The Old Gold archive
 The Old Gold archive

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The Old Gold archive

Appreciations and analyses of seminal studies of lasting significance from the past starting with the analyses most recently added or updated, totalling today 40 documents. Dates in orange refer to publication date of the original study or (if several) of the earliest of the studies. For other seminal studies see those listed in the cells of the alcohol and drug treatment matrices

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STUDY 1977 HTM file
Vietnam veterans three years after Vietnam: how our study changed our view of heroin

Reprint of a 1977 presentation of one of the most influential studies of heroin addiction ever conducted, which called in to question its supposed addictive qualities, the need for prolonged treatment and abstinence to overcome addiction, and whether heroin use inevitably causes major social problems.

DOCUMENT 1962 HTM file
Should dependent drinkers always try for abstinence?

For many alcohol treatment services in the past and now, the only acceptable and feasible drinking goal for alcoholics is abstinence. That mould was decisively cracked when in 1973 researchers showed that even physically dependent drinkers could learn to drink in moderation. Controversy was fierce, reaching to the US Congress, TV networks and the courts.

STUDY 1970 HTM file
Frontiers of alcoholism

Later to become founding director of the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, in the late 1950s Dr Morris Chafetz of the Massachusetts General Hospital conducted a remarkable series of studies which proved that an alcohol clinic's intake and performance can be transformed by the simple application of empathy and organisation.

STUDY 1981 HTM file
Interpersonal functioning of alcoholism counselors and treatment outcome

Seminal US study which found that the therapy-related social skills of alcohol counsellors were strongly related to how many of their patients relapsed in the two years after leaving inpatient treatment.

STUDY 1980 HTM file
The attitudes of helping agents toward the alcoholic client: the influence of experience, support, training and self-esteem

Seminal English study which turned the spotlight on organisational factors in the development of a positive attitude to working with problem drinkers, in particular the availability of experience in working with these patients and the support of experienced colleagues. Without these the effects of training are less and less well sustained.

DOCUMENT 1993 HTM file
When confrontation was challenged

Focus is on a seminal study from motivational interviewing’s originator which more than any other heightened the profile of the therapist’s interpersonal style in substance use counselling, seeming to confirm that heavy drinkers react best to non-confrontational nudging rather than the more bludgeoning style typical of the time.

STUDY 1998 HTM file
Changing attitudes and beliefs of staff working in methadone maintenance programs

In Sydney in Australia an official campaign and educational efforts had the desired effect of shifting staff attitudes in methadone maintenance clinics away from achieving abstinence and withdrawal and towards long-term treatment aimed at reducing harm.

STUDY 1996 HTM file
Alternatives to non-clinical regulation: training doctors to deliver methadone maintenance treatment

Seminal study of how to train out socially derived attitudes to methadone maintenance as a policy solution to a social problem and train in attitudes which place it within mainstream medical practice as a treatment of individuals which does not 'fix' their problems but offers the opportunity for positive change.

STUDY 1995 HTM file
Lessons from a training programme for methadone prescribers

Seminal study of how to train out socially derived attitudes to methadone maintenance as a policy solution to a social problem and train in attitudes which place it within mainstream medical practice as a treatment of individuals which does not 'fix' their problems but offers the opportunity for positive change.

DOCUMENT 1926 PDF file 1326Kb
The Rolleston legacy

In British drug policy no document has more claim to the term 'classic' than the 1926 Rolleston report, which enshrined doctors' freedom to prescribe opiates to opiate addicts.


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