Treatment of co-occurring alcohol and other drug use disorders

Abstract

Drug use disorders (DUDs) frequently co-occur with alcohol use disorders, affecting approximately 1.1 percent of the U.S. population. Compared with alcohol use disorders or DUDs alone, co-occurring disorders are associated with a greater severity of substance dependence; co-occurring psychiatric disorders also are common in this patient population. Many effective medications and behavioral treatments are available to treat alcohol dependence and drug dependence when these occur independent of one another. There is a paucity of research, however, specifically focused on the treatment of persons with co-occurring alcohol and other DUDs (AODUDs). The evidence to date on treating this patient population suggests that combining some of the behavioral and pharmacologic treatments that are effective in treating either drug or alcohol use disorders alone may be useful in the AODUD population as well.