Stoned, Drunk, or Sober?: Understanding Alcohol and Drug Use Through Qualitative, Quantitative, and Longitudinal Research

In 1970, sociologist Jeremiah Lowney began researching a group of surfers called the "Wall Gang" in a small community of drug and alcohol users on Golden Beach in San Diego, California. Stoned, Drunk, or Sober? is the culmination of Lowney's thirty-eight years of intensive non-participant observation of seventy-two surfers. This book offers a rare look at various qualitative techniques employed to understand alcohol and drug use. Lowney utilizes basic quantitative statistical data to complement and verify the qualitative findings, thereby providing a deeper understanding than if only one or the other had been used. Because it spans so many years, Lowney's longitudinal research offers readers an opportunity to fully grasp the various factors that contribute to substance abuse, the various paths used to overcome the severe consequences of addiction, and the histories of those who did not use drugs, those who did, and those who are now "free and sober."

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 1. Introduction Chapter 2 2. Drunkenness, Problem Drinking, and Alcoholism Chapter 3 3. An Ethnography of Drug Use in a Juvenile Residential Treatment Center Chapter 4 4. Origins of the Research and the Wall Gang Chapter 5 5. Details of Methodology: "How Can We Accept What You Say?" Chapter 6 6. Everyday Life in the Golden Beach Drug Subculture: 1975-76 Chapter 7 7. Complementary Results of Qualitative and Quantitative Data Chapter 8 8. Longitudinal Research Through the Years Chapter 9 Appendix A Chapter 10 Appendix B Chapter 11 Index

About the Author :
Jeremiah Lowney is professor of sociology at Carroll College.

Review :
Lowney's research encourages us all to dig deeper when it comes to interpreting the outcomes of statistical surveys. The qualitative methods explored by Lowney's research help us learn the meaning of the data from the offender's own…point of view and make this volume a "must read" for students of qualitative methodology, as well as those studying the nature and causes of alcoholism and drug addition. This remarkable book brings up to date Fr. Jeremiah Lowney's chronicle of the lives of a group of drug and alcohol abusers who he first encountered and befriended on the beaches of Southern California 38 years ago. For the social scientist Lowney…demonstrated the skillful melding of qualitative and quantitative methods in longitudinal research as well as the varied long-range impact of early drug use on later life experiences. For the general reader the book provides some readable and fascinating human life stories. All readers will agree that it was written by a remarkable, skillful, and dedicated man.