Sober living

On a big-picture level, we have cognitive dissonance to thank for huge advancements within society. Dr. Noulas says that successes in women’s rights, environmental rights, and gay rights are examples of positive change that have resulted from cognitive dissonance. Those changes were due to individuals recognizing contradictions between how people viewed women, the environment, and nontraditional relationships and how we acted as a society (or allowed others to act). It’s the tension that arises when we think one way but act another way, or when we hold two opposing views at the same time. You believe we all should reduce our carbon footprint but struggle to break free from internal combustion engines and luxury SUVs. Typically, when we feel psychological dissonance, it’s because one of these patterns of thought is being challenged.

Reducing the Importance of the Conflicting Belief

• It is not a sentiment or a preference, but rather a motivational necessity that people had to accommodate.
• Cooper & Worchel’s finding meant that the dissonance effect was dependent on having produced something unwanted – in this case, convincing a fellow student that a boring task was actually fun and exciting.
• As an illustration, Focella et al. (2016) established vicarious hypocrisy by having participants witness a fellow student make a public pro-attitudinal statement about using sunscreen whenever one goes outdoors.
• Axsom & Cooper (1985) used laboratory procedures to demonstrate that people can lose weight if they are motivated by dissonance, but no such treatment ever became available for people to use.
• The theory of cognitive dissonance has been widely researched in a number of situations to develop the basic idea in more detail, and various factors have been identified which may be important in attitude change.

Some participants had been offered cognitive dissonance and addiction a small amount of money to make the attitude discrepant statement (U.S. $1) while others had been offered a substantially larger amount (U.S. $20). Festinger & Carlsmith made the prediction that the $20 incentive would lead to less dissonance than the small incentive because it helped people understand why they had acted in contradiction to their true beliefs. Participants who had only been offered $1 had much less comfort from their small incentive and thus were predicted to experience a greater tension state. Consistent with those predictions, participants in the $1 condition changed their attitudes more than the participants who were offered the large reward.

Social pressures

Many decades ago, I argued that cognitive dissonance might be the underlying mechanism behind successful psychotherapy, regardless of the type of therapy being offered (Cooper, 1980). From psychoanalytic approaches to cognitive and behavioral interventions, clients find themselves in a situation much like participants in Aronson & Mills’ (1959) classic effort justification experiment. Aronson & Mills’ participants came to like a goal they were trying to achieve as a function of the amount of effort they expended to achieve the goal.

Cognitive Dissonance and the Discomfort of Holding Conflicting Beliefs

We generally try to eliminate this dissonance by taking a new, consonant action or by dismissing the incongruent information. The effects may relate to the discomfort of the dissonance itself or the defense mechanisms a person adopts to deal with it. There are also individual differences in whether or not people act as this theory predicts. Many people seem able to cope with considerable dissonance and not experience the tensions the theory predicts. In other words, he could tell himself that a short life filled with smoking and sensual pleasures is better than a long life devoid of such joys. In this way, he would be decreasing the importance of dissonant cognition (smoking is bad for one’s health).

• The call to place more emphasis on putting dissonance research into practice is simultaneously a call to continue studying dissonance in the laboratory.
• She is an immigrant and identifies as a Chinese and Filipina American woman.

As Festinger said, “The holding of two or more inconsistent cognitions arouses the state of cognitive dissonance, which is experienced as uncomfortable tension. For Festinger, consistency among cognitions was not a preference but a drive. Just as people need to reduce their thirst by drinking and their hunger by eating, people who perceive inconsistency must find a way to reduce it. The drive to reduce inconsistency can be accomplished by a number of means, but attitude change became the most frequent resolution in the early research on dissonance.

• Cognitive dissonance isn’t just a vague psychological theory — in fact, contradictory beliefs appear in our lives more often than we might want to admit.
• People recognized the cognitive dissonance and made necessary changes to better align society’s values with our actions.
• When you feel either physical or psychological discomfort, make a note of it to yourself.
• The field of social psychology has always had equal interest in theoretical advancement and practical applications of its theories.
• It has the advantage of being testable by scientific means (i.e., experiments).

