Addiction Rehab: Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement for Alcohol Dependence: Therapeutic Mechanisms and Intervention Acceptability.
Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement for Alcohol Dependence: Therapeutic Mechanisms and Intervention Acceptability.
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
J Soc Work Pract Addict. 2012 Jul 1; 12(3): 242-263
Garland EL, Schwarz NM, Kelly A, Whitt A, Howard MO
Mindfulness-based interventions may decrease addictive behaviors while promoting non-reactivity to stressors. This study employed qualitative methods to enhance understanding of mindfulness-related treatment effects. Study participants were eighteen alcohol dependent adults residing in a therapeutic community who had participated in a Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) intervention. Interviews were conducted to elicit participant narratives. Responses to open-ended questions were analyzed using a grounded theory approach and the method of constant comparison. Narrative accounts suggested that MORE enhanced self-awareness while helping clients to cope more effectively with emotional distress and addictive impulses. MORE appears to be acceptable to participants and feasible to implement within a residential treatment setting. Mindfulness training may assist marginalized persons recover from addiction.
HubMed – addiction
Mindfulness is Inversely Associated with Alcohol Attentional Bias Among Recovering Alcohol-Dependent Adults.
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
Cognit Ther Res. 2012 Oct 1; 36(5): 441-450
Garland EL, Boettiger CA, Gaylord S, Chanon VW, Howard MO
Although mindfulness has been linked with salutary clinical outcomes, less is known about its relation to cognitive mechanisms implicated in the onset and maintenance of alcohol dependence. Because trait mindfulness is associated with attentional control and emotion regulation, we hypothesized that trait mindfulness would be inversely associated with attentional bias towards visual alcohol cues. We tested this hypothesis in a sample of alcohol-dependent adults residing in a treatment facility, who completed questionnaires on trait mindfulness, craving, and stress, as well as a spatial cueing task designed to assess alcohol attentional bias. Recovering alcohol-dependent individuals high in trait mindfulness exhibited less alcohol attentional bias (AB), stress, and craving, and greater alcohol-related self-efficacy, than their counterparts low in trait mindfulness. Multiple linear regression analyses indicated that trait mindfulness was more predictive of alcohol AB than stress, craving, alcohol-related self-efficacy, time in treatment, or pre-treatment level of alcohol consumption. Identification of malleable traits that can offset automatic cognitive mechanisms implicated in addiction may prove to be crucial to treatment development efforts.
HubMed – addiction
Adult hippocampal neurogenesis in the pathogenesis of addiction and dual diagnosis disorders.
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
Drug Alcohol Depend. 2012 Dec 29;
Chambers RA
BACKGROUND: As knowledge deepens about how new neurons are born, differentiate, and wire into the adult mammalian brain, growing evidence depicts hippocampal neurogenesis as a special form of neuroplasticity that may be impaired across psychiatric disorders. This review provides an integrated-evidence based framework describing a neurogenic basis for addictions and addiction vulnerability in mental illness. METHODS: Basic studies conducted over the last decade examining the effects of addictive drugs on adult neurogenesis and the impact of neurogenic activity on addictive behavior were compiled and integrated with relevant neurocomputational and human studies. RESULTS: While suppression of hippocampal neurogenic proliferation appears to be a universal property of addictive drugs, the pathophysiology of addictions involves neuroadaptative processes within frontal-cortical-striatal motivation circuits that the neurogenic hippocampus regulates via direct projections. States of suppressed neurogenic activity may simultaneously underlie psychiatric and cognitive symptoms, but also confer or signify hippocampal dysfunction that heightens addiction vulnerability in mental illness as a basis for dual diagnosis disorders. CONCLUSIONS: Research on pharmacological, behavioral and experiential strategies that enhance adaptive regulation of hippocampal neurogenesis holds potential in advancing preventative and integrative treatment strategies for addictions and dual diagnosis disorders.
HubMed – addiction
Think abstractly, smoke less: a brief construal-level intervention can promote self-control, leading to reduced cigarette consumption among current smokers.
Filed under: Addiction Rehab
Addiction. 2012 Dec 20;
Chiou WB, Wu WH, Chang MH
AIMS: Inadequate self-control has been linked to behavioral and impulse-control problems such as overeating, alcohol and drug abuse, and smoking. Construal-level theory (CLT) suggests that a high-level construal (highlighting central goals associated with an event), relative to a low-level construal (highlighting means and resources), promotes self-control. Inspired by CLT, we examined whether smokers primed with a high-level (vs. low-level) construal mindset would show reductions in smoking that might be mediated by improved self-control. DESIGN: A single-factor (construal level: high, low, control) between-subjects design was employed. We used a widely employed why/how paradigm, to induce high/low construal levels, whereby participants were asked to respond to questions about “Why” or “How” they would maintain good physical health. SETTING: Laboratory at Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan. PARTICIPANTS: A community sample consisting of 102 daily smokers participated in this experiment. MEASUREMENTS: The Stroop task measuring self-control was implemented after the construal-level manipulation. The dependent measure was actual cigarette consumption during an ostensible survey. FINDINGS: Participants in a high-level construal mindset smoked fewer cigarettes (Mean = 1.3, 95% CI = 0.9, 1.7) than those in a low-level construal mindset (Mean = 2.6, 95% CI = 2.2, 3.0; P < 0.01). A bootstrapping analysis supported for the role of self-control (B = -1.14, 95% CI = -1.65, -0.74, P < 0.01) as a mechanism underlying this effect. CONCLUSIONS: Smokers primed with a high-level construal mindset (i.e., cognitive abstraction) may induce greater self-control that leads to reduced cigarette consumption. Thus, reminding smokers to think abstractly about health may be an effective strategy that could help them to smoke fewer cigarettes. HubMed – addiction
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