Reconstructing ‘the Alcoholic’: Recovering from Alcohol Addiction and the Stigma this Entails

Public perception of alcohol addiction is frequently negative, whilst an important part of recovery is the construction of a positive sense of self. In order to explore how this might be achieved, we investigated how those who self-identify as in recovery from alcohol problems view themselves and their difficulties with alcohol and how they make sense of others’ responses to their addiction. Semi-structured interviews with six individuals who had been in recovery between 5 and 35 years and in contact with Alcoholics Anonymous were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The participants were acutely aware of stigmatising images of ‘alcoholics’ and described having struggled with a considerable dilemma in accepting this identity themselves. However, to some extent they were able to resist stigma by conceiving of an ‘aware alcoholic self’ which was divorced from their previously unaware self and formed the basis for a new more knowing and valued identity

Age and cross-cultural comparison of drivers' cognitive workload and performance in simulated urban driving

Driving demands significant psychomotor attention and requires even more when drivers are engaged in secondary tasks that increase cognitive workload and divert attention. It is well established that age influences driving risk. Less is known about how culture impacts changes in attention. We conducted parallel driving simulations in the US and Korea to measure the extent to which age and culture influence dual-task performance. There were 135 participants divided into two groups: a younger group aged 20∼29, and an older group aged 60∼69. Whereas some differences by culture appeared in absolute control measures, the younger participants showed similar mean velocity and compensatory patterns associated with increased cognitive load in the urban setting; however, the results from the older samples were less similar.New England University Transportation CenterDaegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and TechnologyKorea (South). Ministry of Land, Transportation and Maritime Affair