It is time for low-risk drinking goals to come out of the closeta dd_3509 1715..1717 Recovery from alcohol problems includes low-risk drinking outcomes, especially for those not severely dependent. We suggest the failure by alcohol counselors in the United States to offer low-risk drinking goals is due to their being trained through an apprenticeship model rather than an evidence-based academic model, as used to train other health professionals.When we were invited to write an editorial on the topic 'Should we still be aiming for abstinence only', we found it ironic that this topic is still an issue for the field. Sixteen years ago, in an invited editorial for this journal, we summarized the literature on low-risk drinking as a route to recovery from alcohol problems [1]. That editorial had three main conclusions: The journal published eight commentaries responding to our editorial, and while there was some debate about whether low-risk drinking should be a goal of treatment [2], there was broad recognition that lowrisk drinking outcomes are an important element of a public health approach to reducing alcohol problems [3]. Furthermore, none of the commentaries took exception to our main three conclusions.Since the publication of that editorial, the evidence base has strengthened further. Empirically sound epidemiological studies in both the United States [4] and Canada [5] have demonstrated that when one considers the full spectrum of alcohol disorders and includes people who were not in treatment (i.e. self-change recoveries) low-risk drinking outcomes occur and are common. Considering the full spectrum of people with alcohol problems is important, because as far back as the 1970s, epidemiological studies revealed that there was a large population of individuals whose alcohol problems were not severe. For example, the Institute of Medicine in the United States estimated that the ratio of not severely dependent drinkers to severely dependent was about four to one [6]. More recently, results from the National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) suggest that over the long term low-risk drinking outcomes are as prevalent as abstinence outcomes, and that such outcomes are more prevalent among individuals whose alcohol problems are less severe [4].Despite decades of mounting scientific evidence showing that low-risk drinking outcomes occur and are common, low-risk drinking is still a closet treatment goal, at least in the United States, the reason is that clinicians largely ignore the evidence. In the remainder of this editorial, we discuss why this state of affairs continues and why low-risk drinking should be offered as a treatment goal by health and mental health professionals and by alcohol treatment programs.While there are several important benefits to recognizing low-risk drinking as a legitimate treatment goal, the most important is that it would lead to targeted efforts to impact individuals whose alcohol problems are not severe and who are not physiologically dependent on alco...