The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, which was not contacted by ABC about the report, was circulating a suggestion that activists contact local ABC affiliates to offer their views on the report. The message, sent via email to thousands, read in part:

The controversial program is sure to stimulate discussion and may offer activists an opportunity to put a local spin on the story. You may wish to contact the news directors of your local ABC-TV Affiliates to suggest that they interview people in your community who can defend the disease concept of alcoholism on the news broadcasts that immediately follow the program in most areas. Physicians, addiction counselors and people in recovery who have had some experience in dealing with the media and who can articulate their views concisely all would make good potential interview subjects.

Stanton Peele is taking this opportunity to lecture and run workshops for groups to explain alternative ideas about alcoholism, drug abuse, and treatment. His approach is called harm reduction, which works with people to improve their lives even before they abstain. He presents alternative ways of thinking about addiction, and of teaching young people about alcohol. Rather than telling people that alcoholism is an inherited disease, Stanton works with people's own values and lifestyles to produce realistic change.

Devastating Problem

But now, those views are being challenged and the means of treatment questioned. Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs are virtually the only treatment options available to alcoholics; of those who seek help, more than 90 percent drop out after one meeting, some because they are turned off by the AA philosophy. In an eye-opening report, ABC News medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman challenges the established beliefs and conventional theories about drinking, opening the door on a heated and often hostile debate within the medical and treatment communities.

The special, one-hour edition of "20/20" looks at bold new ways to approach the problem and calls for a re-examination of long-accepted views about one of our country's most urgent and costly problems.

Is A.A. Enough?

"I wouldn't have a life without it," says recovering alcoholic Curtis B., of the Alcoholics Anonymous in which he has participated for over a decade. He is among millions of alcoholics who have been saved by AA and similar programs.

Alcoholics Anonymous is considered by many, including Dr. Enoch Gordis, head of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, to be one of the "incredible genius creations of the 20th century." In Alcoholics Anonymous, founded in 1935, the three important steps to sobriety are admitting powerlessness to alcohol, turning yourself over to a "higher power" and never drinking again.

But a growing number of researchers, including Dr. Alan Marlatt, psychologist and alcoholism expert at University of Washington, believe, not that the old remedy is wrong, but that it helps only a small segment of the population. Considering that more than 90 percent of those who seek help drop out after one meeting of AA and similar 12-step programs, he explains, "We could say they're all in denial, or we can say from a consumer's perspective that we haven't reached them with the right message about how they could get help."

Insurance Purposes?

Some who advocate alternative treatments point out that calling alcoholism a disease was done for insurance purposes -- if it is a disease, insurance pays for treatment. Referring to the seven-billion-dollar-per-year treatment industry (excluding Alcoholics Anonymous) in the U.S., Dr. Nick Heather, one of England's top alcohol researchers, explains: "There's a huge treatment industry in the USA which will have a great deal to lose by a move away from the disease concept."

Psychologist Dr. Marc Kern, who struggled with severe alcohol and drug addiction for years, believes he is living proof that AA's abstinence philosophy is not the only answer. Advocating a behavioral model, Dr. Kern believes some alcoholics can learn to drink responsibly. Dr. Kern and others agree that millions more problem drinkers would seek help if they had options; claiming that abstinence, the very essence of 12-step programs, turns off a great number of people. He reveals he enjoys an occasional glass of wine and thinks his patients deserve the same choice in treatment.

Stigma of a Label

Richard Banton, who followed the AA program for six years, felt like a social outcast while in treatment. Although sober, he was uncomfortable with the methodology. "[With AA], you are terrorized to fall into line . . . Anytime you say anything that conflicts with their model, then you're in denial." Searching for his own solution, he found experts who considered his problem a behavior that could be changed vs. a lifelong disease. Feeling "free[d] of the label of 'alcoholic'," Mr. Branton says he has been drinking occasionally for the last three years without ever getting drunk.

Additionally, the report explores the strikingly different attitudes Europeans have about drinking. It also probes the problem of teenage alcoholism and what many consider our naive approach to young drinkers. It shatters the myths surrounding alcoholism -- that it's caused by a difference in metabolism, that there is an "alcohol gene," and that there is something called the "craving brain."

Dr. Snyderman asks that we as individuals and as a country open our minds to a new way of thinking about a searing problem that is not going away.