Alcohol use in the opiate use cycle of the heroin addict.

Ninety-six methadone maintained patients selected at random from a private clinic were interviewed to explore lifetime patterns of alcohol use in relation to opiate use. The results indicated that most addicts who ever drank excessively (in alcoholic, problem, or heavy patterns) did so primarily during two periods: prior to becoming addicted to narcotics and during periods of voluntary abstinence from narcotics. Further, most of the addicts who were drinking in excessive patterns while maintained on methadone had pretreatment histories of similar alcohol use.