The present research determined the correlates of substance abuse in chronically mentally ill patients with self-reported mood as assessed by the Affects Balance Scale. Greater alcohol and drug abuse were found to be positively associated with more negative affect, primarily anxiety, depression, and hostility. Such abuse was found to be inversely related to positive affect, primarily contentment, vigor, and affection. The schizophrenics tended to have more positive correlations with negative affect and the nonschizophrenics tended to have more negative correlations with positive affect. The highest correlation of the study was -.57 for the nonschizophrenics subjects between drug abuse and Total Affective Charge, an index devised by Templer to assess the sum of positive and negative affect.