Alcoholism Abstinence - Abstinence and Controlled Drinking
Rychtarik et al. found that treatment aimed at abstinence or controlled drinking was not related to patients' ultimate remission type. Booth, Dale, and Ansari (1984), on the other hand, found that patients did achieve their selected goal of abstinence or controlled drinking more often. Three British groups (Elal-Lawrence, Slade, & Dewey, 1986; Heather, Rollnick, & Winton, 1983; Orford & Keddie, 1986) have found that treated alcoholics' beliefs about whether they could control their drinking and their commitment to a CD or an abstinence-treatment goal were more important in determining CD versus abstinence outcomes than were subjects' levels of alcohol dependence. Miller et al. (in press) found that more dependent drinkers were less likely to achieve CD outcomes but that desired treatment goal and whether one labeled oneself an alcoholic or not independently predicted outcome type.
Summary
Controlled drinking has an important role to play in alcoholism treatment. Controlled drinking as well as abstinence is an appropriate goal for the majority of problem drinkers who are not alcohol-dependent. In addition, while controlled drinking becomes less likely the more severe the degree of alcoholism, other factors—such as age, values, and beliefs about oneself, one's drinking, and the possibility of controlled drinking—also play a role, sometimes the dominant role, in determining successful outcome type. Finally, reduced drinking is often the focus of a harm-reduction approach, where the likely alternative is not abstinence but continued alcoholism.
(SEE ALSO: Alcohol; Disease Concept of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse; Relapse Prevention; Treatment)
reviewed by:
Harry Croft, MD (Psychiatrist)
Medical Director, HealthyPlace.com
Created on January 03, 2009 Last Updated on May 24, 2012
In Addictions
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