Context: As part an experimental counseling project carried out with socially unstable drug addicts to monitor the compliance with their substitution treatment. (Eymard, 2007), we analyze the practices of education in health. Method: Statistical analysis of linguistics and comprehensive analysis of the practice of professionals and the accounts of 29 subjects in a treatment center. Results: The multiplicity of obstacles to compliance and their multidirectional complicates medico-psychosocial counseling. Two models were described in the counseling practice: an action and learning guidance model, and a model which accompanies the subject in the compliance/non-compliance process by looking for the ties between health risks and quality of life. Sometimes these are combined to fit the process of change of the person in care. Some professionals may use alternate models, or denominate different models depending on the situation, in order to adapt to the change process of the person in care.