Examination of Cloninger's Type I and Type II Alcoholism with a Sample of Men Alcoholics in Treatment

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Abstract
Cloninger's clinical method of classifying alcoholics into two groups (Types I and II) was examined with data obtained from 360 VA hospitalized male alcoholic patients. For operational criteria, the Cloninger clinical method of subtyping alcoholics employs age‐of‐onset of problem drinking and symptom‐clusters supposedly associated with each subtype. Marked overlap was found between the symptom‐clusters used to define the two subtypes. Ninety‐one percent of the entire sample satisfied criteria for both symptom‐clusters. Dividing the sample by early‐onset (Type II, ≤25 years) and lateonset (Type I, >26 years) alcoholism did not substantially reduce the overlap between symptom‐clusters; i.e., 96% of the early‐onset and 83% of the late‐onset subgroups were positive for both symptomclusters. Only 21 men (6%) could be classified when both age‐of‐onset and the type‐appropriate symptom‐cluster were used to separate patients. In hospital settings, at least, these findings suggest that the two‐group clinical alcoholism typology proposed by Cloninger basically reflects the age‐of‐onset of problem drinking.