As large numbers of people with substance use disorders began to seek treatment in the early and mid-1980s, "treatment" for stimulant abuse and dependence was invented.

The treatment system that responded most quickly was the 28-day Minnesota Model hospital industry. The number of these 28-day, for-profit treatment units grew at an astonishing rate. Tens of thousands of cocaine users were treated in these programs with strategies adapted from the treatment of alcoholics. Today, there is little empirical evidence to assess the efficacy of these efforts.

During this same period, all sorts of unconventional remedies, including health foods, amino acids, hot tubs, electronic brain tuners, and other "New Age" treatments emerged and disappeared. Research efforts to develop scientifically based treatments began during this period with behavioral techniques like contingency contracting (Anker and Crowley, 1982) and medication evaluations including the use of desipramine (Norpramine) (Tennant and Rawson, 1983; Gawin and Kleber, 1984). Over the 15-year period since these early efforts, an entire stimulant use disorder treatment literature has developed.

This chapter reviews the current state of knowledge on the treatment of stimulant use disorders, beginning with the approaches that have the most rigorous empirical support. Other approaches with less support in the scientific literature are presented later in the chapter. At the end of the chapter is a review of the current state of medications research in the treatment of stimulant use disorders.

Although at the time of this writing there were no medications with demonstrated clinical efficacy, the ongoing program of research sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) holds great promise for important treatment advances. For this reason, the current state of this research effort will be reviewed.

Documented Treatment Approaches

How To Measure Effectiveness

This chapter reviews what is scientifically known about effective treatments for stimulant use disorders. To be judged effective, a treatment must have been tested and demonstrated to be effective in a randomized clinical trial. Many psychosocial and pharmacological treatments have been investigated in such trials. Several psychosocial treatments for stimulant abuse and dependence have been found to be effective, but to date, no reliably effective pharmacological treatments have been found.

What has been learned so far about the use of psychosocial and pharmacological treatments for stimulant use is summarized below. Almost all of the information has been gleaned from studies conducted with cocaine users. Similar studies with methamphetamine (MA) users have not been reported. However, evidence from at least one study indicates that cocaine and MA users respond similarly to psychosocial interventions, suggesting that what has been learned from cocaine users may be applicable to MA users (Huber et al., 1997).

Randomized clinical trials are the best available method for determining whether an intervention improves health. A randomized clinical trial is a prospective study comparing the effect of some intervention against a control intervention in groups of clients who are assigned randomly to the respective treatment groups (see Friedman et al., 1983).

In such trials, clients from a particular population sample (e.g., all admissions to clinic X during 1998 meeting a particular list of inclusion and exclusion criteria) are randomly assigned to the intervention under study or to a control condition. Random assignment ensures against possible bias in assigning particular kinds of clients to the respective groups and helps to distribute evenly between the groups any subject characteristics that might influence outcomes.

Prospective means that clients in the groups are studied from the start of the intervention as opposed to retrospectively compiling the information after the intervention is completed. Retrospective observations tend to be less accurate because of relevant information not being collected, getting lost, or being distorted through reliance on people's recall.

Having a comparison or control group is essential because most problems have some level of variability (i.e., they wax and wane over time) and because many health problems resolve over time without any formal treatment. The most effective way to determine whether any observed changes are due to the treatment being investigated rather than natural variability is by comparing against a similar group of clients who either received no treatment or received a standard treatment.

Some of the alternatives to randomized clinical trials common in the substance use disorder treatment field can provide useful information but have serious limitations that must be recognized.

For example, following a group of clients who received a particular treatment in the absence of a comparison group can be informative in terms of characterizing what has happened to them (e.g., percentage relapsed, percentage who received additional treatment, amount of change from pre- to posttreatment), but such observations do not permit any scientifically valid inferences regarding the role of the treatment provided to any of the changes observed during followup.

For that purpose, a comparison group is necessary. Any changes observed might have occurred in the absence of treatment. Without a comparison group there simply is no way to rule out that possibility. Similarly, when clients themselves select group membership, as opposed to being assigned by the researcher, one cannot make valid inferences about the role of treatment to outcome.

For example, comparing treatment completers to dropouts is common and may be informative in terms of characterizing how the groups fared, but it is not scientifically valid to infer that any differences observed between them were due to the different amounts of treatment received. It very well could be that some other factor (e.g., differences in the amount of other demands on their time) was responsible both for the differential retention rates and for the subsequent differences observed at followup.

Psychosocial Treatment Approaches

The psychosocial interventions demonstrated thus far to be efficacious in randomized clinical trials with stimulant users share a common feature of incorporating well established psychological principles of learning.

It is impossible to quantify all aspects of psychosocial treatment. Often therapists working in the same clinic and using the same treatment approach differ greatly in terms of the progress their clients make. Put simply, some therapists appear to be very effective and others relatively ineffective. The use of carefully prepared treatment manuals reduces such between-therapist differences. Treatment manuals increase the likelihood that therapists will deliver a uniform set of services to their clients.

