Alcohol use disorder (AUD) has the highest prevalence and lowest treatment rate of all mental disorders in Korea. Over the last 30 years, there has been significant progress in the development and validation of cognitive behavioral treatments and motivational enhancement approaches for AUD. The goal of psychosocial treatment is to help patients control their urges to use alcohol and remain abstinent by preventing relapse. This review explored first, motivation enhancement therapy, which is an approach to help people with alcohol problems and improve their motivation for change, and second, cognitive behavioral theories for AUD, including practical therapeutic effects, treatment principles, and various treatment methods and techniques. These treatment modalities are particularly useful for patients with AUDs with insufficient or poor compliance. In addition, these treatment models, which enhance the motivation of patients with chronic psychiatric illness, including AUDs and improve the efficacy and effectiveness through a clear intervention approach to the targeted problems, have been transformed into various other forms. Recently, there have been many studies on various online platforms, such as web-based and virtual reality, which are easy to access, and these treatment models are likely to become more important in the psychiatric field in the future.