Methods for Recording Lifetime History of Substance Abuse

The purpose of this paper is to describe a method for recording and analyzing extensive amounts of data about substance abuse obtained during interviews with subjects abusing drugs and alcohol. The data recording and analysis method described has been used in a 5-year prospective follow-up study by personal interview of 100 male and 100 female narcotic addicts. To facilitate the readers' understanding, we have included a case example and a discussion of some preliminary results of data analysis in addition to a detailed description of the method.