Bridging the gap between alcoholism treatment research and practice: Identifying what works and why

Despite the proliferation of alcoholism treatment research over the past 2 decades. there is a continued gap between what has been shown to be promisi ng in the extant literature and what is commonly practiced by clinicians in the alcohol treatment field. The present article is an effort to bridge th is gap by examining findings from the broad body of alcoholism treatment ou tcome research to determine how these findings may optimally be used by tre atment providers. To this end, the authors provide clinicians with a succin ct review of the current alcoholism treatment outcome literature and identi fy hallmarks of the most empirically supported treatments. Clinical implica tions of this literature for practitioners working with client with alcohol use disorders are discussed, with a focus on factors underlying effective treatments and on how these factors can be transfer-red from research to pr actice.