Social support and prevention of relapse following treatment for alcohol abuse

All 30 clients who received standard inpatient treatment for alcohol abuse during 1992-93 in the north Tasmanian health region were randomly assigned to an additional social support inter-vention, to a self monitoring control intervention, or to a no-additional-treatment control group. Results indicated that artificially created social support was ineffective in influencing consump-tion beyond what was produced by a combination of standard outpatient follow-up and simple self-monitoring. However, the degree of social support available from the most supportive individual in the drinker’s naturally occurring social network was the preeminent predictor of drinking over a 3-month interval. Contrary to the predictions of one cognitive-behavioral approach to relapse prevention, pretreatment measures of client self-efficacy were not associated with drinking at posttreatment. The tactic of increasing social support to marginalized individuals has a long history in social work practice. From Richmond’s (1917, 1922) pioneering work in &dquo;social diagnosis&dquo; to the more recent emphases on family therapy and psychosocial casework (cf. Turner, 1987), social workers have displayed remarkable faith in the therapeutic value of supportive social relationships