Alcohol Abuse and the Elderly: Social Control and Conformity

Abstract

Alcohol use and abuse by aging, or aged, persons has been frequently overlooked in both gerontological literature and alcohol literature. The purpose of this paper is to briefly review some of the demographics of aging in the United States, some of the demographics of alcohol abuse in the United States, and, primarily, to offer a specific theoretical approach from the sociology of deviance literature toward understanding aging and alcohol abuse.