Larry D. Reid

The author of this book is Professor Larry D. Reid. It is co-authored by a longtime collaborator, Meta L. Reid. Larry has been teaching a course on alcohol, drugs, and behavior for over 40 years at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. For many of those years, he was director of a laboratory studying the effect of addictive drugs, including alcoholic beverages. An interim summary of progress toward understanding the addictive process was published in 1990 in a book that provides the written material from a symposium at a Society of Neuroscience meeting. This book was edited by Professor Reid who co-authored many of its chapters. The edited book provides the scientific basis for the first new medicine developed in 50 years to treat alcoholism. The chapter describing the results of the first clinical trial of that new medicine was by a team of scientists led by the distinguished psychiatrist Dr. Charles P. O’Brien and a young physician Dr. Joseph R. Volpicelli. The drug in question is the opioid antagonist naltrexone. Also, the edited book provided the scientific basis for why naltrexone may be an effective medicine in the treatment of bulimia. There are also chapters describing naltrexone in the treatment of bulimia. Hence the title of the book became “Opioids, Bulimia and Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism.” Subsequent to the publication of “Opioids, Bulimia and Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism,” there has been considerable new information on the issue of women and alcoholism. Some of the new information is provided in Professor Reid’s book “Women, Alcoholism, and Feminism” published in 2013. This book is an updated version of Professor Reid’s book on women and alcoholism and was written specifically for young women and the people who love them.