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Heavy Smoking Interferes With Recovery Of Brain From Alcoholism

Between 50 and 90 percent of persons who seek alcoholism treatment in North America are chronic smokers. Previous studies have shown that patterns of neurocognitive dysfunction (loss of the ability to concentrate, remember things, process information, learn, speak, and understand) among heavy smokers are very similar to those observed in alcoholics. This study looked at neurocognitive recovery among abstinent 
alcoholics who continued to smoke heavily.

Researchers gathered three groups for long-term study: 13 nonsmoking alcoholics in recovery (12 men, 1 woman), 12 actively smoking alcoholics in recovery (11 men, 1 woman), and for comparison’s sake, 22 nonsmoking and light-drinking individuals (20 men, 2 women) known as “controls.” Study authors examined what neurocognitive changes occurred among the two alcoholic groups in recovery during six to nine months of alcohol abstinence, comparing their performance with that of the controls.

Heavy smoking appears to interfere with brain recovery among abstinent alcoholics. More specifically, nonsmoking alcoholics in recovery showed greater improvement in several domains of neurocognitive function. The nonsmokers were superior to smokers on measures of auditory/verbal learning, auditory-verbal memory, cognitive efficiency, executive skills, processing speed, and working memory.

(Durazzo, TC, Rothlind, JC, Gazdzinski, S, Banys, P, Meyerhoff, DJ: Chronic smoking is associated with differential neurocognitive recovery in abstinent alcoholics: A preliminary investigation. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research 31:1114-1127, 2007.)

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