ABSTRACT
Counselling services are embryonic, and non-existent in many areas. Services responding specifically to drinkers of no fixed abode are aimed at less than 5 per cent of all the people with problems from drinking. The most conservative estimate of the situation in England and Wales, for example, in the mid 1970s would have been that at least 300,000 people with a serious drinking problem made no contact with services making a specialist response to drinking problems. Almost everyone in the general population considered themselves to be average drinkers and would have been insulted to be told that they were drinking excessively or had problems from their drinking. Most persons considered themselves ‘normal’ drinkers and normal drinking was approved.
