Through interviews, Tucker concluded that individuals who recovered from alcohol misuse had not experienced as many negative events as their peers who had relapsed.
[1] In another study examining the relationship between social circumstances and substance abuse, Tucker and colleagues recruited 344 adolescent and young adult residents of low-income neighborhoods in Birmingham, Alabama.
This is significant because it confirms the importance of social and environmental factors on a person's decisions, especially for individuals transitioning into adulthood.
By concluding that society's messages can either help or harm a person, Tucker introduces the need for societal discouragement and better prevention programs to lead people in the right direction.
Her work on alcoholic recovery and relapse prevention culminated into a book co-edited with Dennis M. Donovan and G. Alan Marlatt titled Changing Addictive Behavior.
[9] This suggestion was also made in her co-authored book with Diane Grimley, Public Health Tools for Practicing Psychologists[10], which proposed techniques to heighten the effectiveness of clinical care.