How To Reduce Cognitive Dissonance

Because these behaviors are pro-attitudinal rather than counterattitudinal, the best way for achieving change is to arouse the dissonance-based motivational drive of hypocrisy. Times are beginning to change and dissonance theorists have been part of that change. 21st century literature shows an accelerating number of practical procedures that are being used and assessed, particularly in the health improvement field. Based on cognitive dissonance theory, the Body Project was developed as an intervention to help people with faulty body images and eating disorders (Stice, Rohde & Shaw, 2013). Evaluation studies have shown this approach to have significant impact on eating disorders among women in a United States sample (Green et al., 2018) and body image satisfaction among men in the United Kingdom (Jankowski et al, 2017). This is as it should be, as arguably no theory has been more frequently studied, criticized, supported and modified than cognitive dissonance.

So, for instance, when conflict or tension arises, take the time to pause and think through your situation and your feelings. “The tension that gets created when you hold certain beliefs or values but act in a way that conflicts with your belief systems generates an internal discomfort that most people have to subconsciously work very hard to ignore,” Curry says. Recognizing and reconciling cognitive dissonance is not always a feel-good experience. Spotting dissonance in our own lives can be painful, embarrassing, and anxiety-inducing, too. And it can be troubling and mentally exhausting to deal with, Curry says. People recognized the cognitive dissonance and made necessary changes to better align society’s values with our actions.

How to reduce cognitive dissonance

We asked participants how uncomfortable they thought they would have felt if they were in their fellow group member’s shoes. The greater the discomfort they thought they would have felt in their partner’s shoes, the greater the attitude change. In subsequent experiments, we increased our confidence that the engine that motivates attitude change following counterattitudinal advocacy is unpleasant arousal. In one experiment, we artificially decreased participants’ arousal level by administering a mild sedative. We found that participants showed little attitude change after writing an attitude-discrepant essay because the sedative reduced their arousal levels.

The results of the Sobell’s studies challenged the prevailing understanding of abstinence as the only acceptable outcome for SUD treatment and raised a number of conceptual and methodological issues (e.g., the Sobell’s liberal definition of controlled drinking; see McCrady, 1985). A “controlled drinking controversy” followed, in which the Sobells as well as those who supported them were publicly criticized due to their claims about controlled drinking, and the validity of their research called into question (Blume, 2012; Pendery, Maltzman, & West, 1982). Despite the intense controversy, the Sobell’s high-profile research paved the way for additional studies of nonabstinence treatment for AUD in the 1980s and later (Blume, 2012; Sobell & Sobell, 1995). Marlatt, in particular, became well known for developing nonabstinence treatments, such as BASICS for college drinking (Marlatt et al., 1998) and Relapse Prevention (Marlatt & Gordon, 1985). Like the Sobells, Marlatt showed that reductions in drinking and harm were achievable in nonabstinence treatments (Marlatt & Witkiewitz, 2002).

3. The harm reduction movement

A common objection to CD is that most people fail to return to “normal” drinking, and highlighting those able to drink in a controlled way might attract people into relapse, with severe medical and social consequences. On the other hand, previous research has reported that a https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/recommended-vitamins-for-recovering-alcoholics/ major reason for not seeking treatment among alcohol-dependent people is the perceived requirement of abstinence (Keyes et al., 2010; Wallhed Finn et al., 2014, 2018). In turn, stigma and shame have been reported as a reason for not seeking treatment (Probst et al., 2015).

Why Moderation May Be a Better Choice Than Abstinence

Most of the information collected was self-reported by the participants, which is known to be somewhat problematic, so the researchers also contacted significant others who were used to corroborate the drinking behavior reported by the participants. The thing is that the amount of alcohol or drug use per se is not a part of the definition of addiction or abuse (other than in the “using more than intended” factor but even there an absolute amount isn’t introduced) and I don’t think it should be a necessary part of the solution either. Data extraction Outcomes of interest were continuous abstinence from alcohol (effectiveness) and all cause dropouts (as a proxy for acceptability) at least 12 weeks after start of intervention. Some of the abstainers reported experience of professional contacts, such as therapists or psychologists. These contacts had often complemented the support from AA but in some cases also complicated it as the IPs found that their previous SUD was related to other things that were not in line with the approach to addiction as a disease (e.g. IP19). When your goal is only one drink instead of no drinks at all, the temptation to stray can become less powerful and you can more often enjoy positive reinforcement from your successes.

Take Advantage of “Getting Back to Normal” to Revisit Your Relationship with Alcohol

This paper presents a narrative review of the literature and a call for increased research attention on the development of empirically supported nonabstinence treatments for SUD to engage and treat more people with SUD. We define nonabstinence treatments as those without an explicit goal of abstinence from psychoactive substance use, including treatment aimed at achieving moderation, reductions in use, and/or reductions in substance-related harms. We first provide an overview of the development of abstinence and nonabstinence approaches within the historical context of SUD treatment in the U.S., followed by an evaluation of literature underlying the theoretical controlled drinking vs abstinence and empirical rationale for nonabstinence treatment approaches. Lastly, we review existing models of nonabstinence psychosocial treatment for SUD among adults, with a special focus on interventions for drug use, to identify gaps in the literature and directions for future research. We identify a clear gap in research examining nonabstinence psychosocial treatment for drug use disorders and suggest that increased research attention on these interventions represents the logical next step for the field. A considerable number of clients reported changed views on the programme, some were still abstinent and some were drinking in a controlled way.

Alcohol moderation management isn’t just about cutting back and reducing your blood alcohol concentration, it’s a deeply personal journey that can empower you to regain control of your life and reconnect with those who matter most. This strategy is not about total abstinence but involves setting moderate drinking goals that are safe and sensible for you, paying attention to social influences that may sway your decisions, and developing self-awareness around your triggers. Moderation techniques such as pacing yourself, choosing lower-alcohol options, or having alcohol-free days can be practical tools in this journey. In addition to issues with administrative discharge, abstinence-only treatment may contribute to high rates of individuals not completing SUD treatment. About 26% of all U.S. treatment episodes end by individuals leaving the treatment program prior to treatment completion (SAMHSA, 2019b).

• “Harm reduction” strategies, on theother hand, set more flexible goals in line with patient motivation; these differ greatlyfrom person to person, and range from total abstinence to reduced consumption and reducedalcohol-related problems without changes in actual use (e.g., no longer driving drunkafter having received a DUI).
• Many clients in the study described that the 12-step programme was the only treatment that they were offered.
• In sum, research suggests that achieving and sustaining moderate substance use after treatment is feasible for between one-quarter to one-half of individuals with AUD when defining moderation as nonhazardous drinking.
• It is essential to understand what individuals with SUD are rejecting when they say they do not need treatment.
• Given low treatment engagement and high rates of health-related harms among individuals who use drugs, combined with evidence of nonabstinence goals among a substantial portion of treatment-seekers, testing nonabstinence treatment for drug use is a clear next step for the field.

Individuals who received MET were more likely to be in the heavy and low risk drinking classes (Classes 3 and 5) and those who received CBT were less likely to be in the abstinent and heavy drinking class (Class 3). I’m a big supporter of the idea that improvements in quality of life, in addition to or instead of measures of abstinence, need to be incorporated broadly into addiction treatment research. The way I see it, our goal in treating addiction is to help a client improve their functioning, which is often being hampered by substance abuse but that is not necessarily completely dependent on it.

Data synthesis and analyses

While abstinence refers to behaviour, sobriety goes deeper and concerns the roots of the problem (addiction) and thereby refers to mental and emotional aspects. Differentiating these concepts opens up for recovery without necessarily having strong ties with the recovery community and having a life that is not (only) focused on recovery but on life itself. Also, defining sobriety as a further/deeper step in the recovery process offers a potential for 12-step participants to focus on new goals and getting involved in new groups, not primarily bound by recovery goals. Further, describing recovery as a process also implies paying attention to contributing factors outside the treatment context, such as the importance of work, family and friends.

Individuals who were mostly abstinent, even with occasions of heavier drinking (Class 6 and 7), had the best outcomes. Individuals who engaged in persistent heavy drinking (Class 1) had worse outcomes than all other classes, including those classes with other patterns of heavy drinking. Thus, it may be important for clinicians to assess for patterns of drinking and to encourage at least some abstinent days, even among those clients with low risk drinking goals.

In the kidneys, ROS is generated via both enzymatic and non-enzymatic processes 22,23,27,32,36,37. In addition, Das et al. reported that alcohol consumption impairs the ability of CAT to catalyze the decomposition of H2O2 in the kidneys 41. This subsequently promotes the conversion of H2O2 to the more reactive hydroxyl radicals, which cause damage in antioxidant capacities and mitochondria in renal cells 34,42,43. Samadi et al. also suggested that ethanol induces depression of nephrin and podocin in podocytes, which contributes to renal injury and proteinuria and is mediated by oxidative stress 44. Ethanol administration in rats showed particular alterations in the renal antioxidant system and glutathione status 4,5. Polyphenols, which are found in beverages, such as red wine, also have antioxidant effects 6,7.

