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Book Review: Working Sober: The Transformation of an Occupational Drinking Culture

Book Review: Working Sober: The Transformation of an Occupational Drinking Culture Contemporary Drug Problems 24/Fall 1997 601 Books: review/commentary Working Sober: The Transformation of an Occupational Drinking Culture, by William J. Sonnenstuhl (Ithaca: Cor­ nell University Press, 1996), 143 pp., $14.95 (paperback). REVIEWED BY There may well be, as old Doc Johnson used to insist, nothing Kim Hopper, quite like the gallows for concentrating one's mind, but for Nathan S. Kline working folks the sudden prospect of long-term unemploy­ Institute, ment comes close. For a number of unions and civil service Orangeburg, NY employees in New York City, something like that happened in the wake of the city's fiscal crisis in the mid-1970s. How one union turned economic duress into therapeutic inventiveness is the somewhat underplayed theme of Professor William J. Sonnenstuhl's Working Sober, a study of the fiercely self-pro­ tective Tunnel and Construction Workers Union, better known as "sandhogs." As anyone even vaguely familiar with the building trades can attest, drinking-and the rituals, larger-than-life stories, sub­ terfuges, cover-ups, missed deadlines, and occasionally sloppy work associated with it-is endemic in the worklife of a good number of blue-collar occupations. Sonnenstuhl shows clearly that this is something more than an elective affinity between dirty work and disreputable workers. In fact, his http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Contemporary Drug Problems SAGE

Book Review: Working Sober: The Transformation of an Occupational Drinking Culture

Hopper, Kim; Kline, Nathan S.
Contemporary Drug Problems , Volume 24 (3): 7 – Sep 1, 1997
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References (3)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 Federal Legal Publications
ISSN
0091-4509
eISSN
2163-1808
DOI
10.1177/009145099702400309
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Contemporary Drug Problems 24/Fall 1997 601 Books: review/commentary Working Sober: The Transformation of an Occupational Drinking Culture, by William J. Sonnenstuhl (Ithaca: Cor­ nell University Press, 1996), 143 pp., $14.95 (paperback). REVIEWED BY There may well be, as old Doc Johnson used to insist, nothing Kim Hopper, quite like the gallows for concentrating one's mind, but for Nathan S. Kline working folks the sudden prospect of long-term unemploy­ Institute, ment comes close. For a number of unions and civil service Orangeburg, NY employees in New York City, something like that happened in the wake of the city's fiscal crisis in the mid-1970s. How one union turned economic duress into therapeutic inventiveness is the somewhat underplayed theme of Professor William J. Sonnenstuhl's Working Sober, a study of the fiercely self-pro­ tective Tunnel and Construction Workers Union, better known as "sandhogs." As anyone even vaguely familiar with the building trades can attest, drinking-and the rituals, larger-than-life stories, sub­ terfuges, cover-ups, missed deadlines, and occasionally sloppy work associated with it-is endemic in the worklife of a good number of blue-collar occupations. Sonnenstuhl shows clearly that this is something more than an elective affinity between dirty work and disreputable workers. In fact, his

Journal

Contemporary Drug Problems – SAGE

Published: Sep 1, 1997

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