Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention: Defining the Need in Organizations

This paper outlines initial interventions to prevent drug and alcohol abuse in organizations. Grounded in sociological theory, the first intervention is to define the nature of the problem through data gathering and analysis, particularly self-reports of drug and alcohol use by the organization's members. The self-report data, when compared with national data, provide a base of information from which direct interventions can be designed. Student, faculty, administration, and staff survey results from a university and their applications are reported as a case study. Interventions which center on peer prevention are briefly discussed. Self-report survey data of drug and alcohol abuse define the problem and the types of interventions that are likely to be successful. Guided by theory, sociological practitioners can take a leadership role in identifying and intervening with drug and alcohol abuse within communities (Watts, 1989; Watts and Wright, 1990), professions (Watts and Short, 1990), and social organizations. Sociological theory provides a rich conceptual base for analyzing and intervening with problem behaviors, such as drug and alcohol *A previous version of this paper was presented to the XIIth World Congress of Sociology, Madrid,