To our knowledge, this is the first report characterizing the dose-related effects of alcohol on the symptoms and medication side effects in schizophrenia patients, and comparing the effects of alcohol between schizophrenia patients and healthy subjects. Relative to healthy subjects, subjects with schizophrenia reported greater euphoria and stimulatory effects in response to alcohol. Alcohol produced small transient increases in positive psychotic symptoms and perceptual alterations without affecting negative symptoms. Alcohol also impaired several aspects of immediate and delayed recall, as well as vigilance, and distractibility. Further, the effects of alcohol on any of the measures was not influenced by whether subjects were receiving typical or atypical antipsychotics.