Future Trends in Alcohol and Substance Use Disorder Research: Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery

Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 40–3

The third issue of Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly (ATQ),volume 40, features articles about the recent COVID pandemic and special populations in recovery. First, we are excited and honored to serve as Co-Editors-in-Chief and approach this work with a sense of responsibility rooted in passion, humility, and devotion. As alcohol and substance use researchers and clinicians, we believe editors have the opportunity to influence people, ideas, and outcomes across the entire spectrum of multiple industries. These impacts can span from directly influencing the lives of the many people who need help to informing legislative and regulatory efforts changes and outcomes. Our journal includes board members, authors, and readers from numerous professional specialty areas, and provides space for diverse theoretical and empirical approaches. Our primary responsibility is to ensure that our scholarship creates opportunities to enhance the science of our industries. This is especially true that we do it in a way that is relevant to the greatest number of people, organizations, and professions as possible.

Our history at ATQ has been to highlight new and innovative approaches to treatment and recovery, describing clinical problems and solutions, and detailing practical, unique approaches to intervention, therapy, and recovery. Potential authors are encouraged to target and construct studies that include an experimental design when appropriate. We would like to feature articles that describe novel approaches to alcohol and substance-related research, practices, and topics that also include findings, thoughts, or recommendations across the continuum of care. There is still a shortage of recovery-focused research. In that vein, we also encourage authors to submit manuscripts that describe both short- and long-term outcomes. The role and impact of community, employment, family, and prevention are all topics of significant importance. An emerging trend in treatment and recovery perspectives regards interprofessional approaches, including both settings and practitioners. Authors are encouraged to explore this topic as it relates to expectancies, policy and management perspectives, treatment and research designs, and their related effect on patient, family, and community outcomes. Similarly, we also encourage authors to consider the role of new and emerging technologies such as mhealth, telemedicine, and telehealth, and to explore and employ a variety of methodological approaches, including quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods designs and approaches. Innovative and contemporary research will ensure that the scientific basis for our work is relevant and continues to evolve. When writing manuscripts for submission to ATQ, authors are encouraged to access and include past ATQ publications for supporting details and citations. We also recommend that researchers use the most current version of diagnostic tools, criteria, diagnoses when possible.

In the current issue, veterans in the United States with alcohol and substance use disorders are presented in the first section. Barton and peers addressed the both aspects of being women and veterans in a quality improvement study that incorporates women veterans’ needs in the Women’s Recovery Group, where 90% of attendees endorsed alcohol use disorder. A mixed-methods assessment showed that besides finding the content relevant and helpful, most women veterans in this adapted WRG improved and maintained good functioning. Faltinek presents an interesting and useful discussion regarding building an online library reference that catalogs information and resources available to veterans for easy access. Resources such as this can impact both veterans in need, as well as assist professionals by making relevant information more accessible.

These past 2 years have been dramatically different with the pandemic, and its impact is observed in the increased alcohol use among adults. Hutchison and colleagues found that among their participants with severe AUD heavy episodic drinking was reported in the first 6 months of COVID-19 pandemic, with a nearly 90% reported increased in alcohol use. Additionally, the study aimed to provide detailed information relevant to treatment naïve adults.

The next articles explore binge drinking among college students. Rubin and Hutton evaluated the effectiveness of three approaches in alcohol reduction intervention among university students; namely following the Australian national guidelines for alcohol consumption, setting your own personal consumption reduction goal or working with peers to set a goal. Their found setting personal goals to be most likely to result in higher alcohol consumption and suggest following national guidelines especially for students with propensity for binge drinking. Sorcher and Branscum presents a review of 13 studies using 32 different behavior change techniques (BCT), and found mostly feedback on behavior and social comparison to be the most frequently utilized categories. The authors suggested that there is a need to use more diverse methods and BCT categories, like regulation especially to develop skills for maintenance. Kimball, et al used interpretative phenomenological analysis of the lived experiences of college students in a collegiate recovery program to find recurrent themes that can help sustain long-term recovery.

Shumway and peers present an updated multifamily group curriculum for family members of people with substance use disorder which underscored the association of family member well-being with the relapse status of the person in recovery. Hiernaux and Varescon assessed the relation of spirituality and resilience among 263 participants in Alcoholics Anonymous using a cross-sectional study design. They found believing in a life purpose, sense of well-being about the future and the ability to appreciate life were the best spiritual predictors of increased resilience.

We close this issue by highlighting a special population that is often overlooked both from the cultural and gender perspective. Ahmad presents a review of empirical studies on alcohol consumption among Indian female adolescents and found a dearth of studies that include this population, which potentially underestimates the prevalence of alcohol consumption by this group and likely excludes their needs in programs for treatment and recovery. Next, we present a literary piece on recovery from Mudie on the twelve stages of recovery.

Finally, recommendations from Jason and colleagues present policy and regulatory perspectives related to the use and sharing of large datasets. This article explores characteristics of residents of recovery homes and the wider implications of responsible data use.

The efforts and conversations necessary for ATQ to continue growing and shaping the professional and public dialogue are built on the important work of our editorial board. We extend our sincere gratitude to each member of the editorial team, our review board members, and all of the authors who have contributed to ATQ. The ATQ encourages comments from our readers and submissions from new and past authors for research, reviews, as well as both prospective and perspective pieces on a wide range of AUD and SUD topics.