Teachers ought to know how to identify the alcoholic student (and also the student in early recovery), and how to help such students. Research indicates that alcohol is implicated in 38% of all academic failures. The alcoholic student may smell of alcohol, act in a disoriented manner, or drop out, but as many as one-third of students surveyed recently exhibited no "academic" signs of their problem. A more reliable indicator may be social behavior. Alcoholic students tend to be loners, avoiding face-to-face contact with the teacher and withdrawn in class. One way to help these students is to model appropriate behavior. The most helpful course is to make these students responsible for the consequences of their behavior. Educators should be able to refer students to local agencies familiar with alcoholism. It usually does no good to ask students directly if they have a drinking problem. Students in early recovery from drug and alcohol addiction pose a different challenge: they may have tremors that interfere with handwriting; they may have trouble concentrating; and they may talk and write about recovery repeatedly. Writing teachers should talk frankly to such students about "audience" and remind them of how they themselves would have reacted to such proselytizing a short time ago. Students should also be given help in setting long-term goals, and in focusing on small steps to move them toward those goals. If teachers learn to identify and cope with such students, perhaps they can also help them. (RS)