By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“Mindfulness also helps people learn to relate to discomfort differently. When an uncomfortable feeling like a craving or anxiety arises, people . . . are able to recognize their discomfort, and observe it with presence and compassion, instead of automatically reaching for a drug to make it go away.” – Sarah Bowen
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.
Alcohol abuse often develops during adolescence and it on display with college students where about four out of five college students drink alcohol and about half of those consume alcohol through binge drinking. About 25 percent of college students report academic consequences of their drinking including missing class, falling behind, doing poorly on exams or papers, and receiving lower grades overall. More than 150,000 students develop an alcohol-related health problem. This drinking has widespread consequence for not only the students but also the college communities, and families. More than 690,000 students are assaulted by another student who has been drinking. More than 97,000 students are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape. 599,000 students receive unintentional injuries while under the influence of alcohol. Significantly, 1,825 college students die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries and between 1.2 and 1.5 percent of students indicate that they tried to commit suicide within the past year due to drinking or drug use.
These facts clearly highlight the need to explore methods to control excessive alcohol intake. One potential method is mindfulness as it has been shown to assist in the control of alcohol intake and in recovery from alcohol addiction . So it would make sense to further explore the effects of mindfulness on alcohol intake in college students. Many indicate that they drink to cope with problems including depression. In today’s Research News article “Depressive Symptoms and Alcohol-Related Problems Among College Students: A Moderated-Mediated Model of Mindfulness and Drinking to Cope.” See:
or see summary below. Bravo and colleagues recruited college students who had consumed alcohol at least one day in the past month and had them complete a questionnaire measuring mindfulness, depression, alcohol consumption, alcohol related problems, and drinking motives.
They found that the higher the level of the students’ mindfulness, the lower the levels of depression, alcohol related problems, and drinking to cope motives while the higher the levels of depression the greater the drinking to cope motives and alcohol related problems. They also found that the students’ depression levels were associated this drinking to cope which was, in turn, associated with alcohol related problems and this was moderated by mindfulness with this relationship weaker in highly mindful students and stronger in low mindfulness students.
These findings suggest that depression energizes the motivation to find a way to cope with the depression and this, in turn, leads to using alcohol intake for coping problems. This then leads to more problems related to alcohol consumption. But, mindfulness appears to interrupt this process by reducing the motivation to cope, it decreases the number of problems resulting from alcohol consumption. It can be speculated that mindfulness helps with the depression reducing the need to find a way to cope with it. This then produces a healthier relationship with alcohol intake.
These are potentially important findings. That mindfulness reduces depression is well known. But, these results suggest that this reduces the need to use alcohol intake to cope with the student’s negative emotional state. They further suggest that mindfulness training for college students could help to address alcohol intake problems that are so rampant in that population. It will take future studies to assess this speculation.
So, interrupt drinking to cope with depression with mindfulness.
“There are a few strategies for drinking mindfully. First, we meditated to set our intentions for drinking. While trying to remain in the present moment, we asked ourselves, “Am I drinking because I want to unwind…Or to drown my sorrows?” “Alcohol in itself is not good or bad. It’s our relationship to it that matters.” – Lodro Rinzler
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Bravo AJ, Pearson MR, Stevens LE, Henson JM. Depressive Symptoms and Alcohol-Related Problems Among College Students: A Moderated-Mediated Model of Mindfulness and Drinking to Cope. J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2016 Jul;77(4):661-6. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15288/jsad.2016.77.661
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: In college student samples, the association between depressive symptoms and alcohol-related problems has been found to be mediated by drinking-to-cope motives. Mindfulness-based interventions suggest that mindfulness may attenuate the conditioned response of using substances in response to negative emotional states, and trait mindfulness has been shown to be a protective factor associated with experiencing fewer alcohol-related problems. In the present study, we examined trait mindfulness as a moderator of the indirect associations of depressive symptoms on alcohol-related problems via drinking-to-cope motives.
METHOD: Participants were undergraduate students at a large, southeastern university in the United States who drank at least once in the previous month (n = 448). Participants completed an online survey regarding their personal mental health, coping strategies, trait mindfulness, and alcohol use behaviors. The majority of participants were female (n = 302; 67.4%), identified as being either White non-Hispanic (n = 213; 47.5%) or African American (n = 119; 26.6%), and reported a mean age of 22.74 (SD = 6.81) years. Further, 110 (25%) participants reported having a previous and/or current experience with mindfulness mediation.
RESULTS: As hypothesized, the indirect effects from depressive symptoms to alcohol-related problems via drinking-to-cope motives were weaker among individuals reporting higher levels of mindfulness than among individuals reporting lower and average levels of mindfulness.
CONCLUSIONS: The present study suggests a possible mechanism through which mindfulness-based interventions may be efficacious among college students: decoupling the associations between depressive symptoms and drinking-to-cope motives.