Muscle tension and experienced control: effects of alcohol intake vs biofeedback on alcoholics and non-alcoholics

Tension reduction has often been implicated as a central cause of excessive alcohol consumption among alcoholics, based on the premise that drinking reduces tension and reinforces subsequent overconsumption. Also, cognitive and personality variables clearly mediate the effects of alcohol. Drinking may be a means of increasing the degree of control experienced over internal and external sources of tension. Integrated frontalis EMG levels for a group of 74 alcoholic patients were significantly greater than for 74 non-alcoholics. During a period of alcohol consumption, significant change scores were found between alcoholic (N = 18) and non-alcoholic (N = 18) groups for both EMG and experienced control (EC). Significant changes were found within both groups on EMG but only for the alcoholic group on EC. During a biofeedback period, there were significant differences between alcoholic (N = 12) and non-alcoholic (N = 12) groups on both baseline measures, EMG and EC. Increases in EC were significantly related to decreases in EMG in both groups.