Doctors may soon offer what alcoholics need (if not what they want)

The treatment setting for alcoholism is in for a major shift from specialize clinics to primary care offices because of new research and medications, according to a report in the December 5 Journal of the American Medical Association. But if the promise of office-based treatment of alcoholism is to become a reality, the nation's 337,000 general-practice physicians--and the healthcare system as a whole--will have to undergo some transformation themselves, addiction experts say.