Implications of depression on outcome from alcohol dependence: A 3-year prospective follow-up

The prognostic implications of comorbid depression for outcome from alcohol dependence are unclear. It has been suggested that drinking may represent self-medication of depressive disorders and, alternatively, that the pharma cological properties of alcohol induce episodes of depression. In the prese nt study, these questions were investigated by following 84 alcohol-depende nt individuals seeking treatment (34% women) for 3 years in a naturalistic, prospective design, During the follow-up period, depressive and drinking o utcomes were significantly related. However, there was no evidence that dri nking reliably preceded depressive episodes or that depressive episodes pre cipitated heavy drinking. Despite their high cooccurrence, this study did n ot find evidence of a strong, direct causal relationship between these phen omena.