Even following long periods of abstinence, individuals with anxiety disorders have high rates of relapse to drugs of abuse. Although many current models of relapse demonstrate effects of acute stress on drug-seeking, most of these studies examine stressful experiences that occur in close temporal and physical proximity to the reinstatement test.…

Previously consolidated memories have the potential to enter a state of lability upon memory recall, during which time the memory can be altered before undergoing an additional consolidation-like process and being stored again as a long-term memory. Blocking reconsolidation of aberrant memories has been proposed as a potential treatment for…

The urgency of this study has become vivid in the light of the growing problem of prevalence and use of new synthetic drug types. Lately there has been a tendency of expanding the range of psychologically active substances (PAS) used by addicts with the purpose of their illegal taking. The aim of this research is an attempt of systematizing and…

Considerable evidence suggests that personality traits may be changeable, raising the possibility that personality traits most linked to health problems can be modified with intervention. A growing body of research suggests that problematic personality traits may be altered with behavioral intervention using a bottom-up approach. That is, by…

Objective: Contingency management (CM) reduces drug use, but questions remain regarding optimal targets and magnitudes of reinforcement. We evaluated the efficacy of CM reinforcing attendance in patients who initiated treatment with cocaine-negative samples, and of higher magnitude abstinence-based CM in patients who began treatment positive.…

Objective: This study examined the relation of process variables to the outcome of group drug counseling, a commonly used community treatment, for cocaine dependence. Method: Videotaped group drug counseling sessions from 440 adult patients (23% female, 41% minority) were rated for member alliance, group cohesion, participation, self-disclosure,…

Deficits in cognitive control are implicated in cocaine dependence. Previously, combining functional magnetic resonance imaging and a stop signal task, we demonstrated altered cognitive control in cocaine-dependent individuals. However, the clinical implications of these cross-sectional findings and, in particular, whether the changes were…

The 2005 EMCDDA (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Annual report 2005: the state of the drugs problem in Europe, from http://ar2005.emcdda.europa.eu/en/home-en.html?CFID=5556438&CFTOKEN=9393b63b806e64c7-FB015A79-E157-F9DE-99626FADD9F4C983&jsessionid=2e30185a01447c413a1e) annual report remarks the dearth of options…

This article presents abstracts from the 2011 AMERSA National Meeting. It includes 2011 best abstracts on research, programmatic, and curricular presentations.

Objective: The effects of cognitive-behavioral relapse prevention (RP), contingency management (CM), and their combination (CM + RP) were evaluated in a randomized trial with 100 cocaine-dependent patients (58% female, 89% African American) who were engaged in treatment for at least 2 weeks and had an average of 44 days of abstinence at baseline.…

Preventing and treating inhalant use problems, as well as raising awareness about the dangers of inhalant use, are important ongoing goals of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Monitoring trends in inhalant use is vital to assessing policies intended to reduce inhalant use. This issue of "The NSDUH Report"…

This article shares the story of Lucy Bryson, who was hooked on crack cocaine and heroin when she was 17, and was working the streets to fund her addiction. Her future looked bleak when she was imprisoned four years ago but a project that builds trust and responsibility in young people by teaching them to work with animals has transformed her…

While most school districts utilize a drug abuse resistance curriculum, as science teachers, it is our responsibility to understand the science behind drug addiction in order to most effectively educate our students against drug abuse. In the last two decades, increases in scientific technology have permitted significant discoveries surrounding…

In order to examine risk factors for attempting suicide in heroin dependent patients, a group of 527 abstinent opiate dependent patients had a psychiatric interview and completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Patients who had or had never attempted suicide were compared on putative suicide risk factors. It was found that 207 of the 527…

We compared two strategies of prize-based contingency management (CM) in methadone-maintained outpatients. Urine was tested thrice weekly for 5 weeks pre-CM, 12 weeks CM, and 8 weeks post-CM. Participants were randomly assigned to a cocaine contingency (four prize draws for each cocaine-negative urine, N = 29) or an opiate-cocaine contingency (one…