A CONDITIONING APPROACH TO THE ANALYSIS AND TREATMENT OF DRINKING PROBLEMS

Drinking problems are a major public health concern and a significant part of this concern arises because drinking habits are very difficult to change once established; although many patients can detoxify succe ssfully there is a high rate of relapse. This chapter describes the an alysis and treatment of drinking problems using a behavioural approach based on the concepts and methods of classical conditioning. Recent e vidence shows that alcoholic patients show a variety of physiological and subjective responses to the presentation of alcoholic drink cues a nd these responses may play a part in the regulation of drinking behav iour. The implication is that cue-exposure treatments ought to reduce drinking. In cue-exposure, responses to drink cues are extinguished by repeated presentation of the cue without allowing subsequent consumpt ion of alcohol. The empirical evidence for the effectiveness of such t reatments is described and the current status of the approach to the a nalysis and treatment of drinking problems will be summarised.