“Drinking To Cope” Doesn’t Work, Even When We Believe That It Does

By Emma Young Have you ever felt a little anxious or low, and decided that a beer or a glass of wine would help? If so, you’re hardly alone. This exact thought process must play across the country every night of the week. There’s been surprisingly little solid research, though, into whether alcohol does actually relieve these negative feelings. Now new work led by Andrea M Wycoff at the University of Missouri-Columbia, US, concludes that in fact, it does not — and that people who “drink to cope” can even make their symptoms worse. The study involved 110 participants; 58 were from the general community and 52 had a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. People with BPD are known to be more prone to drinking problems, and to experience more variable emotions; they are even more likely than the rest of us, then, to view alcohol as a way to manage negative emotions. Some of the BPD participants had in fact been diagnosed with Alcohol Use Disorder. The team chose to include this group to try to capture as much variability in emotional states and proneness to problem drinking as possible in their study. After completing various questionnaires in the lab, each participant was given an electronic diary. Every day for the next three weeks, they received regular prompts to report on any alcohol consumption, and also to rate levels of various negative feelings, such as being jittery, nervous, downhearted and lonely. Whenever a participant report...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Alcohol Mental health Source Type: blogs