Adults attending CBT-SUD groups, addiction recovery clients, and clinicians running substance use disorder sessions are the clearest audience for CBT-SUD-Patient-Workbook. It is particularly suited to people working on alcohol use, drug use, cravings, relapse prevention and recognising the situations that increase risk.
The workbook begins with practical group guidelines covering confidentiality, regular attendance, participation from a private space, arriving on time, completing home assignments, and not attending under the influence. These pages make it useful for counsellors, recovery workers, therapists and group facilitators who need a clear handout for setting expectations in CBT for substance use disorder groups.
A simple session structure is included, with review of home assignments, introduction of a new topic, practice and discussion, then a new home assignment. The first topic focuses on exploring triggers, with prompts across social, environmental, emotional, cognitive and physical areas, such as who someone uses with, where use happens, what mood comes before using, what thoughts appear, and whether withdrawal or pain is involved.
The material introduces a CBT chain linking triggers, thoughts and feelings, behaviour, positive consequences and negative consequences. A clear example uses difficulty sleeping to show how one thought can lead to drinking, while a more balanced thought can lead to a different coping behaviour, such as reading until sleepy. Adapted from work by DeMarce, Gnys, Raffa and Karlin for CBT-SUD among veterans.
