Alcohol consumption may increase amphetamine abuse | Addiction Treatment Strategies

The results will be published in the March 2011 issue of Alcoholism:
Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early
View.

Craig R. Rush, senior author of the study and Professor of Behavioral
Science, Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Kentucky, said that
there is a direct epidemiological link between drinking alcohol and the misuse
of prescription drugs. Rush and his fellow researchers wanted to
build upon previous research that showed that moderate
drinkers were more sensitive to some of the effects of amphetamines when
compared to light drinkers.

“The idea behind the present study was to follow that study up with one in
which we determined whether moderate drinkers were also more likely to work to
receive amphetamine in the laboratory, in addition to being more sensitive to
its subjective effects,” said Rush.

The researchers assessed 33 individuals, and divided them into either
moderate or light drinkers, based on if they drank more or less than seven
drinks per week, respectively. During the course of four studies, the
participants were given the placebo, as well as both low (8-10mg) and high
(16-20mg) doses of d-amphetamine. Following these initial sessions, the subjects
then had the chance to earn up to a total of eight capsules containing 12.5 per

cent of the previous dose by working on a computer task.

The results showed that the high dose of amphetamines increased drug taking
in both light and moderate drinkers, while only the low dose did so with the
moderate drinkers. The moderate drinkers were found to engage in the computer
tasks in order to receive the high dose

of amphetamine. This indicates that consuming
moderate levels of alcohol may increase an individual’s vulnerability to the effects of
stimulants like amphetamine. But, further research is needed to fully explain
the behavioral and neuropharmacological mechanisms involved between alcohol
consumption and stimulant abuse.

However, one possible explanation the researchers discussed was that the
moderate drinking group might have been sensitized to the reinforcing effects of
the amphetamines because of increased drug use.

“Sensitization effects to stimulants can be powerful, most notably with
regard to their persistence,” said Mark T. Fillmore, a professor of psychology
at the University of Kentucky. “We need to determine if drinking heavily might
actually produce physiological changes in individuals that causes them to become
more sensitive to the pleasurable effects of psychostimulant drugs, such as
amphetamines.”

Rush agrees, but says that there are many different paths of research that
can branch off of this.

“Other future directions could be to look at the influence of alcohol use
history on the effects of other drugs of abuse or to determine how acute alcohol
administration, as opposed to self-reported drinking history, impacts response
to stimulants.”

Provided by Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research