Most clinicians agree that alcoholism is frequent in schizophrenic patients. However, little is known about the clinical or familial characteristics of this group. We compared alcoholic schizophrenics and nonalcoholic schizophrenics with respect to sociodemographic and clinical characteristics and the rate of various psychiatric illnesses among their first-degree relatives. The only difference in the sociodemographic characteristics was a higher proportion of males among the alcoholic schizophrenics. Clinically, the alcoholic schizophrenics were more likely to report experiencing hallucinations, depressive episodes, manic episodes (females only) and multiple substance abuse (males only). In addition, the male alcoholic schizophrenics were younger at first hospitalization than the male nonalcoholic schizophrenics. This effect was reversed for females. The relatives of alcoholic schizophrenics were 2.6 times more likely to be alcoholic than the relatives of the nonalcoholic schizophrenics. The morbidity for other psychiatric disorders was similar in the two groups.