Alcure vs Reframe-How Are They Different? How Are They the Same?

"Curing" vs. "Reframing" Your Alcohol Use 

Alcohol use has become a hot topic, especially since the pandemic. More people are stressed, lonely, and depressed, even after the lockdown period. As a result, many are building unhealthy relationships with alcohol. For instance, alcohol use has risen by 14% since 2020. There’s also a rise in American adults with alcoholism.

Curbing your alcohol consumption can do wonders for your health, relationships, and even your wallet. However, just quitting on your own is easier said than done. That’s why you need support. Now there are a number of online apps and virtual services available. Two popular, effective options are Alcure and Reframe. Both aim to reduce your alcohol use but do so in different ways. Here’s what you need to know when assessing Alcure vs. Reframe.  

What Is Alcure? 

Alcure is a unique telehealth and virtual support service that aims to help people control their alcohol use and develop new, healthier living habits by employing wellness living strategies at the same time. It is an at-home treatment and on-demand solution, meaning that getting started and progressing through the program is fast, easy, all online and can be done from the comfort and privacy of home.

Alcure is an all-inclusive online platform and its medical providers prescribe naltrexone, a safe, FDA approved medication using a special dosing protocol called the Sinclair Method (TSM) to help clients eliminate cravings or the strong desire for alcohol. It’s very effective for anyone facing an excess drinking problem at any level, including those on the more severe side of alcohol use disorder (AUD), which refers to frequent or excessive drinking that’s difficult to control, even if it affects physical health, finances, relationships and other basic activities of daily living. Alcure clients are from all walks of life looking to cut back or quit drinking, and improve their overall quality of life.

Alcure helps its clients deploy TSM in an optimized way, which generally consists of using naltrexone 1-2 hours before drinking and following other more nuanced dosing strategies. When we drink, the alcohol triggers a cascade of neurochemicals, one of which is endorphin, in-turn activating dopamine and reinforcing the desire to drink more. Eventually, we can end up consuming even more alcohol to feel the same effects and because we feel a biological drive to drink, often described as cravings or a strong desire for alcohol. Over time, if not regulated, the body becomes dependent on alcohol, leading to excess drinking problems or AUD. Naltrexone disrupts endorphin activity when we drink, progressively weakening the link between endorphin activity and alcohol, which allows clients to easily restore control over drinking.

When the dosing protocol is deployed correctly and consistently, clients will steadily reduce alcohol consumption, experience better health, and save money from excess drinking, which adds up over time.

What Should You Expect When You Use Alcure? 

Since Alcure is a telehealth service, you receive help in a discreet, non-judgmental way. Once you click the sign-up button, you will complete a questionnaire designed to ascertain your level and pattern of drinking and some basic health information. From there, you’ll set up an account providing access to everything you need to immediately start and optimize on TSM, including an initial video chat medical assessment with an Alcure medical provider, unlimited communication with your medical provider as you progress, Alcure's full set of video tutorials and courses guiding you through its comprehensive program and one-to-one coaching upon request.

The recommended subscription is at least 4 months, but most clients will stay longer since they’ll be experiencing positive results and will want to reach their end-point goals, which happens at around 9 months for most. Once clients have reached their goals, they can use the service for one-time, occasional medical provider visits for medication refills and check-ins, what’s called the “maintenance stage” of TSM. 

What is Reframe? 

Reframe is a habit-changing program that uses neuroscience, psychology, and evidence-based strategies to help reduce or possibly stop drinking altogether. Unlike services such as Sunnyside, Reframe consists of an IOS app you download to your phone (think Headspace for meditation or Loom for helping with your weight loss).

The reframe app consists of exercises, training courses, games, journaling, affirmations, and other content to help curb alcohol use. It also tracks your drinking patterns, mood, estimated blood alcohol content (BAC), and much more. It uses techniques like gamification and cognitive behavioral therapy to help taper off alcohol use over about 7 months. Reframe users can see improvements in 90 days. Reframe has mental health experts that review the content and even provide live video sessions related to alcohol use. There’s also a private community to connect with people on a similar journey to cut back drinking.

