The author reviews some of the psychoanalytic literature on alcoholism, including one of his own former contributions. He discusses the Oedipus complex of alcoholics (the father is destructively 'introjected' and the mother taken into possession); their unconscious oral attachment to the mother; the fact that drinking gives a feeling of strength and superiority, which means a father identification (as can be seen in the use of alcohol in initiation rites); and the importance of homosexuality. The sublimation of this homosexuality forms the basis of the therapeutic influence of Alcoholics Anonymous and of sports.