Developments in Alcoholism Treatment

Abstract

Alcohol treatment systems expanded and diversified considerably over the past decade. This reflects adaptation to a variety of forces, including developments in national health care financing and policy, changes in other health care systems with which alcohol treatment had strong ties, the more diffuse effects of social movements and a “drying trend” in American public opinion, as well as agitation by advocacy and provider groups within the alcohol field. Drawing on national monitoring data, this chapter reviews developments at the levels of financing policy, organizations, client populations, and treatment modalities, documenting expansion in private sector alcohol treatment units, a growing emphasis on providing outpatient treatment, a merger between services for alcohol and drugs at the organizational and conceptual levels, increases in service delivery to coerced populations, as well as demographic change in alcohol treatment caseloads during the 1980s.