NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Complete abstinence from drinking offers alcoholics the best chance of a lasting recovery -- though it may not work as well for the youngest alcoholics, a U.S. government study suggests.
In a study that followed nearly 1,800 alcoholics over 3 years, researchers found that those who abstained from alcohol were less likely to suffer a relapse than those who had only cut their drinking to modest levels.
At greatest risk were those who were no longer suffering symptoms of alcoholism at the beginning of the study, but were still drinking fairly heavily.
Lead author Dr. Deborah Dawson of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and her co-authors also found that the chances of lasting success with abstinence varied by age. Among alcoholics younger than 25, abstainers were no more likely to stay in remission than those who were still drinking heavily at the study's start.
The findings suggest that young alcoholics need more help in achieving a lasting recovery, Dawson and colleagues report in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
The study included a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults who, at the outset, were in remission from alcohol dependence. Just over 38 percent had completely stopped drinking. A similar percentage were considered "low-risk" drinkers; they were free of alcoholic symptoms - such as craving and physical withdrawal symptoms when they weren't drinking -- but were drinking at moderate levels.
The rest were free of alcoholic symptoms but were still drinking at levels believed to put them at high risk of relapse -- 14 or more drinks per week for men, or 7 or more for women.
Three years later, 1,772 study participants were interviewed again. Half of the high-risk drinkers had an occurrence of some alcohol abuse symptoms, while 10 percent had relapsed into full-blown alcohol dependence. The corresponding figures for the abstainers were just 7 percent and 3 percent.
Among low-risk drinkers, 27 percent reported some symptoms of alcohol abuse, while 4 percent had relapsed.
