[Alcoholism as chronic disease: a challenge for the physician].

Alcoholism is associated with a high relapse rate; within four years of a successful intensive hospital withdrawal program a good 50 percent of the patients have relapsed again. In view of this result of research into alcoholism an "aims hierarchy" has been established which meets the requirements of relapsed alcoholics while expressly rejecting the limitation of therapeutic measures to the purely somatic. Psychotherapeutic considerations that take account of the specific situation of the chronic, often multimorbid patient are applied already in the early phase of treatment. For example, relapse must not be interpreted as a failure of previous treatments or even be used as an excuse to abandon therapy.