THIS PAPER is part of a series of studies aimed at clarifying treatment methods for alcoholics and the methods of assessing such treatment. Pattison1 has pointed out that much of the traditional pessimism regarding the treatment of alcoholism may be unjustified. When treatment is given in indiscriminate fashion to a random group of alcoholics in the hope that "something will take," or if only one treatment method is used for all alcoholics in the belief that it is "the" way to treat alcoholics, the results often have been poor. On the other hand, when treatment is carefully planned and selected for the particular needs of a specified alcoholic population the results often have been highly consistent and encouraging.
In their recent book-length review of planning treatment programs for alcoholics, Blum and Blum2 underscore the need for multiple programs that can provide a broad range of treatments based on