That does not come at the cost of eliminating therapists' clinical judgment or flexibility. A carefully prepared manual recognizes the importance of clinical judgment and flexibility in addressing the individual needs of clients and incorporates those features into the manual. Considering that effective treatments and associated manuals are available, using them is prudent and will help ensure that clients receive the services that research has shown to be effective.

Community-Reinforcement-Plus-Vouchers Approach

Community reinforcement is an individualized treatment designed to promote lifestyle changes in several key areas that are conducive to successful recovery (see Meyers and Smith, 1995; Sisson and Azrin, 1989). First, clients with spouses who are not themselves users are offered marital therapy to improve the quality of their relationships in a reciprocal and rewarding manner. Second, clients who are unemployed, employed in jobs that are high-risk for substance abuse, or need vocational assistance for some other reason receive help in that domain.

Third, clients are counseled and assisted in developing new social networks and recreational practices that promote and support recovery. Self-help participation is not mandatory but is often used as an effective means of developing a new social network.

Fourth, various types of skills training are provided depending on individualized client needs, including substance refusal and associated skills, social skills, time management, and mood regulation training. Finally, clients with alcohol use disorders and no medical contraindications are offered a program of disulfiram (Antabuse) therapy coupled with strategies to support medication compliance.

Voucher-based incentive programs are designed to facilitate retention in treatment and to promote initial abstinence from stimulants. Such incentive programs are known as contingency management interventions, which are discussed further below. In this treatment, clients earn vouchers that are exchangeable for retail items contingent on stimulant-free urinalysis results during the initial 12 weeks of the 24-week treatment. Urinalysis monitoring is conducted thrice weekly during that period.

The voucher system used in studies evaluating this treatment included incentives worth a maximum of approximately $980 across the course of treatment. Since those studies were completed, others have reported effective voucher programs using lower cost incentives (Tusel et al., 1995); another program obtained all its incentives via donations from community businesses (Amass, 1997), although the efficacy of this program was not evaluated. How valuable the incentives must be to significantly improve outcomes has not yet been evaluated.

The efficacy of the community-reinforcement-plus-vouchers approach, delivered as a comprehensive, stand-alone treatment, is supported by three randomized clinical trials (Higgins et al., 1993b, 1994b, 1997), with several additional trials supporting the efficacy of particular components of that approach (e.g., Silverman et al., 1996). The first trial examined the efficacy of this treatment compared with standard outpatient counseling (Higgins et al., 1993b).

Treatment was 24 weeks in duration with 6 months of additional followup. The community-reinforcement-plus-vouchers treatment retained clients significantly longer and documented significantly longer periods of continuous stimulant abstinence than did standard counseling. For example, 58 percent of clients assigned to the community-reinforcement-plus-vouchers treatment completed 24 weeks of treatment compared with 11 percent of those assigned to standard counseling.

Furthermore, of the clients in the community-reinforcement-plus-vouchers group, 68 percent were documented to have achieved 8 weeks of continuous cocaine abstinence, and 42 percent had 16 weeks of continuous abstinence. Of the clients in the standard counseling group, only 11 percent were documented to have achieved 8 weeks of continuous cocaine abstinence, and only 5 percent had achieved 16 weeks of continuous abstinence.

Followup assessments revealed another important difference: Greater cocaine abstinence was documented--at 6, 9, and 12 months after treatment entry--in the group that received community-reinforcement-plus-vouchers treatment than in those who received standard counseling (Higgins et al., 1995).

A detailed manual (Budney and Higgins, 1998) that was designed specifically to guide clinicians in the day-to-day implementation of this approach was published recently by NIDA and is available at no cost via the NIDA Clearinghouse (1-800-729-6686) or can be downloaded from the website http://www.nida.nih.gov/TXManuals/CRA/CRA1.html

Contingency Management

The voucher system mentioned above is a contingency management intervention (also referred to as contingency contracting). Contingency management is a well-known behavioral intervention that is designed to increase or decrease desired behaviors by providing immediate reinforcing or punishing consequences when the target behavior occurs.

Contingency management has been used with considerable effectiveness in the treatment of a variety of types of substance use disorders and is very useful for treatment planning because it sets concrete short-term and long-term goals and emphasizes positive behavioral changes (Stitzer and Higgins, 1995). However, relying exclusively on punitive consequences in contingency management interventions is not recommended because doing so can promote early treatment dropout (Stitzer et al., 1986).

The voucher program has been demonstrated to be efficacious when delivered apart from the community reinforcement treatment. Silverman and colleagues, for example, demonstrated that vouchers contingent on cocaine-negative urinalysis results increase cocaine abstinence in methadone maintenance clients who abuse cocaine (Silverman et al., 1996). Tusel and colleagues demonstrated reductions in all illicit substance abuse with contingent vouchers (Tusel et al., 1995).

