A questionnaire including the 10-item Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was administered to male and female alcoholics (120 each), 119 normal controls (women who were not alcoholics and were not receiving psychiatric treatment) and 118 treatment controls (female nonalcoholics who were receiving treatment for psychiatric problems). Equal numbers of male alcoholics, female alcoholics and treatment controls were selected from public and private outpatient and public and private inpatient treatment facilities in southern California [USA]. The normal controls were matched to the female alcoholics for age, marital status, education, religion and number of children. The self-esteem of female alcoholics was much lower than that of male alcoholics and normal controls but not significantly different from that of treatment controls. A questionnaire administered to all of the alcoholics 1 yr after the initial survey indicated significant increases in the self-esteem of both men and women, the improvement in the women being greater than that in the men. Scales included in the original questionnaire permitted measurement of correlations between self-esteem and alienation (Middleton Alienation Scale); social isolation (Dean Social Isolation Scale); anxiety and depression (Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist); and neuroticism (Eysenck Personality Inventory). All of these correlations were negative in the 4 groups. Scores on measures of alienation and social isolation included in the follow-up questionnaire, showed decreases (larger in female alcoholics than in male alcoholics); improved self-esteem may be associated with attenuation of negative affective characteristics and women in treatment for alcoholism do not have a poorer prognosis than do men.