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Life‐Table Analysis of Treatment Outcome Following 185 Consecutive Alcoholism Halfway House Discharges
Author(s) -
A.C.S.W. Jacquelyn Dwoskin,
Gordis Enoch,
Dorph Douglas
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-0277.1979.tb05332.x
Subject(s) - sobriety , abstinence , residence , rehabilitation , confidence interval , population , life table , demography , medicine , outcome (game theory) , disulfiram , gerontology , psychology , psychiatry , physical therapy , environmental health , mathematics , mathematical economics , sociology , pharmacology
We define a halfway house as a transitional residence where patients learn skills and acquire confidence to function independently after discharge to a noninstitutionalized setting. Accordingly, our residents are provided shelter, food, counseling, group therapy, and medical care, but are expected to do assigned housework, attend AA, take disulfiram, obtain outside work, pay some rent, and find a place to live. The life‐table method examines outcome for all patients seen up to the time of analysis and allows for different lengths of time that patients are known to the program. With this method, we calculated probability of not drinking (“survival“) for successive 2‐mo intervals after discharge from the house, based on the fate of all 185 patients known to us in August 1977. At least 101 patients drank during the first 2 mo. Cumulative probabilities of abstinence were 0.37 at 2 mo, 0.28 at 4 mo, 0.21 at 6 mo. and 0.19 for several months thereafter. Survival curves calculated for subsets of the population were similar when we classified for race, sex, prior inpatient rehabilitation, or employment at discharge. Patients older than 40 did slightly better. We conclude that (1) most patients will do well while in a sheltered environment, no matter what it is called, and (2) social rehabilitation itself does not produce sobriety. We will prevent relapses more effectively only when we better understand the physiology of alcohol hunger.