Alcohol education and rehabilitation programs are widely accepted as an integral part of the enforcement of drunk driving laws; however, careful evaluations of these programs generally fail to show subsequent beneficial effects on traffic crashes. This fact is due in part to the many barriers to conducting sound program evaluations and in part to the existence of a number of other factors that affect how successful educational and rehabilitative efforts are likely to be. Included among such factors are the great difficulties associated with changing human behavior, the growing evidence of biological differences in the response to alcohol, and the societal context in which rehabilitation takes place. Alcohol advertising, government dependence on alcohol revenues, and the portrayal of alcohol consumption on television all combine to create a message that contradicts the thrust of alcohol education and rehabilitation programs. Programs to rehabilitate the drinking driver will be most effective when it is recognized that society as a whole is instrumental in contributing to the problem of drunk driving and when it is acknowledged that one unit of alcohol education cannot begin to counteract effectively years of exposure to messages contrary to the content of such education and rehabilitation programs. (MN)