Rock Bottom on the Rocks: An Analysis of the Disease Model of Alcoholism and its Relationship to Women with Substance Use Disorders after World War II

After World War II, alcoholism had a gendered image that harbored masculine connotations. Since the identity of the alcoholic was associated with these stereotypes in the 1950s, treatment opportunities, diagnosis requirements, and cultural conversations about alcoholism were typically related to men. Previous secondary research has analyzed the consequences that the gendered perceptions of alcoholism have on women with substance use disorders. The result of this has uncovered the privatized addiction habits that many women harbored throughout the Post-War Era. This thesis analyzes the use of the disease model and its attempt to neutralize the social stigmas surrounding alcoholism. While this attempt had positive intentions, this paper will go to show that the medicalization of alcoholism did not absolve women from socio-cultural stereotypes. In order to prove this stance, interdisciplinary sources like medical literature, historical data, and popular forms of cultural media are connected together to construct the narrative of the alcoholic women.