Although vouchers are a well-supported contingency management intervention for increasing abstinence in stimulant users, other methods are also effective. Examples among methadone maintenance clients are take-home methadone doses (which eliminate the need for methadone clients to visit the clinic daily to consume their medication under staff supervision) (Stitzer et al., 1992), continuance of methadone maintenance treatment contingent on abstinence from cocaine (Kidorf and Stitzer, 1993), and even a simple system wherein publicly displayed gold stars and inexpensive gifts (e.g., coffee cups, gasoline coupons) are earned for substance abstinence and counseling attendance (Rowan-Szal et al., 1994).

Contingent methadone take-home doses have been used effectively when coupled with other treatment services. An excellent example of this was provided by McLellan and colleagues (McLellan et al., 1993). Methadone maintenance clients were randomly assigned to one of three conditions that provided increasing levels of services. Two of the three groups received methadone take-home doses contingent on negative urinalysis results and proof of current employment. These groups also received additional services not provided to the minimal-service group. The two groups given the opportunity to earn contingent take-home methadone doses achieved higher rates of cocaine and opiate abstinence than did clients receiving noncontingent take-home doses.

Iguchi and colleagues investigated whether cocaine abstinence could be increased through contingent reinforcement of compliance with individualized treatment plans rather than negative urinalysis results (Iguchi et al., 1997). Newly admitted methadone maintenance clients were assigned to one of three groups: (1) a control group receiving standard treatment at the methadone clinic (the standard group); (2) a group receiving standard treatment plus monetary vouchers contingent on the submission of substance-free urine specimens (urinalysis-contingent group), or (3) a group receiving standard treatment plus the same monetary vouchers but contingent on completing treatment plan tasks (treatment plan group). The third group demonstrated significantly greater reductions in illicit substance use than did the other two groups.

Contingency management can be effective with more-difficult-to-treat subgroups of stimulant users. For example, a contingency management approach that was efficacious in homeless stimulant users combined nonhospital day treatment with access to work therapy and housing contingent on substance abstinence (Milby et al., 1996). Nearly three-fourths of the subjects in this study were primarily crack cocaine users. They were randomly assigned to receive either enhanced or usual care. Enhanced care consisted of 2 months of clinic attendance for 5.5 hours each weekday, transportation to and from the clinic, lunch, psychoeducational groups, and individualized counseling.

During the last 4 months of the trial, the intensity of day treatment was reduced to allow subjects to participate in a work-therapy program refurbishing condemned houses in which they could live for a modest rental fee. Participation in the work program and housing were contingent on the provision of weekly random urinalysis testing.

Drug-positive results precluded subjects from working in the program and required them to vacate the housing within 2 weeks. The work and living arrangements could be resumed on submission of two consecutive substance-free urine specimens.

Usual care consisted of twice-weekly, 12-Step-oriented group and individual counseling, medical evaluation and treatment or referral, and referrals to community agencies for housing and vocational services. Enhanced care increased cocaine abstinence significantly at the 2-month assessment, although not at the 6- or 12-month assessments. Enhanced care also produced greater reductions in alcohol use at each assessment and significantly fewer days homeless at the 6- and 12-month assessments.

Pregnant women are another important subgroup with whom contingency management has been evaluated, although only in the form of preliminary studies. In two pilot studies, pregnant women were offered incentives for attendance at prenatal clinics and/or maintaining cocaine abstinence (Elk, in press).

Monetary vouchers of increasing value were awarded for each successive substance-free urine specimen and for increased or consistent attendance at prenatal and substance use disorder treatment clinics. Abstinence, retention rates, and compliance with prenatal care visits were generally higher in the contingency groups.

In another study, pregnant clients were randomly assigned to receive standard or enhanced methadone maintenance treatment (Carroll et al., 1995a). Standard treatment consisted of daily methadone, weekly group counseling, and thrice-weekly urine testing. Enhanced treatment consisted of weekly prenatal care, weekly relapse prevention groups, and monetary vouchers for every three consecutive substance-free urine samples.

Treatment retention was similar in the two groups, and there were no significant differences in the percentage of cocaine-positive urine samples provided by the two groups.

This treatment approach with pregnant women with stimulant use disorders is very preliminary and needs more thorough evaluation. However, these efforts further illustrate the potential utility of contingency management for addressing some of the more daunting clinical challenges in treating stimulant abuse.

Other important examples are recent pilot studies (Roll et al., 1998; Shaner et al., 1997) suggesting that contingent monetary reinforcement can reduce cigarette and cocaine use in adult schizophrenic clients and providing evidence that contingent monetary reinforcement can be used to increase medication compliance in tuberculosis-infected stimulant users (Elk, in press).

When considered as a group, contingency management interventions have by far the greatest amount of empirical support for their efficacy in promoting therapeutic behavioral change among stimulant users.

Stimulant users are sensitive to systematically applied contingency management interventions. Presently, there is no other treatment strategy about which one can make an equally strong positive statement.