PTSD and Alcoholism: How Does Alcohol Affect Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Seligman and colleagues termed this behavior “ learned helplessness” (Maier and Seligman 1976). Hierarchical linear regression was used to model symptoms of depression (PHQ2 total score) and PTSD (PCL4 total score) as concurrent “consequences” of blackout. Alcohol use disorders are among the conditions most frequently comorbid with PTSD (Kessler et al., 1995). In one study, approximately two out of five students reported a binge episode (4 or more drinks for women, 5 or more for men) in the past two weeks (O’Malley & Johnston, 2002).

PTSD Symptoms

Whether the comorbidity between PTSD and AUD accompanies a neuroimmune profile that is predominantly proinflammatory in nature, and whether the added morbidity represents an aggravated proinflammatory state, remains unknown. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the correlates of comorbid PTSD in AUD are uniform across different countries and ethnicities. Tryptophan degradation along the kynurenine pathway by causing the release of neurotoxic metabolites is reported to be increased in stress-related psychiatric disorders 28. Reduced neurogenesis and a lack of neurotrophic support, such as that reflected in reduced plasma brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels, as well as increased stress hormones are consistent findings in stress-related disorders, including PTSD 29, 30. Without treatment for PTSD and alcohol abuse, a person can develop a destructive cycle of PTSD symptoms followed by drinking for relief of symptoms followed by increased PTSD symptoms and so on. It’s crucial to understand that individuals who are clinically dependent on alcohol may face severe health risks if they abruptly cease drinking.

Multilevel models

Furthermore, negative mood regulation expectancies explained unique variance in predicting problem drinking, even after accounting for age, gender, and alcohol consumption. Between six and eight of every ten (or 60% to 80% of) Vietnam Veterans seeking PTSD treatment have alcohol use problems. Binge drinking is when a person drinks a lot of alcohol (4-5 drinks) in a short period of time (1-2 hours). Veterans over the age of 65 with PTSD are at higher risk for a suicide attempt if they also have drinking problems or depression. Going through a trauma—whether or not you develop PTSD—can lead to alcohol use problems.

Treatment for Alcohol usage disorders and PTSD

• Share your journey, lean on others for support, and let them be a guiding light during challenging times.
• In the 1990s, more than 100,000 Bhutanese citizens of Nepali origin took refuge in Nepal 33.
• She recalled being heavily intoxicated at the time, and later required six days of self-reflection and a lawyer consultation to feel confident about her memories.
• Kirsty Mulcahy is a compassionate transformational life coach with a special focus on helping individuals embrace the beauty of an alcohol-free existence.
• At PTSD UK, we are excited to join forces with SoberBuzz to extend our support to people dealing with PTSD or C-PTSD who are seeking to take control of their alcohol consumption.
• However, during a blackout, a person will be able to remember events that happened before their BAC reached very high levels.

The early stages of intoxication create a paradoxical effect on creating memories, in that your first drink can actually make it easier to remember things, if consumed right after you experience something. This arousal heightens your attention and aids the process of saving details for later. To understand how long-term memories form, think of your brain as an Instagram account, except if your camera was constantly filming to collect memories.

• If 100 people have a traumatic experience, around 10 percent of those people will get chronic PTSD with intrusive flashbacks that they cannot control, Anderson said.
• Specifically, participants indicated how often in the last year they were “unable to remember what happened the night before because you had been drinking.” Response options ranged from 0 (never) to 4 (daily or almost daily).
• Other circumstances, such as sex trafficking, natural disasters (mainly flooding, landslide, and earth quakes), adverse childhood events, as well as socioeconomic inequality are potential contributors to the PTSD burden in Nepal.
• These results were the opposite of what we expected based on a tension-reduction theory of alcohol use.
• Worse yet, every routine task, whether a trip to the grocery store or a simple phone call, becomes a potential trigger for past traumas.
• Rats will typically increase their alcohol consumption after several days of 1-hour sessions of brief electric footshocks.

For example, in a sample of Vietnam combat veterans with PTSD, more than half subsequently showed signs of alcohol addiction (Bremner et al. 1996). Similarly, women exposed to childhood rape often report turning ptsd blackouts to alcohol to reduce symptoms of PTSD (Epstein et al. 1998). In addition, investigators found that 40 percent of inpatients receiving treatment for substance abuse also met criteria for PTSD (Dansky et al. 1997).

Other Mental Health Issues

Indeed, longitudinal work by Squeglia and colleagues 25 reported reduced grey matter volume in alcohol-naive adolescents who later transitioned to moderate binge drinking. Subsequent drinking by these individuals resulted in further abnormal reduction in the volume of subcortical and temporal brain structures 25. In addition to these immediate dangers and possible trauma, there are also long-term health consequences from blacking out. Heavy drinking to the point of blacking out can cause degenerative problems and have lasting effects on the brain.

From a clinical perspective, better understanding of the correlates of blackout may help inform and tailor intervention efforts. Data from this study suggest that racial discrimination and drinking to cope may be especially relevant for blackout in diverse samples of Veterans, in which case screening for and preventing these experiences becomes a priority. The Veterans Health Administration (VA) prompts and incentivizes annual alcohol screening for patients using the AUDIT-C (Bradley et al., 2006). Data from this study suggest that 2 out of 3 Veterans who screen positive for heavy drinking on the AUDIT-C will report a past-year history of alcohol-induced blackout. Such screening and brief intervention efforts may be especially relevant for active duty military/service members, as rates of blackout were significantly higher among participants in this group. Continued efforts to train and foster providers’ competence in delivering brief alcohol interventions are needed to reduce alcohol-related harm among Veterans (Bachrach et al., 2018).

Sex Differences among PTSD, Emotion Dysregulation, Alcohol Consumption, and Alcohol-Related Consequences

This model has important implications for the treatment of trauma-induced psychological distress and alcohol addiction. To conclude, the three experiments presented here examined episodic memory performance in people who experience alcohol-related memory blackouts. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to compare frequent blackout participants when sober, after alcohol, and after blackout, and further, contrast their performance with a control group before and after alcohol. We hypothesised that in comparison to controls, MBO participants may show greater deficits in memory performance after drinking alcohol yet found limited group differences before and after alcohol. However, we show that after experiencing a blackout, deficits remained in all three experiments to varying degrees (individual participant data), and group data highlighted significant after-MBO effects in the serial recall and depth of encoding tasks. It remains possible that behavioural performance masks underlying differences in cognitive strategies between controls and frequent blackout participants observed in studies of binge-drinking 68, 69.