Partner violence before and after individually based alcoholism treatment for male alcoholic patients.

This study examined partner violence in the year before and the year after individually based, outpatient alcoholism treatment for 301 married or cohabiting male alcoholic patients and used a demographically matched nonalcoholic comparison sample. In the year before treatment, 56% of the alcoholic patients had been violent toward their female partner, 4 times the rate of 14% in the comparison sample. In the year after treatment, violence decreased significantly to 25% of the alcoholic sample but remained higher than in the comparison group. Among remitted alcoholics after treatment, violence prevalence of 15% was nearly identical to the comparison sample and half the rate among relapsed patients (32%). Thus, partner violence decreased after alcoholism treatment, and clinically significant violence reductions occurred for patients whose alcoholism was remitted after treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trajectories of Alcohol and Drug Use and Dependence From Adolescence to Adulthood: The Effects of Familial Alcoholism and Personality.

This study describes trajectories of substance use and dependence from adolescence to adulthood. Identified consumption groups include heavy drinking/heavy drug use, moderate drinking/experimental drug use, and light drinking/rare drug use. Dependence groups include alcohol only, drug only, and comorbid groups. The heavy drinking/heavy drug use group was at risk for alcohol and drug dependence and persistent dependence and showed more familial alcoholism, negative emotionality, and low constraint. The moderate drinking/experimental drug use group was at risk for alcohol dependence but not comorbid or persistent dependence and showed less negative emotionality and higher constraint. Familial alcoholism raised risk for alcohol and drug use and dependence in part because children from alcoholic families were more impulsive and lower in agreeableness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mediating and Moderated Effects of Adolescent Behavioral Undercontrol and Parenting in the Prediction of Drug Use Disorders in Emerging Adulthood.

This study tested whether the effects of parental alcoholism on drug use disorders in emerging adulthood were mediated by behavioral undercontrol and parenting in adolescence and whether parenting buffered the relation between undercontrol and drug use disorders. Participants were 175 children of alcoholics and 190 matched control participants from an ongoing longitudinal study (L. Chassin, F. Rogosch, & M. Barrera, 1991). Results showed that undercontrol and parental discipline mediated 58% of the effect of parental alcoholism on drug use disorders. The relation between behavioral undercontrol and drug use disorders was further moderated by parental support. This effect was "protective but reactive" (S. S. Luthar, D. Cicchetti, & B. Becker, 2000); at high levels of behavioral undercontrol the protective effect of parental support was lost. Highly undercontrolled adolescents may have such a strong diathesis for drug use disorders that buffers may not have the same effect as in those with better control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using Latent Trait Modeling to Conceptualize an Alcohol Problems Continuum.

Recent research points toward the viability of conceptualizing alcohol problems as arrayed along a continuum. Nevertheless, modern statistical techniques designed to scale multiple problems along a continuum (latent trait modeling; LTM) have rarely been applied to alcohol problems. This study applies LTM methods to data on 110 problems reported during in-person interviews of 1,348 middle-aged men (mean age=43) from the general population. The results revealed a continuum of severity linking the 110 problems, ranging from heavy and abusive drinking, through tolerance and withdrawal, to serious complications of alcoholism. These results indicate that alcohol problems can be arrayed along a dimension of severity and emphasize the relevance of LTM to informing the conceptualization and assessment of alcohol problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning sobriety together: A randomized clinical trial examining behavioral couples therapy with alcoholic female patients.

Married or cohabiting female alcoholic patients (n = 138) and their non-substance-abusing male partners were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 equally intensive interventions: (a) behavioral couples therapy plus individual-based treatment (BCT; n = 46), (b) individual-based treatment only (IBT; n = 46), or (c) psychoeducational attention control treatment (PACT; n = 46). During treatment, participants in BCT showed significantly greater improvement in dyadic adjustment than those in IBT or PACT; drinking frequency was not significantly different among participants in the different conditions. During the 1-year posttreatment follow-up, compared with participants who received IBT or PACT, participants who received BCT reported (a) fewer days of drinking, (b) fewer drinking-related negative consequences, (c) higher dyadic adjustment, and (d) reduced partner violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concurrent brief versus intensive smoking intervention during alcohol dependence treatment.

