Eating too little, smoking and drinking too much: Wider lifestyle problemsamong methadone maintenance patients

Patients attending a methadone maintenance clinic in South London (n=100) w ere interviewed and asked to recall all forms of food, alcohol, tobacco and drug intake in the previous 72 hours. Ninety-three per cent were smokers ( smoking an average of 17.6 cigarettes each day); eating patterns were distu rbed (27% had not eaten a cooked meal in this period), while almost half (4 4%) had consumed alcohol over the last three days at an average of 22.2 uni ts. Patients who had consumed alcohol reported fewer eating occasions (p < 0.01) in the three day period and a higher mean number of cigarettes per da y (p < 0.05) than those patients who had consumed no alcohol in this period . The generally poor diet and infrequent eating for this group is particula rly severe for a subset (around one third of the cohort) who are regular dr inkers (with high levels of alcohol dependence) and smokers but whose eatin g patterns are irregular. It is important that methadone maintenance servic es address these problems and that evaluations of the effectiveness of this form of treatment take into account such wider lifestyle variables.