We also found that on average, abstainers reported higher QOL than non-abstainers, and that abstinence was the strongest correlate of QOL, even when including sociodemographic variables like employment. Though others have shown that QOL changes for the better during dependence remission (Dawson et al. 2009), we know of no other study that has directly compared QOL of abstainers to non-abstainers. In terms of clinical implications, this result is crucial for informing harm reduction techniques that focus on QOL-related issues rather than total abstinence: individuals considering nonabstinent goals should be aware that abstinence may be best for optimal QOL in the long run. Although we did not assess specific general health or medical outcomes, our results differ slightly from NESARC results which showed that compared with continued dependence, only non-abstinent remission (and not abstinence) was associated with improvements in general health (Dawson et al. 2009). Our results also differ from those of an outpatient treatment study which showed that low-risk drinkers had better medical outcomes than abstainers (Kline-Simon et al. 2013). However, these studies used continued dependence or heavy drinking as
