Alcoholism : what every doctor should know

Abstract

The general practitioner (or the doctor at the Casualty Department) has assumed the single most important role in our fight against one of the most devastating diseases of our time - alcoholism. It has now been accepted that the most useful role for doctors at present are, first to detect the many heavy drinkers passing through our hands at an early a stage as possible, and then to provide brief interventions designed to persuade them to drink less, and second to do what we can to help change the drinking habits of the population as a whole, a task which may involve changes in our own behaviour (Kendall R.E. (3)).