Thoughts About Abstinence

Participants’ commitment to abstinence will be assessed with the Thoughts about Abstinence assessment (Hall et al., 1991), modified to assess the participants’ thoughts related to alcohol, illicit drugs, and cigarettes. This measure assesses the participant’s desire to quit, expected success in quitting and estimated difficulty in avoiding relapse. In addition, it assesses the client’s goal for her use ranging from no goal to complete abstinence for life. Significant increases in commitment to abstinence, as measured by this instrument, have been found for participants assigned to Motivational Interviewing compared to standard treatment (Saunders et al., 1995). The Thoughts about Abstinence assessment will be completed at screening and at the end of the active study phase.