Effectiveness Bank web site Collection
Supported by  Alcohol Research UK web site   Society for the Study of Addiction web site
Gold coin The Old Gold collection

The first of the Effectiveness Bank collections – handpicked mini-libraries. From the days of typewritten manuscripts and slide-rule calculations come studies which exposed the orthodoxy of their times to empirical trial. Sift them for answers to research questions which today it would be unethical or impractical to re-address, for studies relevant to routine practice because they predated tight controls on interventions and interventionists, and for findings which underpin modern thinking and practice.

View collection
Other seminal studies listed in the cells of the alcohol and drug treatment matrices.
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Highlights from the collection
Sample treasures from the collection. Click button above to see all 33.

Gold coin Physician, heal thyself
Later founding director of the US national alcohol institute, in the 1950s Dr Morris Chafetz conducted a remarkable series of studies which proved that an alcohol clinic’s intake and performance can be transformed by the application of empathy and organisation. “The technique we used is not new. Its uniqueness lies in ... placing the responsibility for achieving a therapeutic alliance on the caretaker rather than the patient.”
Also see presentation on the treatment matrices which features Chafetz’s studies.

Gold coin Fertile failure
Conceived in 1988 as a definitive test of matching different therapies to different alcohol treatment patients, the US Project MATCH study ended up by prioritising not how therapies differed, but what they shared – most of all, what the patient brings to treatment. In its intended role it was a multi-million dollar failure; partly as a result, it became the most fertile research project in alcoholism treatment history, continuing to spawn reanalyses.

Gold coin The dangers of warnings
In the early 1970s the fresh eyes of two young Dutch health educators led them to question the untested assumption that all drug education is preventive. The resultant study put the dominant ‘scare’ approach to the test ... and found it led to more substance use – results which prompted a rethink of national policy in the Netherlands and in Britain.

Gold coin Heroin addicts preferred ice cream
In the mid-60s even its originators doubted whether methadone maintenance could work when everything else had failed, waiting “in total terror every night” for the first patients to return from the temptations outside the ward. Temptations there had been, but rather than return to heroin use, the pair “went and got an ice cream”.


The Drug and Alcohol Findings Effectiveness Bank offers a free mailing list service updating subscribers to UK-relevant evaluations of drug/alcohol interventions. Findings is supported by Alcohol Research UK and the Society for the Study of Addiction and advised by the National Addiction Centre and the Federation of Drug and Alcohol Professionals.