Behaviour therapies helpful for alcoholism

Social behaviour and network therapy, and established motivational enhancement therapy are equally beneficial and cost-effective in helping people with alcoholism. Researchers from the University of York worked on an UK Alcohol Treatment Trial (UKATT) found that social behaviour and network therapy, and established motivational enhancement therapy are both equally beneficial in helping people with alcoholism. Motivational enhancement is an alcohol-focused treatment that works on people's motivation to change their behaviour, which is a quite well-known and well-researched intervention. Social behaviour and network therapy is more person-centred, which helps provide patients with better social environments and alternative activities. It gets them to think about who they associate with, and how their network can help them in changing their behaviour. Social behaviour and network therapy involves eight 50-minute sessions, while motivational enhancement involves three sessions. For the two UKATT studies, 52 therapists at seven treatment sites were randomly assigned to training in one of the two treatment approaches. The investigators then recruited adult subjects with alcohol problems who were assigned to one of the two treatments; 617 of 742 subjects continued with follow-up a year later. The investigators found that the effectiveness of the therapies was similar. Total drinking was reduced by 45 percent at 12 months, while alcohol-related problems had decreased by 50 percent. In terms of therapist time and their training, social behaviour and networking cost a bit more than motivational enhancement. But how these therapies impacted on things like health care costs, social services, and contact with the criminal justice system, social behaviour and networking saved rather more than motivational therapy. Both therapies save about five times as much as they initially cost, overall. The findings give a better option of treatments, which can be tried until evidence that clearly suggests that people will do better with one treatment than the other is found.