Study Strongly Suggests Abstinence Is Only Cure for Alcoholism

A new study of people with drinking problems found that less than 2% were able to drink regularly without losing control and strongly suggests that giving up alcohol completely is the only sure cure for alcoholism.

It is the latest scientific venture into a long-running dispute over whether alcoholics can take an occasional drink without wrecking their lives.

“This study suggests that there is little cause for optimism about the likelihood of an evolution to long-term, stable, moderate drinking among treated alcoholics,” the researchers wrote.

Controversial Research

Landmark research conducted two decades ago at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino, Calif., purported to show that alcoholics could be trained to drink moderately. The work was highly controversial, and later checks showed that many of the people who took part in the program continued to have trouble with liquor.

In 1980, a Rand Corp. study suggested that some alcoholics--particularly younger men who are not severely dependent on alcohol--could return to moderate drinking with no greater chance of relapse than if they abstained totally.

The latest study was conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It examined the drinking habits of 1,289 persons five to seven years after they were treated for alcoholism.

Nearly 79% were still drinking heavily, while 15% never touched alcohol. About 5% took a drink once in a while but abstained most of the time, and 1.6% were regular social drinkers.

Abstinence Urged

“We would have to urge alcoholics that the only feasible cure for their problem at this point is total abstinence,” said Dr. John E. Helzer, who directed the study. “That would seem to be the case for the vast majority.”

Alcoholism is the leading form of drug abuse in the Western World. In the United States, there are an estimated 10 million alcoholics.

In their study, the researchers considered moderate, or social, drinkers to be persons who had done some drinking in at least 30 of the previous 36 months, but had not drunk excessively or had any social, medical or legal problems due to alcohol.

“In this sample,” they wrote, “an evolution to long-term, stable, moderate drinking, as we have defined it, was strikingly rare.”