In 2002, the National Association of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA, 2002) reported that physicians diagnosed 2,372,000 people with alcohol related problems (NIAAA, 2002). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) found that only one out of every four-problem drinkers fulfilled the requirements for a medical finding of alcoholism. The IOM (Hoeltzel, Kern, &Rotgers, 2002) also found that 93% of treatment programs base recovery on the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), which necessitates total abstinence for success. …
