Treatment of Alcohol Dependence

Treatment approaches should be tailored to the individual, family and community contexts, and to patient preference.  Patients can be offered the best of ‘Western’ and traditional care: for example, relapse prevention medicines, plus men’s groups or cultural approaches. 

Given the barriers to accessing specialist services, wherever possible and safe to do so, treatment for dependence and/or harm reduction approaches, should be initiated at the point of detection, even if referral to a specialist services is also needed. 

Choices are important for treatment setting: some prefer the cultural security and holistic care of an ACCHS for treatment of alcohol dependence, and some like the anonymity of a mainstream specialist treatment service.