Tentative findings suggest that qEEG variables may be used to predict those alcoholics and drug abusers most at risk for relapse. Winterer et al. (1998) were able to predict relapse among chronic alcoholics with 83–85% success, significantly outperforming prediction from clinical variables. Although they found more desynchronized (less alpha and theta and more beta activity) over frontal areas in alcoholics in general, those individuals who relapsed displayed even more of this activity. Bauer (2001) obtained EEG data on alcohol, cocaine or opioid dependent patients after 1–5 months of sobriety. Those who had relapsed by 6 months later were also characterized by increased beta (19.5–39.8 Hz) activity relative to those maintaining abstinence. Relative beta power was superior to severity of the alcoholism, depression level, antisocial personality disorder, childhood conduct problems, family history, or age as predictors, and was unaffected by the substance of abuse. The EEG differences between relapse-prone and abstinence-prone groups were found to be related to the interaction of two premorbid factors: childhood conduct disorder and paternal alcoholism. These findings receive further support from Bauer (1993) and from Prichep
