Biopsychosocial assessment of a mindfulness-oriented cognitive intervention for alcohol dependent adults

A biopsychosocial approach is needed to comprehend the complex pathogenic processes implicated in alcohol dependence. The following three papers employ such an approach to explore key research questions: (a) How might stress precipitate alcohol misuse, dependence, and relapse, and (b) How can targeted psychosocial interventions influence this process? The first paper presents a novel conceptual framework integrating formerly discrete theories of stress appraisal, neurobiological allostasis, automatic cognitive processing, and addictive behavior to explain how alcohol misuse and dependence is maintained and re-activated by stress. This theoretical framework underpins the measurement model and intervention that are the focus of the second and third papers. The second paper explores relationships between baseline dispositional mindfulness and alcohol attentional bias among a sample of recovering alcohol dependent adults, relationships that are critical to our argument in support of mindfulness training as a treatment for alcohol dependence. The third paper in this series is a report of a randomized controlled pilot trial comparing the effects of a mindfulness-oriented intervention to those of an alcohol dependence support group. Results from this study provide tentative support for the proposed theoretical framework and for the use of mindfulness as a treatment for alcohol dependence.