Recent bulletins and hot topics from the 
drug and alcohol bank:
GHB yet to prove preferable to main anti-alcohol medications
Can one of the UK’s most notorious ‘club drugs’ help alcoholic patients withdraw from and stay away from alcohol? The answer from this authoritative review is that probably it can, but results from the small and few studies to date do not warrant using it instead of safer and less abuse-prone alternatives. However, its distinctive impact on craving could prove important.
Brief intervention promotes mutual aid ‘aftercare’ in the UK
In the context of current UK policy this is a key study, testing how to extend recovery beyond formal treatment by systematically linking patients to the free resource of mutual aid groups, seen as the main way commissioners can square the circle of doing more with less. Peer counsellors almost doubled 12-step attendance, but the resulting impact on abstinence was much smaller.
Group treatments for alcohol problems – effectiveness still unproven
Treating patients in groups rather than individually seems to promise cost savings and perhaps too more effective treatment, but according to this review, research has yet to show treating problem drinkers together is clearly and consistently beneficial.
Vulnerable children benefit from promising prevention programme
An alcohol prevention intervention that combined adolescent and parent components was found to be effective at delaying the onset of regular drinking only among children with low self-control or whose parents were lenient about youth drinking, the very children most vulnerable to developing problems with drink.
Also, one of the May/June Findings Hot Topics:
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