Alcoholism is a multidimensional disorder, and no simple answers exist to questions such as: “What are the neurological consequences of alcoholism?”; “What makes alcoholism affect different people in different ways?”; or even “What causes someone to become an alcoholic in the first place?” Widespread individual differences occur in the manifestation of alcoholism. For example, according to one estimate, 50 to 85 percent of non-KS alcoholics exhibit signs of cognitive decline (see Parsons 1993). Thus, anywhere from 15 to 50 percent of such alcoholics may not exhibit any obvious signs of cognitive impairment. In general, the greater the consumption of alcohol, the worse the performance on cognitive tasks. However, among those alcoholics who exhibit neurological problems, researchers have found that measures of previous alcohol consumption (e.g., duration, frequency, and quantity consumed) do not correlate consistently with the degree of neuropsychological dysfunction (Parsons 1993). This finding suggests that variables other than the presumed direct neurotoxic effects of alcohol may play a role in determining alcohol-related cognitive decline. In response to the variability in the consequences of alcoholism, researchers have looked for common
