The goal of motivational interviewing is to enhance your patient’s motivation to decrease their alcohol intake. The technique focuses on working with the patient wherever they are in the process of change. Rather than telling them to change, you are always listening for signs of their own internal motivation. From Treating Alcohol Use Disorder: A Fact Book (2023).

Relapse rates to alcohol use are approximately 40%–80%, depending on the duration of sobriety. Since relapse is the rule rather than the exception, it is important to make relapse prevention an integral part of treating alcohol use disorder patients. This fact sheet offers some powerful tips and techniques that you can integrate into your treatment visits. From Treating Alcohol Use Disorder: A Fact Book (2023).

This fact sheet is specifically for long-term medication treatment to decrease use and to prevent relapse. See the individual medication fact sheets for details on each first- and second-line medication listed here. Other fact sheets focus on medications for alcohol withdrawal. From Treating Alcohol Use Disorder: A Fact Book (2023).