Moderated Drinking: A Creative Strategy to Treat Alcoholism?

While drinking goal represents an important clinical variable, the literature is relatively limited as to the specific influence of drinking goal on treatment outcomes for alcoholism. Likewise, the clinical implications of drinking goal on treatment matching are largely unknown. Researchers have long posited that offering goal choice (i.e., https://ecosoberhouse.com/ non-abstinence and abstinence treatment options) may be key to engaging more individuals in SUD treatment, including those earlier in their addictions (Bujarski et al., 2013; Mann et al., 2017; Marlatt, Blume, & Parks, 2001; Sobell & Sobell, 1995). To date, however, there has been little empirical research directly testing this hypothesis.

1 Non-abstinent recovery from alcohol use disorders

While women like Amy Winehouse may have been forced to struggle both privately and publicly with substance use disorders and alcohol, the increasing focus of research on addiction to alcohol and other substances as a brain disorder will open new treatment avenues for those suffering from the consequences. It wasn’t until 1993 that clinical research funded by the National Institutes of Health was required to include women as research subjects. In fact, the NIH did not even require sex as a biological variable to be considered by federally funded controlled drinking vs abstinence researchers until 2016. When women are excluded from biomedical research, it leaves doctors and researchers with an incomplete understanding of health and disease, including alcohol addiction. Roughly 1 in 5 U.S. adults report binge drinking at least once a week, with an average of seven drinks per binge episode. This is well over the amount of alcohol thought to produce legal intoxication, commonly defined as a blood alcohol concentration over 0.08% – on average, four drinks in two hours for women, five drinks in two hours for men.

Help for Achieving Lasting Recovery

Given low treatment engagement and high rates of health-related harms among individuals who use drugs, combined with evidence of nonabstinence goals among a substantial portion of treatment-seekers, testing nonabstinence treatment for drug use is a clear next step for the field. Ultimately, nonabstinence treatments may overlap significantly with abstinence-focused treatment models. Harm reduction psychotherapies, for example, incorporate multiple modalities that have been most extensively studied as abstinence-focused SUD treatments (e.g., cognitive-behavioral therapy; mindfulness). However, it is also possible that adaptations will be needed for individuals with nonabstinence goals (e.g., additional support with goal setting and monitoring drug use; ongoing care to support maintenance goals), and currently there is a dearth of research in this area.

Reasons Abstinence From Alcohol May Be the Best Choice

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. Simply put, those who want to learn to drink in moderation are less likely to achieve their goal, while those who set a goal of quitting drinking entirely see greater success. When people aiming for abstinence make a mistake, they may feel like quitting is impossible and give up entirely. You can have an occasional drink without feeling defeated and sliding deeper into a relapse. Multivariable stepwise regressions estimating the probability of non-abstinentrecovery and average quality of life.

Analytic Approach

Abstinence or Moderation? Drinking Goals in a Web-based Intervention for Veterans

• However, this approach is consistent with the goal of increasing treatment utilization by reaching those who may not otherwise present to treatment.
• Abstinence rates became the primary outcome for determining SUD treatment effectiveness (Finney, Moyer, & Swearingen, 2003; Kiluk, Fitzmaurice, Strain, & Weiss, 2019; Miller, 1994; Volkow, 2020), a standard which persisted well into the 1990s (Finney et al., 2003).
• In addition to issues with administrative discharge, abstinence-only treatment may contribute to high rates of individuals not completing SUD treatment.