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{{Short description|American sociologist}}
{{COI|date=October 2024}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2024}}
{{Infobox scientist
|name = Alfred R. Lindesmith
|image =
|image_size =
|caption = Alfred R. Lindesmith
|birth_date = {{birth date|1905|8|3|mf=y}}
|birth_place = [[Clinton Falls Township, Steele County, Minnesota|Clinton Falls Township, Steele County]], Minnesota, U.S.
|death_date = {{death date and age|1991|2|14|1905|8|3|mf=y}}
|death_place = [[Bloomington, Indiana|Bloomington]], Indiana, U.S.
|nationality =
|fields = [[Sociology]], [[Criminology]]
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|awards =
|religion =
|signature = Alfred R Lindesmith signature.jpg
|footnotes =
}}
'''Alfred Ray Lindesmith''' (August 3, 1905 – February 14, 1991) was an [[Indiana University (Bloomington)|Indiana University]] professor of [[sociology]]. He was among the early scholars providing a rigorous and thoughtful account of the nature of [[Substance dependence|addiction]]. He was a critic of legal prohibitions against addictive drugs, arguing that such prohibitions had adverse societal effects. Lindesmith's work in drug policy and addiction at Indiana U. was an element of progressivism, along with the landmark work of Alfred Kinsey and his associates at The Kinsey Institute, under the supervision of IU President Herman Wells .<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Keys|first1=David Patrick|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LfwVNigwo4IC|title=Confronting the Drug Control Establishment: Alfred Lindesmith as a Public Intellectual|last2=Galliher|first2=John F.|date=2000-01-01|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-4393-4|language=en}}</ref>
Lindesmith's interest in [[psychoactive drug|drugs]] began at the [[University of Chicago]], where he was trained in [[social psychology]] by Herbert Blumer and Edwin Sutherland, earning his doctorate in 1937. His education there was a mixture of the
==Theory of addiction==
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This learning process has two parts. First, opiate users must connect their drug withdrawal to their use of the drug, which is something that individuals exposed to opiates in hospital settings are more likely to do. When withdrawal is interpreted as a form of addiction, the perceived (and felt) need for more drugs grows. More recent research has shown that, because hospital patients often associate opiate [[analgesic|analgesia]] with an illness and/or hospital care, and because the drugs cause sedation and other mind-altering effects, patients rarely experience any withdrawal.
In Robert Scharse's study of [[Mexican American|Mexican-American]] users, for example, some interpreted withdrawal as a sign of emerging drug dependence, and subsequently reduced or quit their drug use. For others, the withdrawal experience caused an obsession over the prospect of withdrawal, encouraging them to repeatedly use in order to avoid it. This then completed a circuit, with Lindesmith's learning process being reinforced and strengthened.
As his career ended, Lindesmith held on to his belief that opiate addiction is not the simple product of one's exposure to opiates. Rather it is the result of a dramatic shift in a person's mental and motivational state. Once the individual concludes that he or she is hooked, it rarely occurs to them that they are engaging in a [[self-fulfilling prophecy]], trapped within a belief that makes the experience exactly what it is feared to be.
==War on drugs==
The fact that Lindesmith's work threatened the emerging demonization of heroin, etc., is clear from how the [[Federal Bureau of Narcotics]] (FBN)—predecessor of the [[Drug Enforcement Administration|DEA]]—worked to discredit him. This is outlined in a paper by Galliher, Keys, and Elsner, "Lindesmith v. Anslinger: An Early Government Victory in the Failed [[War on Drugs]]".<ref>John F. Galliher, David P. Keys, Michael Elsner, "Lindesmith v. Anslinger: An Early Government Victory in the Failed War on Drugs." The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 88, No. 2 (Winter, 1998), pp.
