indicating the complexity
of the behaviour.Alcohol consumption is an interesting
social problem that has been debated over the past 150 years
(Valverde 1998). Alcohol has had many claims and claimants,
all coming into and going out of style at certain points in time.
One of the first major claims against alcohol was by The Woman’s
Christian Temperance, a group of individuals who grew
nationwide in America. They worked in the 1920’s to invoke
prohibition of alcohol. It was their belief that men were needed
for work to support suffering families and alcohol caused
them to spend their evenings drinking in a bar, thus neglecting
their work and causing money problems. This claim was a
moral claim: a group of claimants determined the behaviour
to be distasteful to society, and worked to have that morality
spread through society. In this case, moral regulation came
through legislation as prohibition was enacted. This did not last
forever of course, as prohibition was revoked slowly yet surely
throughout North America. Yet alcohol was still considered a
problem in certain spaces and for certain people. This caused a
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