Alcohol Moderation Management: Programs and Steps to Control Drinking

As the IP had a successful outcome, six months after treatment, their possibilities for CD might be better than for persons with SUD in general. On the other hand, as the group expressed positive views on this specific treatment, they might question the sobriety goal in a lesser extent than other groups. Some of the abstainers reported experience of professional contacts, such as therapists or psychologists.

Alcohol Addiction Treatment at CATCH Recovery

Important features common to these groups include low program barriers (e.g., drop-in groups, few rules) and inclusiveness of clients with difficult presentations (Little & Franskoviak, 2010). Harm reduction may also be well-suited for people with high-risk drug use and severe, treatment-resistant SUDs (Finney & Moos, 2006; Ivsins, Pauly, Brown, & Evans, 2019). These individuals are considered good candidates for harm reduction interventions because of the severity of substance-related negative consequences, and thus the urgency of reducing these harms. Indeed, this argument has been central to advocacy around harm reduction interventions for people who inject drugs, such as SSPs and safe injection facilities (Barry et al., 2019; Kulikowski & Linder, 2018). It has also been used to advocate for managed alcohol and housing first programs, which represent a harm reduction approach to high-risk drinking among people with severe AUD (Collins et al., 2012; Ivsins et al., 2019).

• While complete abstinence often requires you to avoid any circumstances or people that might tempt you to drink, moderation allows you to still participate in work functions and social events while empowering you to have more control over when and how much you drink.
• The goal of a moderation program is to support a person’s journey toward understanding their drinking behavior and create a safe environment for them to explore how to drink moderately.
• The evaluation consists of 11 yes or no questions that are intended to be used as an informational tool to assess the severity and probability of a substance use disorder.
• In previous research, several indicators of whether CD is possible are mentioned (Klingemann and Rosenberg, 2009; Klingemann, 2016; Davis et al., 2017; Luquiens et al., 2011; Berglund et al., 2019).

Summary of the COMBINE Study

This suggests that individuals with non-abstinence goals are retained as well as, if not better than, those working toward abstinence, though additional research is needed to confirm these results and examine the effect of goal-matching on retention. Despite the growth of the harm reduction movement controlled drinking vs abstinence globally, research and implementation of nonabstinence treatment in the U.S. has lagged. Furthermore, abstinence remains a gold standard treatment outcome in pharmacotherapy research for drug use disorders, even after numerous calls for alternative metrics of success (Volkow, 2020).

How to Get Help for Drug or Alcohol Misuse

A recent qualitative study found that concern about missing substances was significantly correlated with not completing treatment (Zemore, Ware, Gilbert, & Pinedo, 2021). Unfortunately, few quantitative, survey-based studies have included substance use during treatment as a potential reason for treatment noncompletion, representing a significant gap in this body of literature (for a review, see Brorson, Ajo Arnevik, Rand-Hendriksen, & Duckert, 2013). Additionally, no studies https://ecosoberhouse.com/ identified in this review compared reasons for not completing treatment between abstinence-focused and nonabstinence treatment. Individuals with greater SUD severity tend to be most receptive to therapist input about goal selection (Sobell, Sobell, Bogardis, Leo, & Skinner, 1992). This suggests that treatment experiences and therapist input can influence participant goals over time, and there is value in engaging patients with non-abstinence goals in treatment.

Models of nonabstinence psychosocial treatment for SUD

• Despite efforts to comprehend the overall biology of substance use disorders, scientists’ and physicians’ understanding of the relationship between women’s health and binge drinking has lagged behind.
• Through family counselling sessions and support groups, loved ones can learn more about addiction and how best to support you on this journey towards sobriety.
• To that end, the use of abstinence as the dominant drinking goal across alcoholism treatment programs in the United States may in fact deter individuals who would otherwise seek treatment for alcohol problems should CD be proposed as an acceptable goal.
• In contrast to the holistic approach of harm reduction psychotherapy, risk reduction interventions are generally designed to target specific HIV risk behaviors (e.g., injection or sexual risk behaviors) without directly addressing mechanisms of SUD, and thus are quite limited in scope.
• Inclusion criteria were drawn up to recruit interviewees able to reflect on their process of change.