Drinking alcohol with kidney disease

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 55% of adults consume alcohol, and 140 million people worldwide have alcoholism 1,2. In fact, alcoholism is a serious problem in Asia, where 10.6–23.67% of men and 1.84–5.3% of women have a history of excessive alcohol consumption 3–9. However, it is important to note that alcohol-induced kidney damage may not always cause kidney pain.

Oxidative damage after chronic ethanol administration

Thus, current alcohol consumers can continue to enjoy light-to-moderate drinking and benefit from it. However, as alcohol consumption can lead to adverse events, such as hypertension, cerebral hemorrhage, alcohol addiction, and tendencies toward violence, clinicians should not advise non-drinkers to start drinking. Second, the proteinuria detection and diagnosis of CKD can also affect the credibility of the conclusion. In most studies, proteinuria was detected by a single measurement using a dipstick test. Although studies have proven that even a single dipstick indication of proteinuria is a significant risk for CKD and ESRD 122, a single dipstick detection can be biased by numerous confounders. In other studies, the researchers used serum creatinine or eGFR to ascertain the kidney function of patients; however, they are not ideal in many drinkers, especially in those with extremely low or high muscle mass due to chronic alcoholism 123.

Veozah interactions with supplements

Whereas AKI tends to resolve with time, CKD tommy lee sober may worsen over time — although some individuals are able to stay relatively stable with CKD with close monitoring and lifestyle changes, such as quitting alcohol. People with alcohol-induced CKD will require treatment for AUD as well as CKD. According to the NKF, individuals who have sustained an alcohol-induced AKI may require dialysis, depending on severity. Dialysis is a procedure that involves filtering waste products and excess fluid from the blood.

1. More than two drinks a day can increase your chance of having high blood pressure.
2. A Japanese cohort study also found that CKD is an independent risk factor for higher rates of stroke in men and women.
3. Although light-to-moderate alcohol consumption may not pose a risk to patients with CKD, the patients’ condition needs to be considered.
4. As noted above, there is much to learn about alcoholic kidney disease and the complex interplay among multiple organs affected by alcohol consumption.
5. If you have UPJ obstruction, you may have kidney pain after drinking alcohol.
6. This is not an easy change to make; drinking can be habit-forming, especially if there is a family history of alcoholism or mental health elements, such as stress or depression, that make dependence on alcohol likely.

If you have specific concerns about alcohol and your kidney health, it’s best to get personal medical care. Our team of experienced, compassionate urologists are here to assist you. There are no specific studies suggesting that certain types of alcohol are worse on the kidneys than others. They filter waste from your blood, regulate the balance of water and minerals in your body and produce hormones. Relapse by day 90 occurred in 13.4% of the fixed dose group and 12.6% of the tapering dose group. Hospitalization within 90 days was required in 44.1% of the fixed dose group and 33.1% of the tapering dose group.

However, it is possible that activation of the innate immune system due to endotoxins released by a leaky gut plays a central role in the development of renal damage, as it does for liver damage (Zhang et al. 2008). Regular, heavy alcohol use can also be harmful to your kidneys over time. According to the National Kidney Foundation, regular heavy drinking can double the risk of chronic kidney disease. One reason alcohol may affect the kidneys is through acute kidney injury. This may result from high levels of toxins leading to tissue injury and inflammation. Kidney pain after drinking alcohol may occur due to acute kidney injury or an infection.

This indicates that long-term ethyl alcohol consumption can activate both intrinsic and extrinsic pathways of apoptosis in the kidneys (Figure 1). However, other studies found that long-term alcohol consumption aggravates renal fibrosis, which may be related to epithelial mesenchymal transdifferentiation and fibrosis induced by ethanol 33,47,56. NO is a free gaseous signal molecule produced by the NOS family, including neuronal NO synthase (nNOS), inducible NO synthase (iNOS), and endothelial NO synthase (eNOS), and it plays an important role in hemodynamics regulation. In general, NO is generated by mesangial cells and renal tubular epithelial cells, and it plays an important role in the regulation of glomerular and medullar hemodynamics and renin release. Although different studies have shown opposite results for the effects of NO and NOS activity with alcohol consumption 19,39,46,47, they came to a similar conclusion that NO and NOS play important roles in glomerular endothelial cell injury. In addition, long-term alcohol consumption decreases prostaglandin E2 in the kidney, which can release anti-inflammatory cytokines and dilate the afferent arteriole to increase glomerular blood flow, which causes kidney dysfunction and glomerular destruction 24.