The study was conducted in a Northern California county with a diverse population of approximately 900,000, a mix of rural and urban areas, and high generalizability to other parts of the U.S. (Greenfield and Weisner, 1995; Tam et al., 2000; Weisner and Schmidt, 1995a). Baseline interviews were conducted in 1995 and 1996 with individuals entering public and private chemical dependency treatment (CD) programs, and with dependent and problem drinkers in the general population who had not received treatment in the year prior to the baseline interview. The treatment sample (n=926; white: n= 537, black: n= 253, Hispanic: n=60, other: n= 75, missing on race: n=1) included consecutive admissions to the ten public and private programs in the county that met the following inclusion criteria (Kaskutas et al., 1997a): 1) at least one new intake per week; 2) drugs other than alcohol were not the primary focus (e.g., methadone maintenance programs were not included); and 3) first line of treatment entry (i.e., programs limited to aftercare were excluded). The overall recruitment rate for the treatment sample was 80% (88% in the
