In which DCist interviews area scientists, researchers, and academics on topics pertaining to natural and scientific interests. As Thomas Dolby would say: science!

Mark Willenbring, M.D., is the Director of the Treatment and Recovery Research Division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). He is a former professor of psychiatry at the University of Minnesota, and has worked to develop and test management strategies for people with complex addiction problems. In his work he has worked to develop evidence-based clinical practice guidelines for treating mental and addictive disorders. Dr. Willenbring co-led a national initiative to determine the feasibility of introducing guidelines for treating addictive disorders within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The NIAAA recently introduced Rethinking Drinking, a Web-based test that examines your drinking patterns and their effect on your health.

DCist: What was your role on the Rethinking Drinking project?

Mark Willenbring: This was a collaboration between me and one of of our other staff members, Maureen Gardner, who is a medical writer and who did most of the writing and the working with the contractors on the appearance and the construction of the Web site. I’m responsible for the content.

I have to tell you, I polled the staff of DCist, and of those who responded, 90% were in higher risk category while 70% are in the highest risk category. Are we all drunks? Is that what this site is telling us?

Not at all. The first thing to keep in mind about Rethinking Drinking is that this is a wellness product. This is not oriented toward treating a disease. One of the problems with thinking about drinking is that we tend to think of it in blight terms. Either you’re a severe alcoholic or you’re not. When we think of somebody with a drinking problem, we think of somebody who is falling down at weddings, embarrassing themselves, losing their jobs, getting DWIs—their life is falling apart.

And in fact, that of course does happen in the most severe stages of alcoholism, alcohol dependence. But this product really isn’t directed toward people who have an alcohol use disorder. This is oriented toward people who are drinking more than is medically advisable but who don’t have any problems yet. This is a wellness product. This is a product for people who want to drink, but want to do it in a way that they stay healthy. They don’t want to put themselves at excessive risk for developing problems later.

Problems like dependence.

Like dependence Problems like driving while intoxicated. Or relationship trouble. Or liver disease. Those are the big ones that develop over time. There are others as well, but those are the big ones.