© 2005 Society for the Study of Addiction doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2005.01251.x Addiction, 100, 1760–1762 SOCIAL CHANGE AND GENDERED DRINKING: A SYMPOSIUM IN HONOUR OF LUDEK KUBICKA SYMPOSIUM IN HONOUR OF LUDEK KUBICKA Honouring Ludek Kubicka: an introduction to the symposium The four papers that follow were part of a special plenary session in honour of Ludek Kubicka held at the June 2003 Symposium of the Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epi- demiological Research on Alcohol (KBS) in Krakow, Poland. The session was entitled ‘Social Change and Gendered Drinking: A Symposium in Honour of Ludek Kubicka’. GENDER, SOCIAL CHANGE AND DRINKING BEHAVIOR In the field of alcohol epidemiology, there is a relatively long history of interest and research on social change and its relationships to changes in alcohol use and alcohol- related problems (e.g. Straus 1976; Barrows & Room 1991). Until fairly recently, however, there has been little systematic research on gender-specific historical changes in drinking. Ludek Kubicka, of the Prague Psychiatric Center, has pioneered this important line of research, particularly in his longitudinal surveys of drinking by Czech women and men before and after the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of 1989, which ended the 41-year Communist era in Czechoslovakia (Kubicka et al. 1995a, 1998). Kubicka’s work has encouraged increased attention to gender dif- ferences in the effects of social change on alcohol use patterns, and has stimulated research on gender, alcohol and social change in a number of different countries. Ludek was a founding member of the International Research Group on Gender and Alcohol (IRGGA), a KBS- affiliated working group organized during the 1993 Ket- til Bruun Symposium in Krakow (Wilsnack et al. 2000; Vogeltanz-Holm et al. 2004). He has been active in the multinational study GENACIS (Gender, Alcohol, and Cul- ture: An International Study) that was designed by IRGGA members (Wilsnack & Wilsnack 2002). On the tenth anniversary of IRGGA in 2003, the members felt that it would be fitting to honour Ludek’s many contribu- tions to alcohol research with a plenary session at the KBS Symposium, reporting current research on histori- cal changes in men’s and women’s drinking. EARLY YEARS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY Ludek studied psychology and philosophy at Charles University Prague, where he graduated in 1951 and defended his doctoral thesis in 1965. He began his career not as an alcohol epidemiologist, but as a child clinical psychologist, influenced strongly by the work of Jean Piaget. From the start of his career he was attracted by psychological theory and concerned about methodologi- cal problems of scientific research and psychometrics. With his colleagues he adapted and validated on a large representative sample the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) for use in the Czech cultural milieu. The test is known as Prazsky detsky Wechsler [Prague Wech- sler for Children] and still is widely used. In the 1960s Ludek started to work at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, one of a network of research institutions coordinated by the Czechoslovak Ministry of Health, where he studied interpersonal rela- tions and psychiatric symptomatology in hospitalized patients (Kubicka et al. 1965, 1966; Kubicka & Sobotkiewiczova 1967). ALCOHOL TREATMENT OUTCOME STUDY In 1970 Ludek began a large-scale and meticulously designed study of alcoholism treatment outcome in Pra- gue’s largest alcoholism treatment center. The study involved random assignment to 6- and 13-week treat- ment, with follow-ups 1, 3 and 5 years post-treatment. An extensive research report was published in Czech (Kubicka 1975). However, due to the political climate of the time, the results could not be published in interna- tional journals because government officials believed that social or health problems such as alcoholism could undermine the positive image of a socialist country. Despite many obstacles, Ludek’s alcoholism treatment study eventually became well known and highly valued by treatment professionals (Kubicka & Randakova 1971; Kubicka & Pintova 1973; Kubicka 1986). An English