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This study assessed the separate and combined effects of two important instigators of relapse, alcohol cues and stress, on the salience of alcohol target stimuli and inhibitory control, in 12 male problem drinkers and 16 male controls. Subjects underwent two test sessions where they received alcohol cues (non-alcoholic beer) and/or stress (uncontrollable noise) in a counterbalanced manner. Testing was carried out through validated, computer-based tasks: modified Stroop, gambling-word Shift task; and conventional and modified (Alcohol word) Stop-Signal tasks. Inhibitory control was preferentially impaired to Alcohol stimuli in both groups. Beer and stress in combination increased incentive salience of Alcohol stimuli and moderated self-reported desire for alcohol in problem drinkers but not controls. Results suggest that alcohol cues and stress have interactive effects on subjective motivation, and disinhibit behaviour due to distraction in problem drinkers. Findings from this paradigm may improve understanding and facilitate treatment for relapse prevention in problem drinkers.

This study assessed the separate and combined effects of two important instigators of relapse, alcohol cues and stress, on the salience of alcohol target stimuli and inhibitory control, in 12 male problem drinkers and 16 male controls. Subjects underwent two test sessions where they received alcohol cues (non-alcoholic beer) and/or stress (uncontrollable noise) in a counterbalanced manner. Testing was carried out through validated, computer-based tasks: modified Stroop, gambling-word Shift task; and conventional and modified (Alcohol word) Stop-Signal tasks. Inhibitory control was preferentially impaired to Alcohol stimuli in both groups. Beer and stress in combination increased incentive salience of Alcohol stimuli and moderated self-reported desire for alcohol in problem drinkers but not controls. Results suggest that alcohol cues and stress have interactive effects on subjective motivation, and disinhibit behaviour due to distraction in problem drinkers. Findings from this paradigm may improve understanding and facilitate treatment for relapse prevention in problem drinkers.

Using 12-month post treatment Timeline Followback drinking reports, data extrapolated from shorter time windows (e.g., 1 month, 6 months) were used to estimate total annual drinking. The objective was to determine whether data from a shorter time window would provide an estimate of annual drinking sufficiently consistent with the full year report such that it can be used in place of the full report. Data for this study were obtained from problem drinkers who voluntarily participated in a randomized controlled trial of a mail-based intervention. Complete follow-up data were obtained for 467 of the 825 participants who completed a 12-month Timeline Followback of their post intervention drinking. The results of this study suggest that 3 months is the necessary minimum time window to best represent annual posttreatment drinking with alcohol abusers. The major implication of this finding is that alcohol treatment outcome studies can use a shorter posttreatment time window, which is more time and resource efficient, over which to obtain follow-up data with little to no loss in the representativeness of that data.