Publication (142 pages).

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medicalization of the act of drinking alcohol, known as ‘alcoholism’.
This term was intended to highlight alcohol’s addictive
nature and the detrimental effects it can cause. Alcoholism later
found its way into the DSM-IV, solidifying its description
as a disease (Valverde 1998); however current editions of the
DSM do not list alcoholism, indicating the constantly shifting
positions on the behaviour. Today support groups exist such
as “Alcoholics Anonymous” for those whose drinking may appear
to interfere with their life. There do currently existcertain
laws; although prohibition is long gone, legislation dictates
drinking age and distribution, and has written consequences
for those driving under the influence or caught selling to
a minor. Moral claimants may have advocated these types of
regulations, but they have manifested into a state regulation.
An interesting perspective on alcoholism is its designation as a
‘disease of the will’. Mariana Valverde’s analysis draws attention
to the way that society’s attention to alcohol is really an extension
of an obsession with ‘free will’ (Valverde 1998). Individual
freedom has been a facet of every debate on alcohol and is
often tied up in the counter-claims that individuals provide.
Questions of addictions tend to be tied up in personal freedom
and self-control with moral regulation determining the boundaries
on those acts. By drawing attention to ideas of freedom,
Valverde demonstrates the way in which socially determined
problems interfere with individual will. The complexity of
alcohol consumption serves as an example of social problem
construction in much of the literature. It highlights the ways
in which socially determined problems are constantly shifting
between claims and claimants, and are always being reinvented.
The complexity of alcohol as a social problem mirrors that of
hoarding behaviour: both have been medicalized at some point,
have moral advocates, are regulated in some ways by law, and
deal with free will. The history of alcohol as a social problem
gives insight into the ways hoarding may change according to
the claims and claimants that are current in the social problems
sphere.Hoarding is a behaviour that describes the accumulation
and inability to discard material goods; however its presence in
society is multi-faceted and complex. Hoarding has been constructed
into a social problem by medical and moral advocates
who claim that the objective behaviours of hoarding are harmful.
Both of these constructions place blame on the individuals
who perpetrate the behaviour and recommend intervention by
medical therapists, professional organizers, and waste profes-