Abstract
The well-known disagreement between the supporters of the disease concept and the defenders of a behaviouristic perspective on alcohol problems can, to some extent, be a product of the disregard of a dimension of time. This tendency to neglect the time aspect – which can be considered as the most prevalent attitude within the realms of traditional addiction research – has recently got a corrective in the theories based on the notion of rational actors and preferences with a variation over time.
In this article some of the more prominent theories within the latter tradition are presented and discussed. Concretely, this means that the basic features of Becker and Murphy's (1988) model of rational addiction is compared with Ainslie's (1992) ideas concerning the intertemporal explanations for motivational conflicts. Furthermore, Elster and Loewenstein's analysis of the individual's capacity to derive utility from memory and anticipation is related to some more practical and treatment-oriented questions.
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