Promising approaches for prevention to help alcoholics include training in social and coping skills and in self-management techniques such as self-monitoring (e.g., to estimate blood alcohol levels) and cognitive restructuring. A behavioral approach can also be used: the behavioral model assumes that many individuals who do not have severe alcohol problems can learn to stabilize or reduce their drinking by acquiring alternative coping skills, changing life-style habits, and learning safe drinking practices. Individuals go through predictable stages of readiness to change; these stages can be exploited to teach people the basic principles of habit change by means of an drug treatment helpline, self-help or media-assisted protocols.
Research suggestions for testing the social learning model include the following steps, which are geared toward answering a number of specific questions that it raises:
describe the reciprocal interactions among behavioral, cognitive, and environmental processes;
design experiments that explore the role of beliefs and expectations in the acquisition of problem drinking practices, as well as the relevance of self-efficacy in prevention; and
explore the motivational factors underlying the stages of readiness to change.
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