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Alcoholism treatment quarterly, editorial 42-2
Welcome to the second issue of the 42nd volume of the Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly (ATQ). This issue presents a broad spectrum of topics related to alcohol and substance use. The included articles address various factors that influence etiology, treatment and recovery with a particular focus on the influences of social, genetic, and environmental aspects.
In the first section, Sakkopoulou & Tsiboukli explore childhood experiences of adults who had a parent that misused alcohol and/or drugs. The aim of the study was to explore and understand how those experiences continued to impact participants into adulthood. Specific attention is given to the effect on relational functioning. Next, with the focus on adolescents, Smith, Evans, & Reinhart provide a thought-provoking examination on recovery identity. Of particular interest, the researchers surveyed adolescents across a variety of social and behavioral indicators, problem resolution, and elements of recovery. In their study, a significant number of youths did not identify abstinence as a key element of recovery. The researchers call for more attention and study to clarify their findings.
In the next section of the issue, we present two articles focused on college-aged students. This section includes the concepts of binge drinking, peer influence, addictive behavior, and alcohol use among college students. First, Grindal, presents an insightful study regarding the intersections of culture, peers and racial obstacles. The author explored the concepts of peer ethnic-racial socialization using confirmatory factor analysis among a sample of Latino college students. Next, Hong, Jang, & Jeong present an interesting study that explored the associations between drinking motives and the moderating effects of gender among college students. The authors explore the findings and highlight the importance of policies and intervention programs on college campuses. Both of these studies may be helpful to address retention and success rates for college students.
Snaychuk, Pejic, & Ornstein provide an analysis of whether an inpatient residential addiction program was effective at improving a range of addiction- and mental health-related symptoms. The evaluation covered addiction-related and psychological outcomes and included functional impairment, addiction symptoms, traumatic stress, and psychological distress. Tabara, Koc, & Gurok present their results from a neuroimaging study comparing the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the ventral striatum regions of the brain among patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) compared to healthy control subjects. Aishwarya A and colleagues provide a report on liver disease resulting from chronic alcohol use including conditions like fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and cirrhosis. They provide a useful and relevant review of the literature and report on their study that assessed TNF-α and leptin levels among patients with liver disease. The authors call for more studies to better understand those factors to improve disease management and potentially reduce morbidity and mortality rates.
We close with a submission from Assini, Angelone, Mitchell, & Shank describing the development of the Glassboro Inventory for Twelve-Step, a comprehensive assessment of twelve-step behaviors and beliefs. The authors describe this tool as differing from others in that it includes a focus on twelve-step beliefs and behaviors. The authors used exploratory factor analysis to examine the psychometric properties of the tool, determined subscales and investigated subscale correlations.