An Online Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Positive Psychology Informed Resource to Address Stress, Negative Affect and Problematic Alcohol Use: A Usability and Descriptive Study.

Background: Research documents that drinking to cope behavior can be disrupted by enhancing emotion regulation and coping skills related to the experience of stress and negative affect. The Alpha Element Self-Coaching Plan incorporates principles of positive psychology and cognitive behavioral therapy to redirect negative thinking and emotions and, therefore, has the potential to benefit individuals who use alcohol to cope with stress.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate satisfaction and usability of the online Alpha Element Self-Coaching Plan in order to inform the development of an expanded digital platform based on the Alpha Element framework.

Trajectories of negative affect prior to and following disordered eating behaviors among women with eating disorder pathology: An examination of the role of state-interoception.

Objective: Affect regulation theories of eating disorders (ED) posit that negative affect increases in the hours before and decreases following disordered eating behaviors (DEBs) in daily life, yet findings from studies assessing affective changes post-DEBs are mixed. This inconsistency may be due to the previously unassessed role of other transdiagnostic processes in these associations, such as interoception (the ability to sense and integrate information from bodily sensations). To address this research gap, the present study examined whether different interoception dimensions moderated negative affect trajectories surrounding DEBs in the natural environment.

Evidence for an alcohol-related "harm paradox" in individuals with internalizing disorders: Test and replication in two independent community samples.

Background: Internalizing (anxiety and mood) disorders (INTD) commonly co-occur (are "comorbid") with alcohol use disorder (AUD). The literature suggests that excessive alcohol use aimed at coping with INTD symptoms is, at best, a partial explanation for the high comorbidity rates observed. We hypothesized that individuals with INTD experience greater susceptibility to developing AUD symptoms due to the partially shared neurobiological dysfunctions underlying both conditions.

World Health Organization (WHO) risk level reductions in inpatients with alcohol use disorder and comorbid anxiety disorders.

Objective: Studies have demonstrated that reduced drinking without total abstinence is associated with improved outcomes in outpatients with alcohol use disorder (AUD). We sought to examine this question in AUD inpatients who have comorbid anxiety disorders, a common presentation in AUD.

Method: This is a secondary analysis of data from a randomized controlled trial for = 241 inpatients with AUD and comorbid anxiety disorders.

The direct effect of drinking to cope on alcohol problems is not mediated by alcohol consumption: Invariance across gender and countries.

Background: Drinking to cope with negative affect confers a direct risk of alcohol problems independently of greater alcohol consumption (i.e., confers susceptibility to the alcohol harm paradox).

People, Professionals, and Profit Centers: The Connection between Lawyer Well-Being and Employer Values.

Concerns about the well-being of lawyers are rising against the backdrop of a transforming legal profession, one which many observe to be operating more like a business in recent decades. However, aspects of this change, such as lawyers perceiving that their employers value financial performance and productivity above all else, could be associated with unhealthy work practices detrimental to lawyer well-being. The objective of the present study was to determine whether the perceived values of employers were differentially associated with lawyer well-being, stress, and work overcommitment.

Risk Pathways Contributing to the Alcohol Harm Paradox: Socioeconomic Deprivation Confers Susceptibility to Alcohol Dependence Greater Exposure to Aversive Experience, Internalizing Symptoms and Drinking to Cope.

Socioeconomic deprivation is associated with greater alcohol problems despite lower alcohol consumption, but the mechanisms underpinning this alcohol harm paradox remain obscure. Fragmented published evidence collectively supports a multistage causal risk pathway wherein socioeconomic deprivation increases the probability of exposure to aversive experience, which promotes internalizing symptoms (depression and anxiety), which promotes drinking alcohol to cope with negative affect, which in turn accelerates the transition from alcohol use to dependence. To evaluate this proposed risk pathway, 219 hazardous drinkers from an undergraduate population completed questionnaires assessing these constructs in a single, cross sectional, online survey.

Tobacco withdrawal increases junk food intake: The role of the endogenous opioid system.

Background: The aims of this study were to 1) determine whether acute nicotine withdrawal increases the intake of junk food (high in salt, fat, and sugar) and 2) assess whether the endogenous opioid system is involved in junk food intake during nicotine withdrawal using naltrexone as a pharmacological probe.

Methods: Smokers were randomly assigned to 24-hr withdrawal from tobacco products (n = 42) or smoking ad libitum (n = 34). A non-smoking group (n = 29) was included.

Stress, drink, leave: An examination of gender-specific risk factors for mental health problems and attrition among licensed attorneys.

Rates of mental illness and heavy alcohol use are exceedingly high in the legal profession, while attrition among women has also been a longstanding problem. Work overcommitment, work-family conflict, permissiveness toward alcohol in the workplace, and the likelihood of promotion are all implicated but have yet to be systematically investigated. Data were collected from 2,863 lawyers randomly sampled from the California Lawyers Association and D.

Co-Occurring Alcohol Use Disorder and Anxiety: Bridging Psychiatric, Psychological, and Neurobiological Perspectives.

A substantial number of people who have problems with alcohol also experience strong anxiety and mood problems. This article provides an overview of the evolving perspectives of this association in the context of three related disciplines-psychiatry, psychology, and neuroscience. Psychiatric and epidemiological studies show that having either an anxiety- or alcohol-related diagnosis elevates the prospective risk for developing the other disorder.

Assessing the collective utility of multiple analyses on clinical alcohol use disorder data.

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the potential of combining graph learning methods with latent variable estimation methods for mining clinically useful information from observational clinical data sets.

Materials And Methods: The data set contained self-reported measures of psychopathology symptoms from a clinical sample receiving treatment for alcohol use disorder. We used the traditional graph learning methods: Graphical Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator, and Friedman's hill climbing algorithm; traditional latent variable estimation method factor analysis; recently developed graph learning method Greedy Fast Causal Inference; and recently developed latent variable estimation method Find One Factor Clusters.

Methodological Advances in the Study of Hidden Variables: A Demonstration on Clinical Alcohol Use Disorder Data.

Research in the domain of psychopathology has been hindered by hidden variables-variables that are important to understanding and treating psychopathological illnesses but are unmeasured. Recent methodological advances in machine learning have culminated in the ability to discover and identify the influence of hidden variables that confound the observed relationships among measured variables. We apply a combination of traditional methods and more recent advances to a data set of alcohol use disorder patients with comorbid internalizing disorders, and find that the increasingly advanced methods produce increasingly informative and reliable results.

Association of Childhood Adversity With Differential Susceptibility of Transdiagnostic Psychopathology to Environmental Stress in Adulthood.

Importance: Multivariable comorbidity research indicates that childhood adversity increases the risk for the development of common mental disorders. This risk is explained by underlying internalizing and externalizing transdiagnostic constructs that are amplified by environmental stressors. The differential susceptibility model suggests that this interaction of risk and environment is bidirectional: at-risk individuals will have worse outcomes in high-stress environments but better outcomes in in low-stress environments.

Causal Network Modeling of the Determinants of Drinking Behavior in Comorbid Alcohol Use and Anxiety Disorder.

Background: Anxiety and depression disorders (internalizing psychopathology) occur in approximately 50% of patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and mark a 2-fold increase in the rate of relapse in the months following treatment. In a previous study using network modeling, we found that perceived stress and drinking to cope (DTC) with negative affect were central to maintaining network associations between internalizing psychopathology INTP and drinking in comorbid individuals. Here, we extend this approach to a causal framework.

A network approach to modeling comorbid internalizing and alcohol use disorders.

Internalizing disorders co-occur with alcohol use disorder (AUD) at a rate that exceeds chance and compromise conventional AUD treatment. The "vicious cycle" model of comorbidity specifies drinking to cope (DTC) as a link between these disorders that, when not directly addressed, undermines the effectiveness of conventional treatments. Interventions based on this model have proven successful but there is no direct evidence for how and to what extent DTC contributes to the maintenance of comorbidity.

Cocaine self-administration punished by i.v. histamine in rat models of high and low drug abuse vulnerability: effects of saccharin preference, impulsivity, and sex.

A key feature of substance use disorders is continued drug consumption despite aversive consequences. This has been modeled in the animal laboratory by pairing drug self-administration with electric shock, thereby punishing drug intake (Deroche-Gamonet et al. 2004).

Attention and recognition memory bias for alcohol-related stimuli among alcohol-dependent patients attending residential treatment.

Though studies have examined attentional bias for alcohol-related information among alcohol-dependent individuals, few have examined memory bias. This study examined attention and recognition memory biases for alcohol-related information among patients recently admitted to residential alcohol treatment (n=100; 40% female). Participants completed a computerized attentional task wherein they classified a centrally-presented digit as odd or even.

Computer-based recovery support for patients receiving residential treatment for alcohol/drug dependence: relationship between program use and outcomes.

Objective: This analysis of administrative data examined whether use of a Web-based recovery support program was related to self-reported post-treatment alcohol use among patients attending residential treatment for a substance use disorder.

Materials And Methods: The program delivered individually tailored clinical content in a multimedia format over the initial 18 months after discharge from treatment. Post-treatment logins to the program and access of clinical content were measured, as was post-treatment alcohol use.

Combined cocaine hydrolase gene transfer and anti-cocaine vaccine synergistically block cocaine-induced locomotion.

Mice and rats were tested for reduced sensitivity to cocaine-induced hyper-locomotion after pretreatment with anti-cocaine antibody or cocaine hydrolase (CocH) derived from human butyrylcholinesterase (BChE). In Balb/c mice, direct i.p.

Exercise to reduce the escalation of cocaine self-administration in adolescent and adult rats.

Rationale: Concurrent access to an exercise wheel decreases cocaine self-administration under short access (5 h/day for 5 days) conditions and suppresses cocaine-primed reinstatement in adult rats.

Objective: The effect of exercise (wheel running) on the escalation of cocaine intake during long access (LgA, 6 h/day for 26 days) conditions was evaluated.

Methods: Adolescent and adult female rats acquired wheel running, and behavior was allowed to stabilize for 3 days.

Effects of progesterone on escalation of intravenous cocaine self-administration in rats selectively bred for high or low saccharin intake.

Progesterone decreases cocaine self-administration in women and in female rats. In a previous study using rats selectively bred for high (HiS) or low (LoS) saccharin intake, HiS rats escalated their cocaine intake compared with LoS rats. Our goal was to examine the effects of progesterone on the escalation of cocaine self-administration in HiS and LoS rats.

Escalation of methamphetamine self-administration in adolescent and adult rats.

Background: Methamphetamine (METH) use has increased substantially in the last 10 years and poses a serious health concern, especially for young populations. Drug abuse primarily begins during adolescence, when uninhibited and excessive and drug intake is a common occurrence; thus, understanding the developmental patterns of addiction during this critical period is an essential step in its prevention. In the present study, the effect of age on the vulnerability to METH abuse was examined using a rat model of bingeing (i.