This paper analyzes the moral career of alcoholism treatment in a public health facility, with testimonials from "alcoholic" men and women on the moral of shame. The moral career is the sequence of changes that affect the scheme of identity and images with which a person judges others and herself. We interviewed 20 patients out of which, ten men and ten women, who were either outpatients or hospitalized. Furthermore, field observations of the relationship between patients and those with health professionals were conducted. Moral career aspects were analyzed, among which, the "awareness" of alcoholism and the alcoholic condition as well as the construction of shame and responsibility in the context of treatment. Shame expresses the recognition of respondents about the disregard of social norms, such as the impact of gender in defining both the ethics of the male provider and the good mother. Proving the moral dimension of medical therapeutic device, shame is reconfigured in moments of (re)admission as an expression of a disapproved drinking lifestyle, and joins the therapeutic project in order to hamper the "relapse" and prevent the alcoholic demoralization. We conclude that the medicalization of alcoholism is inscribed in an encompassing moral field that produces moralities and particular ways of perceiving and dealing with alcoholism.
moral career; shame; alcoholism; treatment