Once you download the app, you receive a 7-day trial to use most of its features. It will require you to answer a series of questions to understand your current drinking habits, alcohol cravings, and triggers. After the trial, you’ll pay $13.99 monthly or $79.99 yearly for Reframe Access. There’s also a premium option with a 1:1 recovery coach and more in-depth content.

You will then use the app daily to track your drinks, updates, and training. Every day, you receive tips, training, and content to help manage your drinking. You can tap on the app if you have a sudden craving for alcohol or you’re in an uncomfortable scenario involving alcohol. Reframe gives you quick tips, games, and even scripts you can use to navigate these situations. 

How Are These Services Similar?

Some of the similarities as between Alcure and Reframe include the following:

• Both are tools that don’t require in-person treatment

• Both use scientifically backed strategies to help reduce drinking

• They can help those who want a better handle on their alcohol use or want to be more mindful of what they drink and why they drink it

• If you try to quit drinking on your own or decide to go cold turkey, you risk adopting unhealthy cycles of stopping and binge drinking. Both services help you safely and gradually reduce your alcohol use

• Alcure and Reframe also provide chat support. 

• Subscription services you can cancel at any time

• Courses and other helpful content

What Makes These Services Different?

• Alcure is a telehealth service that connects you with a medical provider that guides you through the entire process and who will prescribe naltrexone to overcome cravings or the strong desire to drink at the root, biological level. Alcure can and does treat clients with all ranges of excess drinking. Reframe specifically states it is not designed to treat alcohol use disorder, making its client use cases relatively light.

• Reframe is a downloadable app you can start using immediately. Alcure has no app and requires a video assessment with a medical professional to get started.

• Reframe provides in-app tracking features and expects the user to record drinks for the best results. Alcure employs downloadable drink tracking templates unique to TSM with instructions for bullet-journaling and multi-drafting but doesn’t require their use since proper dosing of naltrexone will produce the intended drink reduction results on its own. 

• Reframe uses neuroscience and other therapies to guide the user to a better relationship with alcohol. Alcure uses prescription medication to disrupt the effects of alcohol use while providing virtual support and in-depth video courses.

• Reframe uses games, meditation, and other techniques to reduce alcohol use.  

• Alcure provides clients with an easy pathway to reduce drinking using naltrexone along with courses on wellness living strategies to replace old drinking related behaviors. Alcure also furnishes the client with an end-point solution to permanently avoid relapse by offering its maintenance program for one-time medical provider visits, refills and check-ins. With the lighter strategies and tools offered by Reframe, and lack of access to effective medication, the chances of relapse may be higher.

Which One is Right for You?

In the Alcure vs. Reframe comparison, the question is not whether one is more effective than the other. Both use science to reduce or even eliminate alcohol use. Instead, the pressing question is which offers a more modern solution to reverse excess drinking. 

For decades, harnessing personal willpower to change habits has been the goto method to tackle excess drinking habits and behaviors, and for persons with mild excess drinking issues that can be effective, though relapse to old habits is generally the norm. Willpower methods have, through the decades, been dressed up and re-worded for marketing purposes, but at the end of the day they all require the same effort from clientele with no assistance from modern science in the form of targeted, highly effective medication. With Alcure, you’ll have the core pieces that matter to help you change and reverse drinking habits, but you’ll have the added benefit of leveraging naltrexone to reach your goals, using the unique dosing protocol called the Sinclair Method.

Since Reframe is filled with valuable resources but avoids diagnosing and treating AUD, it can act as a supplementary tool to Alcure, but doesn’t replace it. You can track your alcohol use in-app and consume content that helps you to understand how to change the inner narrative about drinking. Do this while using the Alcure platform, which directly impacts alcohol use at the root, physiological level with safe, FDA approved and effective medication, and you’ll have an expanded toolkit for overcoming excess drinking.

You can sign up for Alcure and once you’ve started your journey with TSM, download the Reframe app as another tool to develop a healthier, more mindful relationship with alcohol.

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