Acute stress increases ad-libitum alcohol consumption in heavy drinkers, but not through impaired inhibitory control

Stress increases alcohol consumption and the risk of relapse, but little is known about the psychological mechanisms that underlie these effects. One candidate mechanism is inhibitory control, which may be impaired by acute stress and is believed to exert a causal influence on alcohol consumption.

We investigated if acute stress would impair inhibitory control and if impaired inhibitory control would be associated with subsequent ad-libitum alcohol consumption in a naturalistic laboratory setting.

One hundred heavy drinkers took part in an experimental study in a naturalistic 'bar laboratory'. Participants were randomly assigned to an acute stress (n = 50) or control (n = 50) group. In the stress group, participants were exposed to the social evaluative threat of giving a self-critical presentation, whereas the control group completed simple anagrams. Prior to and following the manipulation, participants completed the stop signal task as a measure of inhibitory control. Finally, participants completed a bogus taste test, as a measure of ad-libitum alcohol consumption.

The stress manipulation had no effect on performance on the stop signal task. However, there was a small but significant increase in ad-libitum alcohol consumption in the acute stress group compared to that in the control group.

Acute stress increased alcohol consumption in heavy drinkers, in a semi-naturalistic setting. However, this was not through the hypothesised mechanism of a transient impairment in inhibitory control.