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A Look At The Awareness/Treatment Mix

Alcohol use is associated with a variety of personal, health, and social problems. Considerable research has looked at identifying demographic, clinical, and motivational variables that might predict that a person would enter alcohol treatment. Still the question remains: What profile of clinical features of alcohol dependence are associated with entry into treatment? The study addresses this gap by identifying clinical features associated with receiving or not receiving alcohol treatment.

In 1998, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health gathered information from 25,500 respondents aged 12 years and older. Of 18,772 adults (ages 18 years or older), 12,437 (66%) reported use of alcohol in the preceding year. These respondents constitute the sample of “recent drinkers” that is analyzed for this study. The clinical features that were assessed included: health problems, conspicuous drinking problems, use of alcohol more than intended, increased tolerance for alcohol, a reduction in important activities, emotional problems, and inability to cut down.

Individuals who received treatment reported all seven clinical features more often than drinkers who did not receive treatment, particularly alcohol-related emotional problems and health problems. The study speaks to the importance of treatment providers recognizing and addressing, in the early stages of treatment, those clinical problems (or features) that bring alcohol drinkers into treatment.

(Lloyd, JJ, Chen, C-Y, Storr, CL, Anthony, JC: Clinical features associated with receipt of alcohol treatment. Journal of Studies on Alcohol 65:750-757, 2004.)

Key words – alcohol use, alcohol dependence, clinical features, health problems, conspicuous drinking problems, use of alcohol more than intended, increased tolerance for alcohol, reduction in important activities, emotional problems, inability to cut down, National Survey on Drug Use and Health

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