Minotaur - yes, I have worked in Aboriginal alcohol rehab services, also in support and ancillary services for those who go through rehab.
I have also studied the subject over many years, and read widely in the literature, which generally demonstrates the relative ineffectuality of both substance abuse education and rehabilitation.
Most health promotion activity is relatively ineffective in terms of prevention, although as you say, some targetted substance misuse education material is essential as part of the overall package or "multi-pronged effort". The real issue is getting the relative investment into the separate elements of the prong calibrated correctly.
Saltpetre: I agree, rehab and education are not "complete wastes of time", and I believe that effort should be made in these areas, but to put too much hope in these areas would be wasteful and delusional: we have to act primarily and strongly in the areas which are most productive at preventing these harms, in both the immediate and longer term senses, and spend much of the available funds in those areas.
Sometimes this will mean buying out licenses, varying licences, ensuring much greater compliance with regulations and licence conditions, collecting better data nd analysing it quickly, overcoming the alcohol industry'splitical payments and contributions to influential lobby groups like the IPA, opinion setters, sports clubs and politicians.
Targetted interventions, brief interventions, and most importantly multi-systemic intensive targeted therapies are expensive, but do work, as do nurse home visitation and early childhood interventions (in terms of minimising the propensity to be vulnerable to addictions later in life).
Anything which minimises impulsivity is useful in the preventative sense.
But most of all, minimising availability (in terms of reduced hours of sale, reduced number of outlets, higher price per standard measure of pure alcohol, reduced leakage to underage drinkers, and minimising access to the most harmful cheap/popular products which appeal to impulsive young drinkers) will give us by far the greatest return on investment.
Prevention is far better than cure, and limiting availability is by far the most effective form of prevention.

Thanks Dan Fitzpatrick. It could well be argued that revenue from higher taxes on alcohol and the savings in Health, Welfare and Policing/Justice that any reduction in usage will bring about would be available for rehab spending. I agree with Dan. Easy enough to put someone through rehab, a whole different matter keeping them sober, a whole waste of time if there is no sincere commitment. True of all addictions ...

As a society we've accepted the damage tobacco does and taken steps to discourage smokers in a variety of ways. I'd suggest though, that the most effective strategy, other than breaking the news to someone that they have a serious related disease, to reduce incidence and extent of smoking has been through pain in the wallet. It's time to accept the damage alcohol is doing, to admit the problem is growing despite 'education programs' and other 'soft' approaches and be prepared to turn the screws on the alcohol industry and drinkers.