Does Drinking Reduce Stress?

By Michael A. Sayette, Ph.D.

For centuries, people have used alcohol to relieve stress-that is, the interpretation of an event as signaling harm, loss, or threat. The person usually responds to stress with a variety of behavioral, biological, and cognitive changes. Alcohol consumption can result in a stress response dampening (SRD) effect, which can be assessed using various measures.

Numerous individual differences and situational factors help determine the extent to which a person experiences SRD after consuming alcohol.

Individual differences include

  • a family history of alcoholism,
  • personality traits,
  • extent of self-consciousness,
  • cognitive functioning, and
  • gender.
  • Situational factors influencing alcohol’s SRD effect include
  • distractions during a stressful situation and
  • the timing of drinking and stress.

The attention-allocation model and the appraisal disruption model have been advanced to explain the influence of those situational factors.

Alcohol Research & Health, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1999

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff--and it’s all small stuff (Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff Series)

Related Reading:

7 Weeks to Safe Social Drinking: How to Effectively Moderate Your Alcohol Intake
Clinical Supervision in Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counseling: Principles, Models, Methods
Handbook of Alcoholism Treatment Approaches (3rd Edition)
Stages of change in anxiety: psychometric properties of the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment (URICA) scale [An article from: Behaviour Research and Therapy]
THE ALCOHOLISM AND ADDICTION CURE: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery
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