A Therapist's Manual for Secondary Prevention of Alcohol Problems: Procedures for Teaching Moderate Drinking and Abstinence

Claude A. Guldner is a professor of family studies at the University of
Guelph.

This is truly a manual in all the best sense of that term. After a brief chapter dealing with assessment procedures, the author divides the book into three sections. The first is the preparatory phase. This section contains an analysis of function question-name which enables clients and therapists to gain a practical picture of the drinking behaviour of the person in question. This is a well-stated section enabling one to gain a picture of the types of drinking and the situations in which drinking is used to cope, followed by a look at both immediate and delayed consequences of that coping. The second section deals with acquisition phase. It has a set of guidelines for moderate drinking but, best of all, a set of problem-solving strategies designed in a six-step format that is practical, clear, and nicely sequenced. It also contains a strategy for inter-personal problem-solving, including typical case histories. These are again put into a nicely sequenced, six-step process. The final set of strategies is for dealing with negative emotions, here put into a five-step sequence. In order to maintain the gains achieved during this part of therapy, there is a five-step sequence for attainment of longer-term goals. It is this systematic scheme that so nicely defines this work as a manual. The third section is the maintenance phase. This deals with after-care procedures and the follow-up interview. The manual concludes with a theoretical background and a very complete bibliography. As the author states, this manual will be useful to therapists who feel comfortable with learning theory or behavioral theories and techniques. Those who view alcoholism as a disease will not find it useful. I think that the process of this manual could be modified to fit a number of addictive problems, such as over-eating, drugs, and smoking. This is a concise, practical, and well-organized manual.