PSYCHODRAMA WITH ALCOHOLICS: TWO BRIEF PARADIGMS

Abstract

Alcoholism is an illness that affects at least 5,000,000 Americans (making it the third most prevalent disease), and for which a cure has not been found-apparently other than total abstinence (1) I Unfortunately, the practice of abstinence reveals serious and basic deficiencies in the personal equation such that only a small percentage of all alcoholics ever become irretrievably rehabilitated. While many organizations, including the World Health Organization, National Council on Alcoholism, and Alcoholics Anonymous, have strived seduously to orient, educate, and indoctrinate the general public as to the physical, mental, emotional, social, and economic factors and conditions leading to and stemming from the abuses of alcoholism, the treatment schemas prove to be ephemeral goals rather than preemptive curative ones ( 2). Most of these therapeutic approaches are developed around a multi-disciplined (clinic) team effort to provide the alcoholic with some semblance of psycho-social rehabilitation.