[Critical life events as risk factors for alcoholism].

There is some evidence for a relation between critical life-events and the excessive drinking of alcoholics; the present study fits well into the approach of life-event-research assuming an aggregation of life-events and difficulties to elicit or cause excessive drinking. In all 25 men who were in danger of becoming excessive drinkers and 29 who were not--all between 18 and 24 years of age--were asked for their life-events and difficulties within the past 5 years. The LES by G. Brown was used for assessment. The results showed clear evidence for the basic hypothesis of life-event-research; to account for this a 'model of an addictive threshold' is proposed. A qualitative analysis of the experienced difficulties and the way of coping throw some light on the nonspecificity of critical life-events within the stress model.