Withdrawal from chronic ethanol (ETOH) administration facilitated the formation of contextual fear memory. The retrieval of such memory induced a significant increase in ETOH consumption and the expression of conditioned place preference (CPP) induced by ETOH solely in withdrawn rats. Here we examined whether the NMDA receptor antagonist MK-801 given prior fear conditioning would attenuate both the fear response and the subsequent expression of CPP induced by ETOH in withdrawn rats. Male rats made dependent via an ETOH containing liquid diet for 14 days and the basal test for CPP was performed 3 days after withdrawal. The next day, rats were injected with MK-801 (0.1 mg/kg ip) prior to fear conditioning and the CPP conditioning began 24 h after training. One day after the last conditioning CPP session, the fear response was evaluated and the CPP test was performed 2 h later. ETOH produced neither CPP nor place aversion in both control and ETOH withdrawn non-fear trained rats. MK-801, at a dose that did not affect the acquisition of contextual fear conditioning in control rats, prevented the increase of fear response and blocked the subsequent CPP induced by ETOH in withdrawn rats. These effects were not observed in withdrawn rats that did not receive fear memory recall.