Survey Finds That Many Recover From Alcoholism

According to an article in Addiction magazine, adults in the United States who have been in alcohol recovery programs for more than 12 months rarely show symptoms of alcohol dependence or abuse. They have also continued to abstain from drinking, or drink at such low levels as to avoid risking relapse.

The article's analysis is based on data from the 2001-2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), a project that was sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

"Results from [the] NESARC analysis strengthen previous reports that many persons can and do recover from alcoholism," Ting-Kai Li, M.D., who was director of the NIAA when the article was published, said in the Addiction article.

The recovery analysis was based on a group of 4,422 adults who met the clinical criteria for alcohol dependence and had been drinking for than one year before the 2001-2002 survey:

• These individuals were primarily middle-aged, non-Hispanic white males.
• Sixty percent had attended or completed college.
• More than half had experienced the onset of alcohol dependence between the ages of 18 and 24, and only 25 percent had ever received treatment for their alcoholism.

Lead author Deborah Dawson, Ph.D., and her colleagues reported that the likelihood of abstinent recovery increased over time and with age, and was higher among women.

Dr. Dawson and her colleagues based their findings on a representative sample of 43,000 U.S. adults ages 18 and older.