The alcoholic social worker: a survey

This paper presents data on 50 alcoholic social workers who had successfully stopped drinking for one year or more. In spite of the fact that these social workers were in many cases visibly in trouble with 63 arrests, 120 inpatient admissions, 13 suicide attempts, and a high reported incidence of addiction to other drugs, they found that collaegues and superiors as well as professionals from whom they sought individual treatment were extremely reluctant to confront the alcoholism problem directly. The authors urge social workers to consider ways of offering help to colleagues in a more systematic manner than is currently available.