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In accordance with public health principles, this paper is concerned with examining the individual, economic and political outcomes of in-patient treatment for alcohol dependence. It is argued that in-patient treatment for alcohol dependence per se is not justifiable at any of these levels, although in-patient treatment is justifiable for the treatment of the serious biomedical sequelae of dependence. For the alcohol-dependent person, the drinking, social, financial, psychological, work-related and health outcomes of out-patient treatment are as good as those for in-patient treatment; economically, out-patient programmes are more cost-effective than in-patient programmes; politically, moving the focus of treatment away from in-patient services is more likely to contribute to a cultural milieu which recognizes problems associated with alcohol dependence early and in their many different forms, rather than only by their long-term health consequences.