Alcohol has been used throughout known history and has been both beneficial toman and caused him considerable harm. The bad effects of alcohol that can be seenclearly in alcoholism, which causes damage and many side effects such as expenses fortreatment, loss of income due to illness or absence from work. This study aims to study the treatment costs of alcoholism, which includedirect costs and indirect costs. Thanyarak Hospital is the case study

the data onalcoholism were obtained from a sample group of 98 cases of the year 1998 ofout-patients and inpatients. Simple random sampling is the technique used to studythe costs in this case. The sample group alcoholics was mostly male, between the aged of 30 and 49years. The majority of patients were poorly educated. Laborers or self-hire laborersare the largest group following the unemployed. Education levels and occupationsrelate to average monthly incomes, therefore the majority of patients had monthlyincomes of not more than 4,000 baht or no income. In addition, the study also foundthat most patients were from Bangkokland from the Central Region because the hospitalis located there. The treatment costs of alcoholism consist of 1) direct costs namely

hospitaland patient , 2) indirect costs are the costs to relatives. The hospital costs arehealth care resources that were consumed or utilized by the program or the treatmentprocess such as the building, medical equipment, personnel concerned. Alcoholicin-patients used more health care resources than out-patients since hospital costs ofin-patients were more than that of out-patients by approximately 45 times. Thepatient costs are costs attributed to the expenses of patients including the value oftheir time. In-patients also had greater travel fares and loss of time from workwhile participating in the treatment process than out-patients by about 5 times. Andthe relatives costs are income or benefits foregone by relatives due to participationin the treatment process, as out-patient's relatives lost income or benefits morethan in-patient's relatives by 1.8 times. The statistical data of Thanyarak Hospital shows that the numbers of alcoholicin 1998 were 450 in-patients and 135 out-patients. These numbers indicate that the1998 total treatment costs of alcoholic patients of the hospital was approximately 23millions baht. Patients of the hospital came from Bangkok and Central region. In1990, Bangkok and Central region shared approximately 20 percent of the total numberof alcohol drinkers in Thailand. Therefore, the 1998 treatment costs of the wholecountry could be as much as 115 million baht.