It is well known that alcoholism and the abuse of alcohol cause serious medical, psychiatric, social, economic and legal problems. Alcohol abuse-related problems appear as early as in primary school, together with smoking, while the drug problem appears a little later. Alcoholism is especially dangerous in traffic. It strikes women ever more frequently, lonely elderly people and especially the people in the undeveloped, transitional and wartorn countries. Alcoholism is becoming a major social and medical problem, so over a million of Croats (including the families of alcoholics) suffer from alcoholism-related problems.
Solutions to these problems are hard to find due to the serious economic and historical connotations of the consumption of alcohol, as well as those that have to do with cultural heritage of every country. The development of public health policy towards alcoholism includes the need for national planning and coordination regarding prevention and rehabilitation, and must be understood as closely connected, complementary and sometimes joined activities of the public health system services, with the goal of solving the problems connected with the excessive consumption and addiction to alcohol. This paper deals with the treatment of alcoholism as a public health problem.
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