Notes that alcohol abusers' verbal self-reports are likely to be an accurate reflection of drinking behavior and examines possible research strategies for further enhancing the accuracy of self-reports and for predicting inaccurate self-reports. These strategies include (1) determining how response error can be reduced in the question-answering process, (2) developing procedures to enhance accuracy beyond normal recall, (3) determining what amount of response variability is tolerable, (4) examining group vs individual levels of agreement, and (5) investigating whether wording of questions significantly affects response. Challenges to the use of self-reports in the field of alcohol abuse are noted.