Life style intervention for patients with alcohol-related somatic problems

Three patients suffered from somatic complaints related to excessive alcohol use. For the first patient, a 42-year-old man, the simple advice to quit drinking was enough for him to stop. A second patient, a 61-year-old woman, continued to deny drinking excessively despite several signs of excessive alcohol use. The third patient, a 45-year-old man, changed his drinking behaviour after receiving lifestyle intervention from the internist. All three patients needed a structural intervention to tackle the drinking problems in addition to medical treatment. The first lifestyle-intervention session takes 10 minutes and subsequent sessions take 5 minutes each. The intervention includes five elements: screening, placing on the agenda, inventory, making an appointment about change and reverting to the appointment about change. A trained nurse could also perform part of the intervention. Although lifestyle interventions seem to be expensive and time-consuming activities in the short-term, in the longer term they save time and money and lead to a satisfactory result for both the patient and physician.