Our Treatment Services
Initial Evaluation
The initial evaluation provides an in-depth assessment of your drinking patterns within the context of your current life. You can expect to come away from the assessment with an enhanced understanding of: (1) the nature, course, and severity of your drinking problem; (2) situational and emotional factors that contribute to your overdrinking; (3) the pros and cons of moderating, stopping, or continuing to drink at your current level in terms of its impact on your physical, social, and psychological well-being; (4) where you stand in terms of your motivation and stage of readiness to change; (5) the likelihood that moderation will work for you; and, (5) what types of action strategies will help you to achieve your personal goals.
Private Therapy Sessions
Treatment takes place primarily in individual (one-on-one) therapy sessions and may last from several weeks to several months, depending on a variety of factors including your baseline drinking pattern, your motivation and readiness to change, the presence of other complicating factors, and most importantly your actual rate of progress toward achieving your desired goals. There is no set “program” here that all patients must follow. To the contrary, we pride ourselves on offering flexible, individualized treatment plans that empower our clients to make positive change. After the initial evaluation, we will decide together with you what seems to make the most sense in terms of frequency of sessions and estimated length of treatment. Treatment here is designed to be problem-focused, generally lasting from 3 to 6 months. Treatment intensity (how frequently you come in) is tailored according to your particular needs and then adjusted as your needs change over time. For example, many clients start off coming here once a week for the first several weeks and then taper off to once every 2 weeks and then once every 4 weeks as as they continue to achieve and maintain progress toward their desired goals.
Medication
Recent studies indicate that several medications, including naltrexone (Revia), acamprosate (Campral), and topiramate (Topamax), can reduce the likelihood of heavy drinking or make it easier to maintain abstinence by offsetting changes in the brain caused by alcohol. Clients considering the use of medication to supplement their treatment here are referred to physicians in the area who can prescribe and monitor the appropriate medication.
Self Help
Clients are encouraged to make use of Moderation Management (MM), a unique self-help support group for people who are interested in learning how to moderate their drinking or abstain. MM has an online support group, chat rooms, face-to-face meetings at various places around the country, and many other helpful resources accessible on their website.
How to Get Started
If you are concerned about your drinking and want professional help in deciding what to do, contact us today to schedule your private consultation with Dr. Washton. Just fill out the Contact Us form on this page or call our office in Manhattan at (212) 944-8444 or in Princeton, NJ at (609) 497-0433.
What if Moderation Does Not Work for You?
After giving moderation a good try, some clients find that for whatever reason they are unable to consistently moderate their alcohol intake without lapsing back into harmful drinking patterns. Coming to this realization for themselves is one of the positive benefits of offering moderation as an option. When this happens, clients are encouraged to switch to our abstinence-based treatment services, as described on our companion website, www.recoveryoptions.us.