Effects of smoking abstinence and alcohol consumption on smoking-related outcome expectancies in heavy smokers and tobacco chippers

Abstract

Smoking cessation interventions often target expectancies about the consequences of smoking. Yet little is known about the way smoking-related expectancies vary across different contexts. Two internal contexts that are often linked with smoking relapse are states associated with smoking abstinence and alcohol consumption. This report presents a secondary analysis of data from two experiments designed to examine the influence of smoking abstinence, and smoking abstinence combined with alcohol consumption, on smoking-related outcome expectancies among heavy smokers and tobacco chippers (smokers who had consistently smoked no more than 5 cigarettes/day for at least 2 years). Across both experiments, smoking abstinence and alcohol consumption increased expectancies of positive reinforcement from smoking. In addition, alcohol consumption increased negative reinforcement expectancies among tobacco chippers, such that the expectancies became more similar to those of heavy smokers as tobacco chippers' level of subjective alcohol intoxication increased. Findings suggest that these altered states influence the way smokers evaluate the consequences of smoking, and provide insight into the link between smoking abstinence, alcohol consumption, and smoking behavior.

Positive smoking outcome expectancies mediate the relation between alcohol consumption and smoking urge among women during a quit attempt.

“…Kirchner and Sayette (2007) proposed a different direction of association in which the effect of alcohol consumption on smoking outcome expectancies is mediated by smoking urge. However, the current study failed to find a significant effect of alcohol consumption before time j and positive outcome expectancies at time j +1.…”

“…Laboratory studies have found that, relative to placebo, alcohol consumption significantly increased the intensity of smoking urges in moderate to heavy drinkers (Burton & Tiffany, 1997; King, McNamara, Conrad, & Cao, 2009) as well as in chippers (Epstein, Sher, Young, & King, 2007; Sayette, Martin, Wertz, Perrott, & Peters, 2005), light smokers (King & Epstein, 2005), heavy smokers (Sayette et al, 2005), and abstaining smokers (Kirchner & Sayette, 2007). Furthermore, a positive dose-response relationship was found between alcohol consumption and urge to smoke (King & Epstein, 2005).…”

Light and intermittent cigarette smokers: a review (1989–2009)

“…According to a recent analysis, two internal contexts that are often linked with smoking relapse are states associated with smoking abstinence and alcohol consumption (Kirchner and Sayette 2007). This work presented secondary analysis of data from two experiments designed to examine the influence of smoking abstinence and smoking abstinence combined with alcohol consumption, on smoking-related outcome expectancies among heavy smokers and tobacco chippers.…”

Positive smoking outcome expectancies mediate the association between negative affect and smoking urge among women during a quit attempt.

“…Among smokers, the most frequently endorsed smoking outcome expectancy is that smoking will alleviate negative affect (Brandon & Baker, 1991), and some evidence suggests that positive smoking outcomes expectancies may be triggered and increase as a function of internal states such as negative affect (Baker et al, 2004; Gwaltney, Shiffman, Paty, & Balabanis, 2005; Kirchner & Sayetter, 2007). …”