For example, in a study of cognitive recovery over a 14-month period, alcoholics who remained abstinent performed better than relapsers (Glenn et al. 1994), but abstainers did not perform as well as nonalcoholic control subjects. In another study, drinkers with a positive family history of alcoholism who had been abstinent for up to 4 months showed poorer performance on tests of cognition than either drinkers with a negative family history of alcoholism or abstainers with a positive family history (Drake et al. 1995). However, alcoholics both with and without a positive family history of alcoholism showed significant improvement with abstinence. Hence, a positive family history of alcoholism did not impede recovery of cognitive function among abstinent alcoholics. In most studies of neuropsychological deficits, length of abstinence typically has approximated 4 weeks. It is possible that past research may have overestimated permanent neuropsychological deficits related to chronic alcoholism by examining alcoholics whose mental functioning continued to improve following the studies’ conclusion.
