A Recovery Navigator intervention was feasible and acceptable for delivering high-fidelity brief interventions to ICU patients. Changes in alcohol-related problems with motivational interviewing and shared decision-making were nonsignificant but clinically meaningful in size.

A full-scale randomized trial of motivational interviewing and shared decision-making is warranted.

We assessed feasibility via enrollment and attrition, acceptability via patient satisfaction (Client Satisfaction Questionnaire-8), fidelity via observation and questionnaires, and potential efficacy via group means and CIs on measures of alcohol use, psychiatric symptoms, cognition, and other alcohol-related problems.

Over 18 months, we offered the study to 111 patients, enrolled 47, and randomized 36; refusals were mainly due to stigma or patients’ desire to handle problems on their own.

Patients were randomly assigned to usual care, single-session motivational interviewing and shared decision-making, or multisession motivational interviewing and shared decision-making.

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