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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The two worlds of alcohol problems: Who is in treatment and who is not?
Addiction Research & Theory, Volume 16, Issue 1 February 2008 , pages 67 - 84



The aim of this article is to study the relative strength of factors in predicting entering and the clinical population.

The studied factors are demographics and marginalization; volume and frequency of drinking; alcohol dependence; social response to drinking (suggestions to cut down or seek treatment by informal actors, e.g. family and friends, and formal actors such as employer, the social services or judicial system); and treatment history.

As expected, clients were older, more marginalized and reported more severe alcohol problems, and many reported previous treatment experiences and social responses. Logistic regression analyses show that previous treatment, unemployment/institutionalization and having an unstable living situation are the strongest predictors of who is in treatment, followed by age, alcohol dependence and frequency of drinking. Formal pressures to cut down or seek treatment are also important and males are more likely to be in treatment.

The results support a notion of the treatment system as a place for handling marginalized people, beyond and beside their extent of drinking.

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