A 48-week natural history follow-up of alcoholics who do and do not engage in limited drinking after treatment.

The research on the controversial Alcoholics Anonymous tenet that limited drinking rapidly leads alcoholics to inebriety is inconclusive. We conducted 48-week follow-ups on 51 posttreatment alcohol dependents who had reportedly engaged in limited drinking and 51 paired controls who apparently had not. According to the informants, the limited drinkers consumed 16 times as much alcohol and were 4 times as likely to regress to unacceptable drinking as controls. They were also more often rehospitalized and attended fewer Alcoholics Anonymous meetings than the controls. They were, however, usually (62%) categorized as abstinent or moderate drinkers when assessed during the follow-up period. The groups did not differ in risk of jailing, detoxification, or job loss, nor did limited drinkers ordinarily regress quickly to inebriety. The outcomes of our limited drinkers were inferior to those of controls but much less negative than those Wilson's Alcoholics Anonymous maintains.