The Addiction Psychologist

Across substances, rates of use are high in indigenous populations across North America. Melissa Schick discusses the historical and ongoing trauma experienced by these populations and why it might be related to higher rates of substance use. Melissa also discusses combining strength-based approaches, from the perspective of positive psychology with community participatory research to provide cult...

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) often co-occur. A great deal of research has attempted to understand the nature of this relationship. Is PTSD a risk factor for AUD? Is high risk drinking a risk factor for PTSD? These questions can help us understand which of the two disorders to target first. Dr. Debra Kaysen talks about her research on treatments for co-occurri...

Biomarkers are objective signs or indications of a clinical state which can be measured reliably and accurately. Biomarkers are important because they can reveal mechanisms of behavior and help inform treatments. Laura Lesnewich talks about Biomarkers for Alcohol Use Disorder and her work identifying Biomarkers related to executive functioning deficits. Laura is a Doctoral candidate in Clinical Ps...

Listen to the future voices of addiction research. Seven students/ECRs discuss their excellent work which will also be presented live, during CPA 2021 from March 17-19. All interviewees were winners of the CPA registration award. Primary presenters, poster titles, and timestamps for posters below. Registration is still open: https://addictionpsychology.org/cpa Neo Gebru (1:48-10:20) - “That’s Pot...

A great deal of the literature delineating the experience of addiction uses cross-sectional survey data or longitudinal data separated by wide gaps of time. Although this research is critical and is useful for answer certain questions, these research designs are unable to answer certain questions, such as about proximal contextual factors associated with within-person differences in substance use,...

Alleviation of pain, whether emotional or physical, is among the most common reasons for substance use. Despite this, very little experimental work has been done to delineate a causal effect of pain. Dezarie Moskal talks about her experimental work on the effect of pain on substance use and a recent meta-analysis on the effect of endocannabinoids on the alleviation of pain. Finally, she discusses...

In December of 2020, the US House of Representatives passed the Marijuana Opportunities Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) act, which removes marijuana from the list of scheduled substances under the Controlled Substances Act and eliminates criminal penalties for an individual who manufactures, distributes, or possesses marijuana. Although the bill is unlikely to survive the Senate, it seems to b...

Self control is thought to be closely associated with the ability to abstain or regulate substance use and is just one aspect of self-regulation, or the ability to organize behavior toward a goal. Many have suggested that self-regulation is damaged in those with chronic patterns of harmful substance use. However, it has also been noted that substance use itself is a highly goal directed behavior a...

There are two competing paradigms attempting to explain the phenomena of addiction: Addiction as compulsion and addiction as choice.  The compulsion model describes addiction as a brain disease in which alcohol and drug use cause neuroadaptations, resulting in uncontrolled drug seeking behavior. The choice model describes addiction as pathology of reinforcement that is contextually dependent...

Research and theory have led to the development of empirically-supported options for SUD treatment, both psychosocial and pharmacological. However, these treatments only have moderate efficacy/effectiveness, and some aspects of treatments may be more implicated for some than others. Tori Votaw talks about precision medicine, which is determining which treatments work best for subgroups of individu...

E-cigarettes have increased in prevalence over the past decade and provided a powerful alternative to tobacco products like cigarettes. E-cigarettes have the potential to be addictive in part because qualities that are typically inherent to a substance (e.g., flavor, "harshness") can actually be modified to increase the reinforcing efficacy of the nicotine from the e-cigarettes. However, the full...

Alcohol use is a burden on the healthcare system and is among the leading causes of preventable deaths in the United States. There are eleven possible Alcohol use Disorder (AUD) symptoms and only two are required, resulting in a wide range of possible combinations of symptoms and thus widely divergent profiles of individuals with AUD. Further,  not all of the AUD symptoms are equally severe,...

Racial disparities in prevalence rates of harmful substance use can largely be attributed to social determinants of health, which are perpetuated by racist policies that have been implemented over the past century. The clearest example can be found in the policies related to Nixon's War on Drugs, which criminalized drug use, increased drug enforcement forces across the nation, and specifically tar...

The academy systematically excludes members of certain groups, leading to underrepresentation of those who identify as of Black, indigenous, and people of color. Keanan Joyner discusses the leaky pipeline and provides specific actionable steps that can help increase representation in your academic department. Keanan Joyner is a doctoral student at Florida State University and a Ford Fell...

Some research demonstrates that rats will self-administer dangerously high levels of drugs under certain schedules of reinforcement. However, much of this research has been done under conditions of depravity, in which the rat does not have any access to alternatives. Humans almost always make choices between a menu of options, suggesting a different, more dynamic choice context with competing rein...

Most definitions of recovery from addiction require abstinence from the problem substance. Dr. Katie Witkiewitz discusses the limitations of abstinence-based models of recovery and describe why non-abstinent models may have a positive public health impact. Namely, Katie's research suggests that many people regain functioning in interpersonal, occupational, and health domains without achieving full...

Systematic barriers can prevent educational and occupational attainment for those with substantive substance use or incarceration histories. For example, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 prevents those with a felony from receiving a Pell grant, effectively preventing college entry for most. Further, reporting that you have been arrested and/or convicted of a crime on colle...

Abstinence models have historically dominated definitions of recovery. However, research suggests that there is not necessarily a 1:1 ratio of substance use to problems, highlighting the importance of targeting harm rather than consumption. In recent decades, harm reduction models of recovery and policy have increasingly gained traction. Drs. Seema Clifasefi & Susan Collins talk about the hist...

Listen to the future voices of addiction research. Ten students/ECRs discuss their excellent work which will also be presented live, along with 23 others, on August 7, 2020 during the NIAAA/NIDA student/ECR poster session. Content ranges from psychometric analyses of new measures to policy-level decision making about harm reduction approaches, and everything in between. Primary presenters, poster...

Although in-person treatment is beneficial, many clients need to use skills in moments (e.g., under conditions of emotional distress or craving) that can make effective skill utilization difficult. Dr. Tyler Wray talks about harnessing technology for just-in-time interventions to help "nudge" clients people towards effective behavior change. Importantly during the COVID-19 era, Tyler discusses rem...

Dr. Brandon Bergman continues his discussion about recovery support services and communities available through the Internet. Dr. Brandon Bergman is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Associate Director of the Recovery Research Institute, which is housed in the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Learn more about their mission at recoveryanswers.or...

Physical distancing recommendations from the COVID-19 pandemic has complicated addiction recovery, forcing many addiction recovery support services online for the foreseeable future. In the first half of our interview with Brandon Bergman, he discusses the difference between addiction treatment and recovery-support services, setting the stage for a discussion about online recovery support communit...