excessive drinking

The primary methods of treatment involve teaching a patient new ways tomodify his behavior. One approach may involve negative conditioning, thetechniques of which involve putting the patient in a situation that he wishes tolearn to dislike and then training him to dislike it. For example the alcoholicmight be given liquor to drink and then be given an unpleasant stimulus, such asa drug that will make him vomit. After a series of such treatments, the patientno longer finds the alcohol appealing. Unfortunately, the effects of negativeconditioning tend to wear off rather quickly, so this type of treatment is notused often. (Andreasen, 1984)