The decision as to whether to give the patient a single medication dose prior to discharge and perhaps provide one or two additional medication doses to be administered in the referral setting rests on adequacy of supervision, the probability of whether the patient will drink while undergoing treatment, and whether the patient can or will return for assessments the following day. In some circumstances, no treatment may be safer than treatment with medication. Mayo-Smith (1997) has shown that benzodiazepines confer protection against alcohol withdrawal seizures and thus patients with previous seizures should be treated early. The same applies to delirium. Both of these topics will be explored in greater detail in the next section. Extremely heavy drinking in the weeks prior to complete cessation also predicts more severe withdrawal (Lejoyeux et al. 1998), but confirming such a history often is difficult.