An Outpatient Treatment Approach for Hearing-Impaired Alcoholics

Since the fall of 1980, one counselor who specializes in alcoholism treatment and one who works with the hearing impaired have been meeting on a weekly basis with a group of hearing-impaired alcoholics, several of whom have remained sober for many months. The conversational languages of the hearing-impaired members range from ASL to signed English, but all are able to communicate in ASL.

The purpose of this article is to share experiences in forming this outpatient treatment program for the hearing-impaired alcoholic. Problems encountered, knowledge that has been gained, and implications for further development will be discussed.