In what was to become one of the most influential approaches to subtyping alcoholics, Cloninger (1987) proposed a subclassification of two types: type II (“male-limited”) alcoholics, who experienced a more severe form of alcohol abuse and had fathers who exhibited both criminal behavior and severe alcohol abuse, and type I (“milieu-limited”) alcoholics, whose less severe alcoholism was less often associated with family history. Bohman and colleagues (1981) analyzed women from the Cloninger study and placed women in a single category, type I. This partitioning was based on differences in the alcoholics’ temperaments (e.g., whether their actions were driven by their desire for reward or avoidance of harm) rather than their psychopathology. In addition to drawing attention to alcoholic men, Cloninger’s work was among the first to consider the genetic contribution in alcoholism subtyping. Type II was characterized by genetic factors independent of environmental influences, whereas type I was influenced by both genetic and social/situational factors (e.g., social norms regarding drinking). Historically, differing social prescriptions for drinking have existed for each gender, wherein more sanctions have been applied to women than
