Combined behavioral and pharmacological treatment of alcoholic methadone patients.

Alcoholism is a prevalent and often debilitating problem among methadone maintenance patients. In this study, the efficacy of a contingency management program in the treatment of three severely alcoholic methadone patients was examined using within-subject experimental designs. The contingency management program made continuation in methadone maintenance contingent upon daily disulfiram consumption. Failure to consume disulfiram resulted in the transfer of the patient to another methadone program. This treatment resulted in clinically significant decreases in alcohol consumption and improvements in clinic attendance.