Updated June 08, 2015.

Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.

This story provides an example of how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helped Joan quit alcohol. While the characters and the story are fictitious, the characteristics and circumstances described are typical of people who come for treatment. Joan’s story is presented for illustrative purposes, to help readers understand how CBT can help people quit alcohol. Click here to share your own CBT story.

Joan’s parents always had alcohol in the house, and she was given brandy in her milk as a baby to help her sleep. Her parents gave her wine at family dinners from the age of 5, but it was not until her 40s, when she was diagnosed with diabetes and her doctor told her to stop drinking, that it occurred to Joan that she had an alcohol problem. She went through a detox program, and tried again and again to stay abstinent, but each time, she started drinking again within days of quitting, often more heavily than before.

Isabel, Joan's cognitive behavioral therapist, guided Joan in recording the thoughts and feelings she experienced throughout the day and evening. By analyzing the thoughts and feelings Joan had around her alcohol use, they came to understand that Joan was unable to stick to her goal of quitting drinking, because of her all-or-nothing or black and white thinking. Joan realized she needed to become abstinent, so every time she had a “slip,” she considered herself to have failed, so would drink even more that night, pledging to quit again another day.

Isabel explained that this all-or-nothing thinking was actually sabotaging Joan’s attempts to quit. They also uncovered a lot of shame that Joan was experiencing in reaction to her illness, which had compelled her to keep her diabetes secret from her friends and family. And having drunk alcohol for as long as she could remember, she simply did not know how to say no to a drink.

Joan was at the “contemplation” stage of change, so was not ready for complete abstinence, even though her physician recommended it. In recognition of this, Isabel and Joan changed Joan’s treatment goal to controlled drinking, with no more than one drink per night, three nights a week. After having a drink at a social gathering, Joan would leave immediately, and she would not socialize the following night in order to keep on track. In the meantime, she worked on telling friends and family about her health problem, and asking for their support in quitting drinking.

With a more realistic treatment goal, and the support of a few close friends, Joan was able to meet her treatment goal within a month, and within three months, she was finally able to achieve abstinence with the help of antabuse, so that if she did have a slip, she would not continue drinking. She has now been abstinent for two years, and has developed new interests and friendships unrelated to alcohol.

• Does this sound like your story? What was your experience of cognitive behavioral therapy?