Eating too little, smoking and drinking too much : wider lifestyle problems among methadone maintenance patients

Patients attending a methadone maintenance clinic in South London (n=100) were interviewed and asked to recall all forms of food, alcohol, tobacco and drug intake in the previous 72 hours. Ninety-three per cent were smokers (smoking an average of 17.6 cigarettes each day); eating patterns were disturbed (27% had not eaten a cooked meal in this period), while almost half (44%) had consumed alcohol over the last three days at an average of 22.2 units. Patients who had consumed alcohol reported fewer eating occasions (p < 0.01) in the three day period and a higher mean number of cigarettes per day (p < 0.05) than those patients who had consumed no alcohol in this period. The generally poor diet and infrequent eating for this group is particularly severe for a subset (around one third of the cohort) who are regular drinkers (with high levels of alcohol dependence) and smokers but whose eating patterns are irregular. It is important that methadone maintenance services address these problems and that evaluations of the effectiveness of this form of treatment take into account such wider lifestyle variables.