Employment-Based Reinforcement to Motivate Drug Abstinence in the Treatment of Drug Addiction. - 1

This application is a competing continuation of a grant in which we developed and pilot tested a computerized Therapeutic Workplace designed to train and employ adults as data entry operators. A randomized trial is planned over 5 years to investigate the Therapeutic Workplace business as a maintenance intervention to sustain long-term abstinence and employment. Welfare recipients in methadone treatment, actively using cocaine, and at risk for contracting or spreading HIV infection will participate in an initial Therapeutic Workplace training phase. Participants (N=104) who become abstinent and skilled will be randomly assigned to an Abstinence & Employment, or an Employment Only group. Participants in the Abstinence & Employment group will be employed for one year in a Therapeutic Workplace business and will have to provide drug-free urine samples to work and earn salary. Employment Only participants will be offered employment for one year, but these participants will not have to provide drug-free urine samples to work. This study will provide a rigorous evaluation of the efficacy of the Therapeutic Workplace business as a long-term treatment of cocaine addiction and unemployment; determine the benefits of requiring daily evidence of abstinence to work; and provide information on the extent to which a Therapeutic Workplace business can become self-sustaining. This research could provide firm scientific foundation for the dissemination of Therapeutic Workplace businesses in the long-term treatment of cocaine addiction and unemployment. The main hypothesis being tested is that cocaine abstinence will be reliably maintained during the yearlong intervention evaluation period only in the group exposed to the explicit abstinence maintenance intervention. We expect that cocaine abstinence in the Abstinence and Employment group will be significantly greater than cocaine abstinence in the Employment Only group.