A Behavioral Treatment of Alcoholic Methadone Patients

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Alcoholism is a frequent complication of methadone treatment and is one of the few behaviors which correlates with methadone treatment failure. To eliminate drinking among severely alcoholic patients, methadone was incorporated into a behavioral contingency to reinforce disulfiram ingestion. Methadone was dispensed to alcoholic narcotic addicts contingent upon their ingesting disulfiram, and as a control patients were urged to take disulfiram but received methadone regardless of whether they took disulfiram. The reinforced disulfiram treatment was highly successful in controlling alcoholism. Nonstatistically significant trends suggested that the reinforced disulfiram treatment resulted in a superior adjustment, as reflected in arrest rate, unemployment and illicit drug use. No significant physiologic or behavioral adverse effects were seen.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: