Alcohol-related Situations Research Articles

Bring me my alcohol!-On the continuum of pleasure and pain.

Alcohol use has been recognized as a challenge in eldercare and social care, and some anticipate that problems related to alcohol use will increase in the future as the current adult generation has high alcohol consumption rates. Accordingly, it is suggested that care workers are at risk of becoming passive bystanders to the destructive lifestyles of vulnerable older adults and even facilitating these lifestyles. In the present paper, we suggest that alcohol exacerbates and underscores inherent difficulties in eldercare, such as finding an appropriate balance between the personal freedom of the older adult and the responsibility of the care worker to provide care. The specific focus in the paper regard the communication and interaction involving values between people in eldercare in cases of problematic alcohol-related situations to uncover the difficulties. We found it noteworthy that the objectives and perspectives of older adults, care workers, managers and relatives have implications regarding their interactions and communications because their varying experiences involve values that are not necessarily aligned. Sometimes, care workers have no choice but to act against what, in the public sphere and to the other care workers, is ruled out by virtue of their professional ethics. It is suggested that care workers describe and judge situations where alcohol is present paradoxically by virtue of their professional ethics, yet regulate their care to preserve the dignity of older adults, even when they find the situation to be an apparent dilemma.

Examining Sex Differences in Associations between Pain and Alcohol Use among College Student-Athletes

Background: College student-athletes are a high-risk population for both pain and alcohol use. Although a growing literature indicates that pain motivates alcohol consumption, no studies have tested associations between pain and alcohol in college student-athletes. Methods and Results: Among National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I student-athletes at a large public university (N = 65; 48% Female), nearly all student-athletes (97%) reported alcohol use and 65% reported pain due to an athletic injury. Pain intensity was positively associated with greater motivation to reduce drinking prior to receiving a brief alcohol intervention. Among females, pain intensity was associated with lower self-reported alcohol consumption. Among male athletes, pain-related interference was associated with greater alcohol-related problems and lower perceived ability to deal with alcohol-related situations. Conclusion: Results provide initial evidence that pain may be important to consider when addressing alcohol use among student-athletes.

Travel choices in alcohol-related situations in Virginia

Using survey data from 3004 respondents aged 21 and older in Northern Virginia, Richmond, and the Tidewater area, this paper identifies factors associated with respondents’ travel choices in alcohol-related situations: (1) the last time the respondent consumed alcohol, (2) when avoiding driving after drinking, and (3) when avoiding riding with a driver who had been drinking. Travel options included using various transportation modes and no travel (spending the night). Multinomial logit models (with and without random parameters) were developed to identify factors associated with each of the three alcohol-related cases. Heterogeneous effects were present in the first two models but not the third. For (1), significant factors included age, income, level of education, occupation, household characteristics, gender, comfort with credit cards tied to applications, location where alcohol was last consumed outside the home (e.g., bar, house of friend, restaurant), and place of residence. For (2), significant factors included age, gender, income, full time employment, living alone, taking multiple modes of transportation in a single trip during a typical week, region of residence, consumption of alcohol at a bar/tavern/club, consumption of alcohol at the home of friends/acquaintances, comfort with credit cards tied to applications, and use of an app for hotel reservations and/or air transportation arrangements. Significant factors for (3) were similar to those for (2). Based on the data (rather than a model), for the subset of those last consuming alcohol in a bar, more people reported using TNCs than driving. It is possible that TNCs draw from other sober driver alternatives by offering greater independence for the traveler and less burden on designated drivers or friends/family.

How does Older People's Drinking Appear in the Daily Work of Home Care Professionals?

Aims In this article the authors ask how the alcohol use of elderly home care clients affects the daily work of home care professionals and how the professionals act to support the drinking client. Methods Semi-structured interviews with 10 home care professionals were conducted from December 2014 to February 2015 in the Helsinki metropolitan area of Finland. Everyday situations during home visits related to the clients' alcohol use were analysed according to modalities of agency of the home care professionals. Results The results focus on three themes raised in the interviews: supporting life management of the client, the lack of qualifications in tackling clients' drinking and the need for multi-professional collaboration. Intoxicated clients complicated the home care nurses' work and obstructed the implementation of recommendations set out to guide the professionals' operations. Care work with alcohol-using clients was particularly demanding, and the professionals were concerned about not having enough training in how to encounter elderly clients' drinking. Multi-professional collaboration with substance abuse services and emergency department personnel was called for to remedy this problem. Conclusions More extensive and detailed research is needed for a better picture of how clients' drinking influences home care nurses' working conditions and what kind of skills nurses need in different alcohol-related situations. Such research would have the potential to benefit clients and improve the well-being of the employees.

Development of a Virtual Approach-Avoidance Task to Assess Alcohol Cravings.

The aim of the present study was to develop a new approach-avoidance task in a virtual environment that could be used to assess the response to virtual alcohol-related situations by heavy social drinkers (HSDs) and light social drinkers (LSDs). Thirty-six male undergraduates (18 HSDs, 18 LSDs) responded to signals when they pulled or pushed a joystick after watching scenes of alcohol- or nonalcohol-related situations in a virtual environment. The HSD group spent more time on moving away from alcohol-related situations than nonalcohol-related situations. We found that the HSD group had difficulty in avoiding alcohol-related situations in the virtual environment. The Virtual Approach-Avoidance Task might more accurately measure the levels of social drinkers' craving to drink as it provides realistic situations and allows individuals to be immersed in virtual environments.

Testing Hypothesized Predictors of Change in Conjoint Behavioral Alcoholism Treatment for Men

Background: The model on which alcohol-related Behavioral Couples Therapy (ABCT) is based posits three primary domains related to alcohol consumption: individual factors, the quality and nature of the spouse's response to alcohol-related situations, and the nature and quality of the couple's marital interactions. Methods: This study tested the model underlying ABCT in a sample of 68 male alcoholics and their partners, who completed at least five sessions of a 15-session outpatient treatment study in which they received ABCT. Couples were assessed at baseline, during treatment, and for 6 months after treatment completion. Stepwise multiple regression was used to test specific predictors derived from the ABCT model. Results: Some support was provided for each component of the ABCT model. Individual drinker variables predicted drinking outcomes, both during and after treatment. Specifically, greater drinking severity and drinking frequency at baseline predicted poorer drinking outcomes. Older client age and more education predicted less frequent but more intense drinking. Spouse coping was related primarily to measures of drinking intensity, rather than drinking frequency. Less intense drinking during treatment was predicted by greater spousal use of problem solving and social support to deal with problems and less use of self-blame, wishful thinking, and avoidance. After treatment, however, spouse coping had a less consistent relationship to drinking intensity. In the marital domain, drinking during treatment was unrelated to pretreatment marital satisfaction measures. However, in the 6 months after treatment, men's ability to remain abstinent was predicted by the quality of the pretreatment marital relationship, and the intensity of their drinking was predicted by the degree of their marital happiness immediately after treatment. Conclusions: Results provided substantial support for the ABCT model, particularly in relationship to the role of the spouse in affecting heavy drinking.

Testing Hypothesized Predictors of Change in Conjoint Behavioral Alcoholism Treatment for Men

The model on which alcohol-related Behavioral Couples Therapy (ABCT) is based posits three primary domains related to alcohol consumption: individual factors, the quality and nature of the spouse's response to alcohol-related situations, and the nature and quality of the couple's marital interactions. This study tested the model underlying ABCT in a sample of 68 male alcoholics and their partners, who completed at least five sessions of a 15-session outpatient treatment study in which they received ABCT. Couples were assessed at baseline, during treatment, and for 6 months after treatment completion. Stepwise multiple regression was used to test specific predictors derived from the ABCT model. Some support was provided for each component of the ABCT model. Individual drinker variables predicted drinking outcomes, both during and after treatment. Specifically, greater drinking severity and drinking frequency at baseline predicted poorer drinking outcomes. Older client age and more education predicted less frequent but more intense drinking. Spouse coping was related primarily to measures of drinking intensity, rather than drinking frequency. Less intense drinking during treatment was predicted by greater spousal use of problem solving and social support to deal with problems and less use of self-blame, wishful thinking, and avoidance. After treatment, however, spouse coping had a less consistent relationship to drinking intensity. In the marital domain, drinking during treatment was unrelated to pretreatment marital satisfaction measures. However, in the 6 months after treatment, men's ability to remain abstinent was predicted by the quality of the pretreatment marital relationship, and the intensity of their drinking was predicted by the degree of their marital happiness immediately after treatment. Results provided substantial support for the ABCT model, particularly in relationship to the role of the spouse in affecting heavy drinking.

College students' decisions to intervene in alcohol-related situations.

In reviewing research on college students' intervention practices in alcohol-related situations, Seibold and Thomas recently advanced a transactional influence reconceptualization of intervention episodes. This study sought to explicate the factors contributing to college students' decision to intervene or not to intervene in alcohol-related situations. In order to empirically explore this area, 489 students from three U.S. universities were surveyed about factors affecting their decisions to intervene or not in two types of alcohol-related situations: a drunk-driving situation and an alcohol abuse situation. Students' intervention decisions were motivated primarily by concerns for the target and for potential consequences if they did not intervene. In contrast, decisions not to intervene were motivated primarily by an absence of a strong relationship with the target, their own condition at the time, and the potential impact of the intervention attempt on their image. Gender differences moderated many of these findings, however. Results are discussed in terms of approaching the study of alcohol interventions from a transactional influence perspective.

Assessment of adolescent refusal skills in an alcohol misuse prevention study.

Although many substance abuse prevention programs seek to enhance the ability of adolescents to refuse offers of alcohol and other drugs, few report assessments of refusal skill ability or its relationship to substance use. This report describes a procedure to assess the ability of adolescents to refuse the offer of a beer, and presents the findings of those assessments as well as their relationships to alcohol misuse prevention knowledge, susceptibility to peer pressure, internal health locus of control, self-esteem, and alcohol use and misuse. A one-third random sample (n = 1012) of 10th graders participating in a longitudinal evaluation of an alcohol misuse prevention curriculum was assessed individually. Students rated their own refusals, which were also rated by trained female and male raters. The results indicated that adolescents refuse the offer of a beer only somewhat convincingly. Those adolescents with better refusal skills had higher levels of alcohol misuse prevention knowledge, especially regarding resisting pressures to use alcohol and the application of knowledge of typical alcohol-related situations. They also reported less susceptibility to peer pressure, greater internal health locus of control and self-esteem, and less alcohol use and misuse. The results provide support for teaching refusal skills in substance abuse prevention programs and for assessing refusal skills in the evaluation of such programs.

Six-month follow-up results of a preventive alcohol education intervention.

An alcohol education program was designed to increase the knowledge of alcohol's effects upon performance, increase ability of students to refute pro-drinking and driving arguments, and decrease likelihood of complying with pressure to participate in alcohol-related situations. Films, slides, discussion and role playing activities were included in the program administered to 155 ninth grade students in Nebraska. The objectives were measured through written tests administered in a pre, post and six-month follow-up sequence. An ANOVA performed on the posttests indicated that the experimental group scored significantly more favorably on knowledge, refuting arguments, compliance and riding with drinking drivers. A repeated measures ANOVA using the scores of students who received pre, post, and follow-up tests ( N=83) showed that the knowledge, refutation and compliance scores of the experimental group continued to be significantly more favorable six months later.