==Criticism==
Professor [[Nils Bejerot]] argued that Lindesmith made wrong conclusions about what caused the low abuse of opium in the late 1940s in England. Lindesmith had noticed that England in the 1940s had very liberal narcotics laws (see the [[Rolleston Committee]] Report of 1924) and low drug abuse and
Lindesmith wrote his earlier books from close personal interviews with a very limited number of addicts, about 50, almost all of them victims of ''therapeutic use'' of drugs when they were in health care for other reasons. Bejerot agreed with Lindesmith that these ''therapeutic addicts'' could be treated as personal health problems. These addicts were often ashamed of their drug abuse and the risk that they should introduce others in drug addiction
==Personal life==
Lindesmith was born in [[Clinton Falls Township, Steele County, Minnesota|Clinton Falls Township, Steele County]], Minnesota, and gained an early fluency in [[German language|German]] from his German-born mother. He attended public school in nearby [[Owatonna, Minnesota|Owatonna]], Minnesota, where he graduated from high school in 1923. He graduated from [[Carleton College]] in 1927 and received an M.A. in education from [[Columbia University]] in 1931. Lindesmith taught school before entering the [[University of Chicago]], where he received his Ph.D. in 1937, writing his dissertation under the direction of Herbert Blumer. In the development of his dissertation, Lindesmith applied the tenets of symbolic interactionism, communicated to him from Blumer before that perspective even had its present name. He was a close colleague of Edwin Sutherland, who chaired the Department of Sociology at Indiana until his death in 1950 and collaborated with luminaries in symbolic interaction such as [[Anselm Strauss]], Howard Becker, and Edwin Lemert. Lindesmith's teaching career at [[Indiana University (Bloomington)|Indiana University]] spanned forty years from 1936 to 1976. He became University Professor of Sociology there in 1965. He was president of the [[Society for the Study of Social Problems]],
Lindesmith married Gertrude Louise Augusta Wollaeger (1907–1985) in 1930. They had one daughter, Karen Lindesmith. He died in [[Bloomington, Indiana|Bloomington]], Indiana.
In 1929, he was a professor and head football coach at the [[University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://epapers.uwsp.edu/yearbooks/iris%201930a.pdf|title=The Iris|year=1930|publisher=epapers.uwsp.edu|access-date=February 8, 2018}}</ref>
==Head coaching record==
{{CFB Yearly Record Start | type = coach | team = | conf = | bowl = | poll = no }}
{{CFB Yearly Record Subhead
| name = [[Wisconsin–Stevens Point Pointers football|Stevens Point Pointers]]
| conf = [[Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference|Wisconsin State Teachers College Conference]]
| startyear = 1929
| endyear = single
}}▼
{{CFB Yearly Record Entry
| championship =
| year = [[1929 college football season|1929]]
| name = Stevens Point
| overall = 0–6
| conference = 0–4
| confstanding = 10th
| bowlname =
| bowloutcome =
| bcsbowl =
| ranking = no
| ranking2 = no
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record Subtotal
| name = Stevens Point
| overall = 0–6
| confrecord = 0–4
}}
{{CFB Yearly Record End
| overall = 0–6
| bowls = no
| poll = no
| polltype =
| legend = no
}}
==References==
{{Reflist
==External links==
* {{Find a Grave|125502689}}
{{Authority control}}
{{Wisconsin–Stevens Point Pointers football coach navbox}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindesmith, Alfred R.}}
[[Category:1905 births]]
[[Category:1991 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers]]▼
[[Category:American sociologists]]
▲[[Category:American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:People from Steele County, Minnesota]]▼
[[Category:Carleton College alumni]]
[[Category:Columbia University alumni]]▼
[[Category:University of Chicago alumni]]▼
[[Category:Indiana University faculty]]
[[Category:
[[Category:University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point faculty]]
[[Category:Wisconsin–Stevens Point Pointers football coaches]]
▲[[Category:People from Steele County, Minnesota]]
[[Category:Writers from Indiana]]
[[Category:Writers from Minnesota]]
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