The diagnosis and treatment of social phobia and alcohol abuse.

There seems to be a high rate of comorbidity between social phobia and alcohol abuse. Evidence suggests that patients with social phobia are more than twice as likely to have alcohol problems as are nonpatients, and persons with alcohol disorders are nine times as likely to have social phobia as the general population. After examining possible reasons for the relationship between social phobia and alcohol abuse, the author discusses approaches to diagnosis and treatment of these conditions, in both alcohol treatment and mental health settings.