The difference in alcohol consumption of high- and low-dependent drinkers with subjective craving differing in affect

Craving plays an essential role in alcohol dependence and represents a great risk for alcoholics to engage in alcohol consumption and therefore increasing the risk for relapse. For the sake of reducing craving thoughts, the reactivity on specific craving thoughts and diminishing the consequences referring to mortality and morbidity, it is important to gain a deeper insight in the construct of craving thoughts and the factors that are related to those. Previous research on craving indicated that craving would underlie the affected mood, as one would drink to enhance a positive affected mood and to cope with a negative affected mood. Hence, this study focuses on the effect of dependency on the relation between negatively/positively affect craving thoughts and the consumption of alcohol. The analyses are based on a self-selected sample of 108 alcoholics, aged 12 to 75 with different dependence levels as defined by the DSM-V, who partook in the online treatment Alcohol De Baas, of which data was used from the intake questionnaire, the Drinkwijzer craving scale and the closing questionnaire after completing the treatment. Hereby, the items of the Drinkwijzer scale were categorized in terms of positive and negative affect. The findings of the current study indicated a moderator effect of dependency on the relation between craving thoughts with a positive affect and alcohol consumption. Thus, low-dependent drinkers would be more reactive on situations, thoughts and emotions with a positive affect than high-dependent drinkers. Also, it was found that dependency would predict both subjective craving thoughts and craving thoughts with a negative affect. The remaining results were partly confirmatory with previous research, which could mostly be explained by the uniqueness of the current sample, which is seen in the difference of the findings compared to other studies. Still, the results indicate the importance of distinguishing between levels of dependency and also on the affect of craving thoughts for future research and treatment.