Inpatient treatment of alcoholism: a necessary part of the therapeutic armamentarium.

Recent reviews of alcoholism treatment have argued strongly against the efficacy of inpatient treatment for alcoholic patients. This paper briefly considers the findings those reviews were based on and highlights some of the flaws that have led to the conclusion that inpatient treatment for alcoholism is unsuccessful and unnecessary. This paper suggests that the negative reports about inpatient treatment are biased and argues for the effectiveness of inpatient treatment, especially for patients with severe alcohol dependence or extensive social, psychiatric, or medical comorbidity.