The awareness of risk and personal relevance in alcoholics

From the perspective of health professionals, the estimated nine million alcoholics in America are engaged in repetitive health-avoidance behavior. The purpose of this study was to asses whether alcoholics were themselves aware of the risk-taking implications of their drinking, particularly in view of the denial clinically attributed to alcoholics. Horn's Smoker's Self-Testing Kit, modified to measure respondents' attitudes toward excessive drinking and its consequences, was administered to 61 alcoholic inpatients. This instrument evaluates awareness of the health hazards of excessive drinking, awareness of the seriousness of alcoholism as a health problem, awareness of its personal relevance, and the value of stopping, concern with mastery of the drinking problem, and belief in capability for stopping. The results indicated that during sobriety these alcoholics definitely acknowledged the health hazards of excessive drinking, the seriousness of the problem, its personal relevance, and the value of stopping. However, subjects generally anticipated great difficulty in making any significant change in their self-destructive drinking patterns.