Objective: To examine the long-term effects of a personality-targeted intervention on drinking quantity and frequency (QF), problem drinking, and personality-specific motivations for alcohol use in early adolescence. Method: A randomized control trial was carried out with 364 adolescents (median age 14) recruited from 13 secondary schools with…

Objective: Problematic alcohol use is the third leading contributor to the global burden of disease, partly because the majority of problem drinkers are not receiving treatment. Internet-based alcohol interventions attract an otherwise untreated population, but their effectiveness has not yet been established. The current study examined the…

The widely disseminated clinical method of motivational interviewing (MI) arose through a convergence of science and practice. Beyond a large base of clinical trials, advances have been made toward "looking under the hood" of MI to understand the underlying mechanisms by which it affects behavior change. Such specification of outcome-relevant…

To assess whether temperament moderates response to treatment for substance use disorders (SUD), n = 88 consecutively referred adolescents with SUD were randomized to cognitive-behavioral (CBT) or psychoeducational (PET) therapies. Principal components analyses reduced the 10-attribute Dimensions of Temperament Revised (DOTS-R) to three factors…

Although alcohol use disorders (AUDs) adversely affect women, research on efficacious treatments for women is limited. In this randomized efficacy trial of 102 heterosexual women with AUDs, the authors compared alcohol behavioral couple therapy (ABCT) and alcohol behavioral individual therapy (ABIT) on percentage of days abstinent (PDA) and…

Because controlled drinking is achievable by younger people with fewer alcohol-related problems, moderation rather than abstinence is realistic goal for most young offenders. Behavioral self-control training is one type of intervention which can effectively encourage moderate drinking. Studying effects young offenders expect alcohol to have under…

Alcoholism is a complex behavior pattern. Social learning theory, which is concerned with the analysis of why individuals behave in certain ways and the effects of reinforcement patterns in their behaviors, offers an alternative to traditional treatments of alcoholics. Among alcoholics, drinking is a control issue. Locus of control is viewed as a…

Married or cohabiting female alcoholic patients (n = 138) and their non-substance-abusing male partners were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 equally intensive interventions: (a) behavioral couples therapy plus individual-based treatment (BCT; n = 46), (b) individual-based treatment only (IBT; n = 46), or (c) psychoeducational attention control…

Following a brief review of literature on marital and family treatment for alcohol problems, this paper describes two types of marital therapy frequently used with alcoholics and presents a brief overview of results from a study in progress comparing the two modalities. Behavioral marital therapy uses communication skills training, contracting,…