Joint hospitalization and couples therapy for alcoholism; a four-year follow-up.

This paper reports on a four-year follow-up of alcoholics treated in joint-hospitalization, couples-therapy and individual-therapy programs. The rationale for the baseline study, its experimental design, the treatment procedures used and 6-month outcomes have been reported previously (1-3) and are briefly summarized below. The project was based on the rationale that the spouse of an alcoholic is intimately involved in maintaining the drinking problem and is also seriously affected by it (4). Thus, intensive involvement of the spouse, through joint hospital admission in the initial phase of treatment and continued couples therapy after hospital discharge, was seen as a way to have maximum impact on dysfunetional marital interactions, with a resultant change in the drinking problem.