AIMS The study evaluated the effectiveness of an 8-week combined group plus individual 12-step facilitative intervention on stimulant drug use and 12-step meeting attendance and service. DESIGN Multisite randomized controlled trial, with assessments at baseline, mid-treatment, end of treatment, and 3- and 6-month post-randomization follow-ups (FUs). SETTING Intensive outpatient substance tr...

Monkeys self-administer pharmacologically significant amounts of alcohol only under certain circumstances.8 For example, Deneau and colleagues' used a method that permitted a rhesus monkey to voluntarily self-administer ethanol solution through an indwelling venous catheter. They found that three of five monkeys initiated and maintained response-contingent deliveries of ethanol at a dose of 200...

The "food addiction" concept implies that proneness to drug dependence and to food dependence should covary. The latter was studied in low- (LoS) and high- (HiS) saccharin-consuming rats, who differ in drug self-administration (HiS>LoS) and withdrawal (LoS>HiS). Sugary food intake in the first 1-2 h was higher in HiS than LoS rats. Sugar intake predicted startle during abstinence only among LoS...

In the present study, mortality rates and prevalence of abstinence from illicit drugs among persons with a history of addiction to heroin, cocaine, and/or amphetamines were estimated along the drug-using career time scale. Follow-up data on drug use and vital status were analyzed for participants in the Amsterdam Cohort Study among Drug Users (n = 899; 1985-2002). Participants in the study were...

The cysteine prodrug N-acetylcysteine (NAC) has been shown to reduce reinstatement of cocaine seeking by normalization of glutamatergic tone. However, enduring inhibition of cocaine seeking produced by NAC has not been explored under different withdrawal conditions. Thus, the present study determined whether chronic NAC administered during daily extinction training or daily abstinence after wit...

BACKGROUND Abstinence-plus (comprehensive) interventions promote sexual abstinence as the best means of preventing HIV, but also encourage condom use and other safer-sex practices. Some critics of abstinence-plus programs have suggested that promoting safer sex along with abstinence may undermine abstinence messages or confuse program participants; conversely, others have suggested that promoti...

In drug addiction, cues previously associated with drug use can produce craving and frequently trigger the resumption of drug taking in individuals vulnerable to relapse. Environmental stimuli associated with drugs or natural reinforcers can become reliably conditioned to increase behavior that was previously reinforced. In preclinical models of addiction, these cues enhance both drug self-admi...

Drug craving and relapse to drug use during abstinence are defining features of addiction. Evidence indicates that drug craving and relapse in humans are often provoked by acute exposure to the self-administered drug, drug-associated cues, or stress. During the last two decades, this clinical scenario has been primarily studied at the preclinical level using the classical reinstatement model. H...

The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of a multi-component smoking cessation intervention in African American women residing in public housing. The intervention consisted of: (a) nurse led behavioral/empowerment counseling; (b) nicotine replacement therapy; and, (c) community health workers to enhance smoking self-efficacy, social support, and spiritual well-being. The results...