Alcohol dependent smokers (N=118) enrolled in an intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment program were randomized to a concurrent brief or intensive smoking cessation intervention. Brief treatment consisted of a 15-min counseling session with 5 min of follow-up. Intensive intervention consisted of three 1-hr counseling sessions plus 8 weeks of nicotine patch therapy. The cigarette abstinence rate, verified by breath carbon monoxide, was significantly higher for the intensive treatment group (27.5%) versus the rate for the brief treatment group (6.6%) at 1 month after the quit date but not at 6 months, when abstinence rates fell to 9.1% for the intensive treatment group and 2.1% for the brief treatment group. Smoking treatment assignment did not significantly impact alcohol outcomes. Although intensive smoking treatment was associated with higher rates of short-term tobacco abstinence, other, perhaps more intensive, smoking interventions are needed to produce lasting smoking cessation in alcohol dependent smokers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Externalizing symptoms among children of alcoholic parents: Entry points for an antisocial pathway to alcoholism.

The authors examined heterogeneity in risk for externalizing symptoms in children of alcoholic parents, as it may inform the search for entry points into an antisocial pathway to alcoholism. That is, they tested whether the number of alcoholic parents in a family, the comorbid subtype of parental alcoholism, and the gender of the child predicted trajectories of externalizing symptoms over the early life course, as assessed in high-risk samples of children of alcoholic parents and matched controls. Through integrative analyses of 2 independent, longitudinal studies, they showed that children with either an antisocial alcoholic parent or 2 alcoholic parents were at greatest risk for externalizing symptoms. Moreover, children with a depressed alcoholic parent did not differ from those with an antisocial alcoholic parent in reported symptoms. These findings were generally consistent across mother, father, and adolescent reports of symptoms; child gender and child age (ages 2 through 17); and the 2 independent studies examined. Multialcoholic and comorbid-alcoholic families may thus convey a genetic susceptibility to dysregulation along with environments that both exacerbate this susceptibility and provide few supports to offset it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships among aging, IQ, and intracranial volume in alcoholics and control subjects.

The current article examined the relationships among aging, intelligence, intracranial volume, and brain shrinkage in alcoholics and nonalcoholic controls. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure intracranial and cerebral volumes in 146 subjects with alcohol use disorders and 42 comparison subjects who were not alcoholic. The authors' findings show that performance on Block Design decreases as alcoholics age, and this decrease is predicted by brain shrinkage. This is consistent with a process of cumulative brain damage related to alcohol use. However, the authors' data also show that vocabulary does not decrease with age and is correlated with premorbid brain size as measured by intracranial volume, suggesting that lower verbal ability precedes heavy alcohol use and may be a risk factor for alcoholism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response inhibition deficit is involved in poor decision making under risk in nonamnesic individuals with alcoholism.

Individuals with alcoholism exhibit poor decision making as reflected by their continued alcohol use despite encountering problems and by low performance in laboratory tasks of decision making. Here, the authors investigated the relative contribution of several distinct processes of executive functions in performance on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; A. Bechara, A. R. Damasio, H. Damasio, & S. W. Anderson, 1994) in recently detoxified individuals with alcoholism. Compared to matched healthy participants, individuals with alcoholism showed below-normal scores in the last 20 trials of the IGT as well as on other tasks of executive functions, specifically those assessing the capacity to manipulate information stored in working memory, detect abstract rules, or inhibit prepotent responses. Prepotent response inhibition best predicted performance in the late trials of the IGT, that is, when participants have likely acquired knowledge about the reward/punishment contingencies of the task. These results underline the important role that response inhibition plays in decision making, especially in risky situations, when knowledge of the probability of a given outcome becomes available (i.e. decisions under risk). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Binge drinking among female veterans affairs patients: Prevalence and associated risks.

This study evaluated the prevalence and associated risks of binge drinking, defined as having ≥4 drinks on an occasion in the past year, in a female patient population. Of 1,259 female Veterans Affairs patients surveyed, 780 reported drinking alcohol in the past year, and 305 (24% of respondents, 39% of drinkers) reported binge drinking in the past year; 84 (11% of drinkers) had done so monthly or more often. Age-adjusted logistic regression analyses indicated that women who reported past-year binge drinking monthly or more often reported significantly increased odds of morning drinking (odds ratio [OR]?=?40.3), others worrying about their drinking (OR?=?38.6), arguments after drinking (OR?=?13.5), hepatitis or cirrhosis (OR?=?3. 1), frequent injuries (OR?=?2.6), smoking (OR?=?3.7), drug use (OR?=?22.2), and multiple sexual partners (OR?=?4.6). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)