Despite these limitations, our findings address the call for more research aimed at reducing health disparities in the outcomes of minorities who have alcohol disorders (Lowman and Le Fauve, 2003), by examining a sample of baseline dependent and problem drinkers over a seven-year period. Our results add to the scant research conducted on health disparities in alcohol use treatment outcomes and suggest future research paths for understanding the mechanisms underlying the similarities and differences in alcohol use outcomes as highlighted by different modalities of substance use treatment. In particular, further investigation of religiosity and social network drinking patterns may help to explain black-white differences in abstinence among persons who do not attend AA, and, possibly, comparable treatment outcomes despite greater problem severity and socioeconomic hardship among black dependent and problem drinkers.
