The Doctor's Responsibility to an Alcoholic

Abstract

If the medical profession will disabuse itself of the idea that alcoholism is a behavior problem scarcely worthy of attention, the opportunities for treatment will become apparent. No field of medicine offers a greater challenge, since none has been so long neglected, and perhaps in no other are there as many kinds of satisfaction.

Methods helpful to the general physician are described, as well as some pitfalls. The medical profession brings a variety of assets to this work, and more participation in it is both needed and logical. Social turmoil is the womb of illness, and no form of deviant behavior is more socially destructive than alcoholism.