Identifying substitute activities for alcohol consumption: a preliminary analysis

Abstract

Individuals with alcohol use disorder may excessively value alcohol reinforcement over other types of rewards and may seek out environments supportive of alcohol consumption despite negative consequences. Therefore, examining ways to increase engagement in substance-free activities may be useful in treating alcohol use disorder. Past research has focused on preference and frequency of engagement in alcohol-related versus alcohol-free activities. However, no study to-date has examine the incompatibility of such activities with alcohol consumption, an important step in preventing possible adverse consequences during treatment for alcohol use disorder and for ensuring that activities do not function in a complementary fashion with alcohol consumption. The present study was a preliminary analysis comparing a modified activity reinforcement survey with the inclusion of a suitability question to determine the incompatibility of common survey activities with alcohol consumption. Participants recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (N = 146) were administered an established activity reinforcement survey, questions regarding the incompatibility of the activities with alcohol consumption, and measures of alcohol-related problems. We found that activity surveys may identify activities that are enjoyable without alcohol, but that some of these activities were still compatible with alcohol. For many of the activities examined, participants who rated those activities as suitable with alcohol also reported higher alcohol severity, with the largest effect size differences for physical activity, school or work, and religious activities. The results of this study are an important preliminary analysis for determining how activities may function as substitutes, and may hold implications for harm reduction interventions and public policy.

Keywords:

• Substance-free alternatives
• alcohol use disorder
• behavioral economics
• suitability
• crowdsourcing
• alternative reinforcement

Ethical approval

The present study was conducted in accordance with all University of Kansas Internal Review Board (KU IRB) policies. Informed consent documents were approved by the KU IRB and distributed to all participants. Confidentiality of participant data was also maintained in accordance with KU IRB policy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data presented in the article are available by request from the corresponding author.

Notes

1 In retrospect, we now realize that ‘finding a way to drink’ carries certain connotations that may be inadvertently stigmatizing to people with alcohol use disorders. This was not our intent in phrasing the question this way and recommend that different language be used in future studies.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [R01AA027255] and the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment and the University of Kansas New Faculty General Research Fund.