Overview
In 1977, the National Council on Alcoholism (now called the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, NCADD) established a journal called Alcohol: Clinical and Experiment Research (ACER). It followed a major expansion in alcohol research in 1970 through the creation of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Biomedical, clinical, and behavioral studies were all growing in volume, so ACER was proposed as a specialized outlet for addiction research across these domains. The name reflects the growing emphasis on synthesizing clinical experiences and laboratory experiments.
The NCADD was originally a project founded by Marty Mann, who was the first woman to maintain sobriety through AA. Its focus was advocacy and education rather than scientific research, so it became the official journal of the newly formed Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA). To simplify, this kind of partnership isn’t unusual in the academic space. A publishing entity might have the means and mission to distribute scientific literature, but a dedicated scientific society can determine the academic direction. Today, the partnership involves Wiley as the commercial publisher, RSA for scientific governance, and the International Society for Biomedical Research on Alcoholism (ISBRA) which uses ACER as an official outlet for international research since 1990.
In 2014, the journal ended its regular print publication and became exclusively available online.
In 2023, the journal swapped “Alcoholism” for “Alcohol” in its name, reflecting the way that “alcoholism” as a term had phased out of the vocabulary of scientific literature in place of “alcohol use disorder.” Plus, alcohol was increasingly being studied for its impacts outside of addiction, like metabolism and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.