Comment on "Alcoholism: a controlled trial of 'treatment' and 'advice'".

Edwards and his colleagues (1) have presented a provocative, thoughtful study which raises serious questions for the field of alcoholism treatment. They compared the effects of two markedly different treatments given to separate groups of men alcoholics who were married or living in a common-law marriage. All the men were initially interviewed by a psychiatrist and a psychologist, and their wives by a social worker, and all were advised to (a) abstain from alcohol, (b) continue or return to work and (c) maintain a viable marital relationship. One group was then treated with the conventional comprehensive alcoholism-treatment package while the other group was merely advised that responsibility for attainment of the stated goals lay in their own hands rather than it being anything which could be taken over by others (p. 1006) and that someone would periodically visit their wives to learn of their progress. The finding that I year later there were no intergroup differences on a variety of outcome measures clearly calls into question both the nature and the amount of services currently offered to alcoholics.