Drinking more alcohol in the months after a traumatic experience may increase the risk of developing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as nightmares and flashbacks.
PTSD is a mental health condition that occurs after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. of those with the condition also have a substance use disorder, and it is widely believed that is because people with PTSD use alcohol and drugs to try to ease symptoms. If true, that would suggest that for people without existing substance abuse issues, PTSD usually precedes signs of substance abuse after a trauma.
Yet new research suggests that, at least in some cases, it may be the other way around. at Emory University in Georgia and her colleagues collected data on 286 adults admitted to an emergency room in the US after a traumatic experience such as sexual violence or a life-threatening injury. All participants completed two questionnaires within 72 hours of admission. The first asked how many days they drank in the 30 days preceding the traumatic event and how many drinks they had on each of those days. They then multiplied those numbers together to create an overall alcohol consumption score. The second questionnaire screened for PTSD symptoms during the same period. Participants completed the questionnaires again at two weeks, eight weeks, three months and six months after their hospital visit.
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The researchers then mapped everyone鈥檚 answers using a statistical model that assesses relationships between variables, in this case alcohol use and PTSD symptoms, across multiple points in time. Relationships were scored between 0 and 1, with 0.5 or higher indicating a very strong association or likelihood that one factor increases the risk of another.
The researchers found that increased alcohol consumption at week eight was moderately associated with an increase in PTSD symptoms at the third month, with a score of 0.41. This suggests that after a traumatic experience, signs of substance abuse may emerge before symptoms of PTSD. There was no consistent pattern across other time points.
By week eight, 35 per cent of participants reported drinking more compared with before the traumatic event. During this period their drinking scores increased, on average, from 12 to 42.
It is possible that consuming more alcohol increases the risk for PTSD through effects on the brain鈥檚 hippocampus, a region involved in memory and learning, says Hinojosa, who presented these findings at a November meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, California. Previous studies have shown that people with a and that .
鈥淚ndividuals who consume substances are having neurotoxic effects on the hippocampus, which could lead to later vulnerability to PTSD,鈥� says Hinojosa. Drinking can also place people in more dangerous situations, thereby increasing the risk of experiencing another traumatic event, and accumulating traumas lead to a greater likelihood of PTSD, she says.
These findings are particularly interesting because most of the research on PTSD and substance abuse is in participants who have had both conditions for many years, making it difficult to determine if one condition emerged before the other, says at the University of Utah. Following people from the time they experience the trauma can help us better understand which symptoms appear first, she says.
Still, it is likely that whichever disorder emerges first is highly dependent on the individual and the type of trauma they experience, says Asnaani. She also notes that it can take months for PTSD symptoms to emerge after a traumatic event, so even with this early monitoring, it will be challenging to untangle the relationship between the condition and substance abuse.
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