Benefits of CBT for Substance Abuse

    cbt for substance use disorders

    In addition, incorporating self-care practices such as exercise, nutrition, and mindfulness techniques can also help you build a strong foundation for recovery. Taking care of both your mental and physical well-being is an important aspect of recovery and can enhance the benefits of CBT. CBT also involves learning and practicing new skills to cope with cravings, triggers, and difficult emotions that will arise during recovery. You might learn mindfulness techniques, relaxation strategies, and assertiveness training to help you manage cravings and navigate challenging situations. Once you have identified your negative thoughts and how they make you feel, CBT can help you restructure those thoughts into more realistic and helpful ones. This process involves examining the evidence for and against your beliefs, as well as exploring alternative perspectives.

    • We’ll give you skills to discover your self-worth and show you the tools for a life of hope and promise.
    • Cognitive behavioral therapy shows that many harmful actions and emotions are not logical or rational.
    • The Society for Clinical Psychology subsequently adopted these revised criteria, referred to as the “Tolin Criteria,” and established procedures for updating empirically supported treatment designations under the Tolin Criteria.

    Computer-Based Training for Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

    cbt for substance use disorders

    Practitioners can administer the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) to evaluate patients for early signs of risk. Hence the reason early detection contributes to minimized instances of improper efforts at committing suicide. A 2023 study published in the National Library of Medicine determined that incorporating a screening process into emergency care decreased SUD patients’ suicide rates by 30%.

    Cognitive Behavioral Therapy And Addiction Treatment

    • Many people find it difficult to change their thought patterns, and even more difficult to spot them in the first place.
    • A full list of ineligible records with the primary reason for exclusion can be found in Supplemental Table 1.
    • CBT helps individuals gain insight into the underlying causes of their addiction and develop a better understanding of themselves.
    • Many 60 to 90 day rehabilitation programs include CBT to provide people with immediate coping techniques.
    • While it is beyond the scope of this work, an important question for future research is – how or why this phenomenon continues to occur?

    Moreover, returning to Stage 1 to reconnect clinical applications of CBT to recent developments in cognitive science and neuroscience holds great promise for accelerating understanding of mechanisms of action. It is critical that CBT not be considered as a static intervention, but rather one that constantly evolves and is refined through the Stage model until the field achieves a maximally powerful intervention that addresses core features of the addictions. Additional limitations are perhaps more conceptual than statistical, but nevertheless reflect potential challenges to the validity of meta-analytic studies of intervention efficacy. The first concerns fidelity and other sources of variability in what comprised the sample of CBT interventions. As noted, we sought homogeneity in how CBT was defined via inclusion of face-to-face CBT not combined with another intervention, whether psychosocial or pharmacological.

    • When CBT was contrasted with a non-specific therapy or treatment as usual, treatment effect was statistically significant for consumption frequency and quantity at early, but not late, follow-up.
    • In sum, there is great promise for technology-based interventions, such as CBT4CBT, to expand access to cognitive-behavioral therapy and reduce the gap between research and clinical practice in the treatment of substance-use disorders.
    • The Veteran’s Administration (Veteran’s Administration, n.d.) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA; National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2018) both recommend CBT for SUD as an evidence-based approach to addiction treatment.
    • The studies initially provided relatively high rewards (as high as $1,000) for sustained abstinence from substance use 47-49, but recently, effectiveness studies have focused on providing low-cost CM as a more feasible addition to traditional counseling programs.
    • According to the American Psychological Association (APA), CBT has been proven to reduce up to 50 percent of suicidal ideation, especially if substance misuse treatment is added to CBT.

    3.2. Craving and Duration, Frequency, and Intensity of Intervention Programs

    As such, we provide a summary of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, but some landmark trials are also described. The population focus is adults with a diagnosed alcohol or other drug use disorder, as well as adults with substance use that may place them a risk for related consequences. To add clinical utility to this review, effect size data will be summarized using Cohen’s generic benchmarks of “small” (d ~ 0.20), “medium” (d ~ 0.50), and “large” (d ~ 0.80).18 In discussion, we provide final remarks on for whom, how, and where CBT may work best. The emergence of computer-delivered interventions offers tremendous promise with respect to making evidence-based treatments more broadly accessible to those who may benefit from them (Carroll & Rounsaville, 2010; Greist, 2008; Marsch, Carroll, & Kiluk, 2014). Computer-delivered interventions have the potential to reach rural populations and other groups whose access to treatment is limited, as well as those who do not seek treatment because of discrimination or stigma (Marks & Cavanagh, 2009; Postel, de Jong, & de Haan, 2005). Furthermore, they also offer significant advantages of standardization and consistent quality, reduction of cost and clinician time, and potential 24/7 availability (Budman, 2000; Cuijpers, van Straten, & Andersson, 2008; Cunningham, 2008; Gibbons et al., 2009; Olmstead, Ostrow, & Carroll, 2010; Wright et al., 2005).

    cbt for substance use disorders

    Overall, IPT stands out as a focused, evidence-based therapy that emphasizes interpersonal functioning, vital for successful recovery in individuals grappling with addiction. Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) offers numerous advantages in treating addiction by emphasizing the significance of interpersonal relationships and their effects on emotional well-being. This therapy generally spans 12 to 16 sessions, providing a structured framework to help clients develop essential coping skills.

    One common cognitive distortion is catastrophizing, which is when one focuses on a negative outcome. People who get trapped in the pattern of catastrophic thinking naturally believe the worst possible outcome is most likely. Additionally, catastrophizing leads to feelings of intense overwhelm about the situation when, in reality, it is manageable. cbt for substance use disorders Depending on what stage of treatment you are in and what setting it is held in, your insurance may cover the service at a higher or lower percentage. For example, inpatient coverage may be covered at a higher rate than outpatient, and outpatient may be covered more than aftercare.

    cbt for substance use disorders

    Thus, Socratic questioning in therapy helps the individual better understand themself and their situation. Then, in troublesome situations, the individual focuses on their response while staying open about the other person’s feelings or thoughts. alcoholism symptoms Additionally, Socratic questions foster better critical thinking skills that a person can use when faced with triggers. CBT tends to be fairly short-term, as the individual learns tools and skills they carry with them into the future. As the name indicates, the Socratic method of questioning originates with the famous philosopher Socrates.

    cbt for substance use disorders

    The authors summarized the selection of potential mediators as related to self-efficacy, copings skills, craving/affect regulation/stress, and other (eg, social measures as well as more generalist constructs such as the therapeutic alliance). The mediation studies were additionally grouped by whether the independent variable was a between (ie, CBT versus another treatment) or within (ie, a CBT-related process) condition indicator. This systematic review and treatment evaluation found that cognitive behavioral therapy’s effects on substance use are larger in magnitude when inactive (minimal) versus active treatment is the comparison group and that these effects tend to diminish with time. Cognitive behavioral therapy is therefore considered an evidence-based treatment for substance use disorder according to current evidence-based treatment guidelines.