 Alcohol dependence alcoholism is a chronic medical illness with a relapsing course and a major public health problem. Alcoholism is clinically characterized by periods of uncontrolled alcohol consumption and withdrawal, during which counter-adaptive mechanisms such as stress and dysphoria are recruited. Neurobiological research into the pathophysiology of the illness suggest that both the primary rewarding effects of ethanol as well as neuroadaptive changes that occur during chronic alcohol exposure involve persistent changes in various brain neurotransmission systems, such as the dopamine, glutamate, and gamma-amino butyric acid GABA systems. Recent views of the illness also emphasize the long-lasting recruitment of the brain stress system. Unfortunately, despite this progress, available pharmacological agents for the treatment of alcoholism are too few and not sufficiently efficacious. 