Alcoholism is an issue that has plagued our society and has significantly increased to an alarming stage.

In line with that, cognitive behavioral therapy is studied to understand the extent of it in curing alcoholism. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a psychotherapeutic approach that aims to solve the problems concerning the dysfunctional emotions, cognitions and behaviors through a goal oriented and systematic procedure in the present. Alcoholism is defined as a primary, chronic disease with genetic, psychosocial and environmental factors influencing its development and manifestations. The disease is often progressive and fatal. It is characterized by impaired control over drinking, preoccupation with the drug alcohol, use of alcohol despite adverse consequences, and distortions in thinking, most notably denial. Each of these symptoms may be continuous or periodic (Morse & Flavin, 1992, abstract: The Joint Committee of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence and the American Society of Addiction Medicine to study the definition and criteria for the diagnosis of alcoholism).

In the papers Alcoholism, A Process of Recovery ( Sperandeo, J.L, 2010), content analysis was used over a period of 10-12 months to study two bloggers who self proclaimed to abuse alcohol. Three themes that were similar to both individuals were discovered to be fear, avoidance and believing. Two themes that diverged from each other were accepting and avoiding. The study shows that relapses occur are similar across addictive behaviors. It was found that the longer the abstinence, the greater the persons perception of self-efficacy. It is also mentioned in this paper that alcoholism poses major public health issues for those at the age 65 years old or older because they have increase sensitivity towards alcohol that heightens their response level (Blow, Barry, Oslin, 2002).

In another journal, Alcoholism and Alcohol Dependence: Clinical Perspectives, a study on the impact on the removal of the term alcoholism from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III and DSM-IV). DSM is the manual that includes all recognized mental health disorders and DSM-IV is designed to correspond with codes from the International Classification of Disease. In this paper, it was said that that the elimination of the term alcoholism in DSM-IV may have negatively impacted patients comprehension of the disease of alcoholism leading to a poorer recovery prognosis. 25 experienced alcoholism treatment professionals were selected to explore their experiences with the different diagnoses. Conclusion was drawn that clinician has an obligation to choose carefully the educational language and diagnostic terminology used in the treatment of the disease of alcoholism. Majority of the participants of this research showed interest iin the option to return alcoholism to the DSM if clear distinctions between Alcohol Dependence and alcoholism are delineated.

The relationship between mindfulness, Alcoholics Anonymous involvement and years of sobriety is examined in the papers of Mindfulness and Sustained Recovery from Alcoholism (Kinchla, M.S, 2009). Cognitive behavioral therapy is viewed as one of the templates to overlay a twelve-step treatment approach (Ouimette, Finney, & Moos, 1997). The results from this study showed that years of sobriety were positively correlated with more nonjudgmental thinking regarding inner experiences. The duration of sustained recovery, years sober, positively affects the degree of mindfulness as expressed through increased level of nonjudgmental thinking.