intervention goal

CONTROLLED DRINKING AIM NO LESS SUCCESSFUL THAN AIMING FOR ABSTINENCE Using achievement of controlled drinking (including abstinence) as its yardstick, a comprehensive review and amalgamation of research findings concludes that even among...

‘DANGEROUS DATA’ PART 8: CONTROLLED DRINKING: WHAT DO THE AUTHORITIES SAY? Official guidance on controlled drinking as a treatment goal from Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, how the National Treatment Agency for...

‘DANGEROUS DATA’ PART 7: CONTROLLED DRINKING VERSUS ABSTINENCE: WHO DECIDES? The history of the controlled drinking controversy makes us face not just what decision is made about treatment goals, but who makes that decision; where the power...

‘DANGEROUS DATA’ PART 6: EVIDENCE ACCUMULATES AND EXPERT OPINION CONVERGES The heat dies down as it becomes clearer that both controlled drinking and abstinence have their place among the gaols for alcohol treatment patients, and evidence...

‘DANGEROUS DATA’ PART 5: INQUIRIES REJECT FRAUD ALLEGATIONS Establishing fraud seemed the only way to fatally undermine the Sobells’ findings vindicating controlled drinking as a treatment goal, but inquiry after inquiry cleared the couple...

‘DANGEROUS DATA’ PART 4: SOBELLS DECISIVELY CRACK THE ABSTINENCE CONSENSUS Fourth weekly instalment of the series on controlled drinking as a treatment goal. Published in 1973, hard-to-explain-away results from the solidity of a randomised...

‘DANGEROUS DATA’ PART 3: THE GLOVES COME OFF Third weekly instalment of the series on controlled drinking as a treatment goal. Controversy moves to the USA, where the 1976 Rand report’s finding that post-treatment remission usually involved...

‘DANGEROUS DATA’ PART 2: A GENTLEMANLY START Second weekly instalment of the series on controlled drinking as a treatment goal traces the start of the controversy to early 1960s London, where psychiatrist D.L. Davies opened the first...

‘DANGEROUS DATA’ PART 1: WHY THE HEAT? Each Monday over the next eight weeks we divide up the hot topic released last week on controlled drinking as a treatment goal and serve it to you in bite-size chunks. The series starts with part 1,...

‘DANGEROUS DATA’: DRINKING AFTER DEPENDENCE First cracked in 1960s London, the orthodoxy that abstinence is the only acceptable and feasible treatment goal for ‘alcoholics’ seemed shattered in 1973 by evidence that even physically dependent...