Why teetotallers abstain

Identification of Tendency to Alcohol Misuse From the Structural Brain Networks

The propensity to engage in risky behaviors including excessive alcohol consumption may impose increased medical, emotional, and psychosocial burdens. Personality and behavioral traits of individuals may contribute in part to the involvement in risky behaviors, and therefore the classification of one’s traits may help identify those who are at risk for future onset of the addictive disorder and related behavioral issues such as alcohol misuse. Personality and behavioral characteristics including impulsivity, anger, reward sensitivity, and avoidance were assessed in a large sample of healthy young adults (n = 475). Participants also underwent diffusion tensor imaging for the analysis of structural brain networks. A data-driven clustering using personality and behavioral traits of the participants identified four subtypes. As compared with individuals clustered into the neutral type, individuals with a high level of impulsivity (A subtype) and those with high levels of reward sensitivity, impulsivity, anger, and avoidance (B subtype) showed significant associations with problem drinking. In contrast, individuals with high levels of impulsivity, anger, and avoidance but not reward sensitivity (C subtype) showed a pattern of social drinking that was similar to those of the neutral subtype. Furthermore, logistic regression analysis with ridge estimators was applied to demonstrate the neurobiological relevance for the identified subtypes according to distinct patterns of structural brain connectivity within the addiction circuitry [neutral vs. A subtype, the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC) = 0.74, 95% CI = 0.67–0.81; neutral vs. B subtype, AUC = 0.74, 95% CI = 0.66–0.82; neutral vs. C subtype, AUC = 0.77, 95% CI = 0.70–0.84]. The current findings enable the characterization of individuals according to subtypes based on personality and behavioral traits that are also corroborated by neuroimaging data and may provide a platform to better predict individual risks for addictive disorders.

Searching for an environmental effect of parental alcoholism on offspring alcohol use disorder: a genetically informed study of children of alcoholics

The children-of-twins design was used to isolate a potentially causal environmental impact of having an alcoholic parent on offspring alcohol use disorder, by an examination of whether the children of alcoholics were at a higher risk for alcohol use disorders than were the children of nonalcoholic parents, even after correlated familial factors were controlled. Participants were 1,224 male and female twins from 836 twin pairs selected from the Australian Twin Registry, 2,334 of the twins' 18-39-year-old offspring, and 983 spouses of the twins. Lifetime histories of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) alcohol use disorders were obtained by structured, psychiatric, telephone interviews conducted individually with each of the family members. Comparisons of the offspring of twins who were discordant for alcoholism indicated that there was no longer a statistically significant difference between the children of alcoholics and the children of nonalcoholics after genetic and family environmental factors correlated with having an alcoholic parent were controlled. The results of this study suggest that the direct causal effect of being exposed to an alcoholic parent on offspring alcohol use disorder is modest at best.

Predicting relapse and recovery in alcoholism and addiction: neuropsychology, personality, and cognitive style

Neuropsychological studies of substance abuse treatment outcome have generally found successful recoverers to show intact functioning on most measures, whereas relapsers do poorly on tests of language, abstract reasoning, planning, and cognitive flexibility. These have been related to involvement of left hemisphere and frontal lobe functions. Personality profiles of successful remitters, with or without formal treatment, include future goal-orientation, frustration-tolerance, and self-efficacy, while relapsers are characterized by impulsivity, antisocial personality, and affective disorders. It is proposed that what these neuropsychological and personality indexes are actually describing in successful recoverers is the neuropsychodynamic trait variable of ego autonomy, which is related to a reflective, nonimpulsive, goal-directed cognitive style. Implications of the neuropsychodynamic model for the evaluation and treatment of substance abusers is discussed.

[The association between alcohol consumption and health services utilization]

The association between alcohol consumption patterns and the use of health services was examined in a cross-sectional survey of the general population of the Region of Madrid. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the odds of moderate drinkers, excessive drinkers and non-drinkers to utilize health care services. Our findings indicate that moderate drinkers have a lower probability of utilizing health care services as compared to non-drinkers. Specifically, moderate drinkers showed a lower probability of utilizing both hospital (OR = 0.65 CI = 0.48-0.89) and ambulatory care (OR = 0.79 CI = 0.66-0.95) services. Furthermore, the frequency of use of ambulatory (OR = 0.79 CI = 0.64-0.95) and emergency care services (OR = 0.38 CI = 0.21-0.69) was also lower for moderate drinkers. Excessive drinkers also showed a tendency to use emergency care services less frequently (OR = 0.43 CI = 0.19-0.93). Both moderate and excessive drinking were also significantly associated with a shorter length of stay as compared to non-drinkers. The odds ratios are 0.41 (CI = 0.21-0.79) and 0.29 (CI = 0.19-0.39) respectively. Possible explanations of this "protective" effect of alcohol consumption, especially of moderate drinking, are discussed in relation to the diagnostic entities motivating the use of health care services.

Family risk factors of alcoholism and drinking patterns among non alcoholic women: an inverse relationship? An exploratory study of female employees

95 non alcoholic female employees were personally interviewed and divided into three drinking pattern groups with an increasing level of alcohol consumption: the traditional feminine drinking group (TF) (n = 28), the new feminine drinking group (NF) (n = 37), and the masculine drinking group (M) (n = 30). The groups were compared on family variables which may be regarded as risk factors of alcoholism. The results show an inverse relationship between family risk factors and consumption level, the TF-group having significantly more risk factors than the other two groups. The TF-women more often came from families where the mother and her parents were abstainers, while the father and his parents were more often alcohol abusers or not abstainers. The TF-women were more often attached to their alcoholic fathers as children, while the M-women were more often attached to their mothers. The choice of drinking pattern may be inversely related to the frequency of family risk factors among non alcoholic women.