Alcoholic men who had been abstinent from alcohol for more than 20 days were evaluated with the thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) test. Abstinent alcoholics showed a blunted thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) response to TRH as compared with healthy controls. In the absence of any somatic illnesses, these data suggest that the TSH blunting in some alcoholics may be interpreted as a trait marker of being alcoholic.