Control Alcohol Intake by Reducing Stress with Mindfulness
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“It’s all about awareness and experiencing what you are doing. Enjoying powerful substances like caffeine, sugar and alcohol doesn’t have to be bad, as long as you are aware if it hurts or hinders you.” – Marc David
Inappropriate use of alcohol is a major societal problem. In fact, about 25% of US adults have engaged in binge drinking in the last month and 7% have what is termed an alcohol use disorder. Alcohol abuse is very dangerous and frequently fatal. Nearly 88,000 people in the US and 3.3 million globally die from alcohol-related causes annually, making it the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Drunk driving accounted for over 10,000 deaths; 31% of all driving fatalities. Excessive alcohol intake has been shown to contribute to over 200 diseases including alcohol dependence, liver cirrhosis, cancers, and injuries. It is estimated that over 5% of the burden of disease and injury worldwide is attributable to alcohol consumption.
These are striking and alarming statistics and indicate that controlling alcohol intake is an important priority for the individual and society. There are a wide range of treatment programs for alcohol abuse, with varying success. Recently, mindfulness training has been successfully applied to treatment. One attractive feature of this training is that it appears to increase the ability of the drinker to control their intake, resulting in less binge drinking and dangerous inebriation. It appears that one way that mindfulness increases the control of intake is by reducing the desire to use alcohol to cope with emotional problems. Since, mindfulness appears to hold promise as a treatment for excessive alcohol intake, there is a need to better understand its mechanisms of action in order to maximize its effectiveness.
Cigarette smoking is highly linked to alcohol intake and stress is a known trigger for alcohol intake. So, in today’s Research News article “Testing a Moderated Mediation Model of Mindfulness, Psychosocial Stress, and Alcohol Use among African American Smokers.” See:
or below or view the full text of the study at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4384702/
Adams and colleagues investigate the relationship of stress to drinking and how mindfulness training might affect the relationship in African American participants who are undergoing treatment to stop cigarette smoking.
They found that individuals with high mindfulness had lower perceived stress, lower quantities of alcohol consumed, less frequent binge drinking, and lower likelihood of an alcohol use disorder. Also, the higher the mindfulness score the lower the level of all of these alcohol intake measures. In addition, they found that the higher the level of perceived stress the higher the levels of alcohol intake. So, both mindfulness and stress were associated, albeit in opposite directions, with alcohol intake. To sort out their influences Adams and colleagues performed a statistical technique called a mediation analysis. They found that for participants who had low levels of perceived stress, mindfulness did not influence alcohol intake, but for those who were high in stress there was a strong relationship, with high mindfulness associated with low drinking and low mindfulness associated with high alcohol intake.
These results suggest that mindfulness moderates the relationship between stress and alcohol intake. High stress was associated with high alcohol intake and binge drinking in African American smokers who were low, but not high, in mindfulness. Indeed, nearly half (45%) of participants who were low in mindfulness showed the drinking behavior reflective of alcohol abuse and dependence on alcohol (averaging 15 drinks per week and 3.4 binge episodes in the last three months), while only one in eight (12%) who were high in mindfulness did (averaging 5 drinks per week and 1.5 binge episodes in the last three months).
These results suggest that being mindful is counter to alcohol intake and this may occur as a result of mindfulness protecting the individual from the ability of stress to induce alcohol intake. It is known that mindfulness training decreases the individuals psychological and physiological responses to stress. So, it appears that one of the responses to stress that mindfulness affects, is the intake of alcohol. It should be noted that these results were correlational and not necessarily indicative of a causation. In future research the effect of active mindfulness training on stress’ relationship to alcohol intake needs to be explored.
Regardless, it appears likely that alcohol intake can be controlled by reducing stress with mindfulness.
“A drink or two can help us enjoy social gatherings, be a pleasurable part of meals (or baseball games), and help us celebrate important events. Still, there’s something to be said for taking pleasure in the moment for the moment itself — without the help of alcohol.” – Caren Osten Gerszberg
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Adams, C. E., Cano, M. A., Heppner, W. L., Stewart, D. W., Correa-Fernández, V., Vidrine, J. I., … Wetter, D. W. (2015). Testing a Moderated Mediation Model of Mindfulness, Psychosocial Stress, and Alcohol Use among African American Smokers. Mindfulness, 6(2), 315–325. http://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-013-0263-1
Abstract
Mindfulness-based strategies have received empirical support for improving coping with stress and reducing alcohol use. The present study presents a moderated mediation model to explain how mindfulness might promote healthier drinking patterns. This model posits that mindfulness reduces perceived stress, leading to less alcohol use, and also weakens the linkage between stress and alcohol use. African American smokers (N= 399, 51% female, Mage = 42) completed measures of dispositional mindfulness, perceived stress, quantity of alcohol use, frequency of binge drinking, and alcohol use disorder symptoms. Participants with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness reported less psychosocial stress and lower alcohol use on all measures. Furthermore, mindfulness moderated the relationship between perceived stress and quantity of alcohol consumption. Specifically, higher perceived stress was associated with increased alcohol use among participants low, but not high, in mindfulness. Mindfulness may be one strategy to reduce perceived stress and associated alcohol use among African American smokers.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4384702/