Spirits at Work in the Promised Land

Abstract

Despite the fact that ethnicity has been at the core of sociologically driven studies of alcoholism for decades, researchers examining the role of the workplace in the etiology of alcohol problems have yet to incorporate this factor into their theories. In this article, the authors investigate how the notion of ethnic identity might be infused into existing perspectives regarding the link between work-related risk factors and alcohol problems. On the basis of an examination of a theoretical sample of 58 recovering Israeli alcoholics, the findings suggest that ethnic identity may play an important role in shaping both the perception of and responses to alcohol-related workplace risk factors such as stress and alienation.