In the context of a randomized trial of three alternative treatment referrals for problem-drinking workers in a 10,000- employee New England manufacturing plant, this study asked 200 clients being newly enrolled in an employee assistance program (EAP) whether physicians had warned them about health hazards associated with their drinking in the year before they entered the EAP. The study constructed patterns of drinking and help- seeking, emphasizing the previous year and the previous month. Next, the study followed up subjects for 2 years after initial intake and assessed whether recollection of a physician's warning was independently associated with drinking outcomes. Asked to think back over the year before being enrolled into the EAP, 148 of the 200 respondents reported at least one medical encounter during that period. Only 33 subjects reported that any physician had told them in the past year that drinking was injuring their health. The likelihood of a warning was greatest for patients who saw a private physician or went to a hospital as an inpatient. Employees who reported at intake that they had been warned by a physician were significantly less likely to have relapsed 2 years later; they were more likely to be abstaining, were less likely to report one or more episodes of drunkenness, and were less impaired on the RAND behavioral index. Implications are drawn from these findings.