Research Refines Alcoholism Treatment Options

Every day, more than 700,000 people in the United States receive treatment for alcoholism. In recent years, much progress has been made in understanding how both psychological approaches and medications can help these patients achieve sobriety, including evaluation of existing treatment approaches and development of new ones. Continued research to refine therapies for alcoholism will have widespread benefits for alcohol-dependent people, for their families, and for society as a whole, which bears the weight of the enormous economic and social costs of problem drinking. This article reviews the current state of alcoholism treatment research.