ABSTRACT
Up to the mid-1970s, the ‘community response’ had largely been centred around voluntary work. Voluntary community services included Alcoholics Anonymous, hostels and shelters, usually run by churches, counselling services, usually run by local councils on alcoholism and a variety of organizations which tended to concentrate their efforts on specific groups of drinkers, particularly drinkers of no fixed abode. The majority of general community agents we studied had received none of these requirements and were anxious about their role adequacy in dealing with drinkers. They were also unsure about their rights and responsibilities when working with drinkers and thus experienced anxieties about role legitimacy. So many agents travelled down this negative spiral on so many occasions that safeguarding attitudes of pessimism and hostility towards clients with drinking problems became part of the mythology conveyed by members of each profession to new recruits. A stance of low therapeutic commitment was considered acceptable and indeed the ‘realistic’ perspective to adopt towards drinking problems.
