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  • In this episode Dr Merve Mollaahmetoglu talks to Dr Molly Bowdring about her recent article on the impact of alcohol-free drinks such as zero-percent beers, wines and mocktails. Molly talks about using survey data to explore different patterns, such as using non-alcoholic drinks to slow alcohol consumption, to alternate days or as part of someones recovery. Merve and Molly discuss the occasional differences between how people think non-alcoholic drinks change their alcohol consumption and what actually happens to their overall use.

    If you're somebody who already uses them, be reflective about how is this impacting your desire for alcohol and your consumption in that same night or across the week and just be curious about the relation between your non-alcoholic beverage use and your alcohol use.

    Original article: Non-alcoholic beverage consumption among US adults who consume alcohol by Molly Bowdring and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2024)


    The opinions expressed in this post reflect the views of the host and interviewees and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official positions of the SSA or Addiction journal.

    The SSA does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of the information in external sources or links and accepts no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of such information.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • In this episode, Rob Calder talks to Dr Philip Newall about how the gambling industry frames the evidence on gambling advertising. Philip talks about researching the kinds of bets that are commonly advertised, explaining how they are often projected to be 'good' bets when the chances of winning are very small.

    "It's really got the two sides of the coin there in that it appears really attractive, but actually it's the bookmaker that's really winning the most. And that's the underlying psychology in how they're able to offer things that seem good but are actually really profitable for them."

    Philip also talks about how difficult it can be corralling 50 people into co-writing a short letter.


    Dr Philip Newall is a lecturer in psychological science at the University of Bristol, a member of the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling (although speaking on this podcast in an independent capacity) and the joint winner of the Society for the Study of Addiction’s Impact Prize in 2023.


    Original article: No evidence of harm’ implies no evidence of safety: Framing the lack of causal evidence in gambling advertising research by Philip Newall and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


    The opinions expressed in this post reflect the views of the host and interviewees and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official positions of the SSA or Addiction journal.

    The SSA does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of the information in external sources or links and accepts no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of such information.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  • In this episode Zoe Swithenbank talks to Professor Robert West about his work on ontologies within addictions. Robert begins by summarising the definitions and constructions that relate to addiction, as well as their meanings and the implications for treatment. He also explains how different definitions can frustrate progress in addiction-related research.


    Zoe and Robert then discuss how the addictions sector can learn from other sciences - particularly the biological sciences - about how to use those definitions, labels and ontologies to aid research. Robert covers the work on AddictO Vocab (https://addictovocab.org/) and explains the goal to develop a well-defined construct for anything that anyone might want to refer to in a research paper.

    "Ontologies are very specific ways of representing the world that have been developed primarily for use in computer science and data science.... They are very formal systems for representing things called entities. Entities are literally anything you can imagine whether it's real or not real. So 'unicorn' for example, can be an entity for example, as can 'addiction' - as can 'horse'."

    Original article: Achieving consensus, coherence, clarity and consistency when talking about addiction by Robert West and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


    The opinions expressed in this post reflect the views of the host and interviewees and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official positions of the SSA or Addiction journal.

    The SSA does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of the information in external sources or links and accepts no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of such information.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • In this episode Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Sammie Back and Emese Kroon about nitrous oxide. The discussion happened on 8 November 2023, on the day that possession of nitrous oxide became a Class C substance in the UK. The group discuss the existing evidence for harms, addiction and other disorders, exploring this relatively under-researched area.


    They cover the lack of research and how researchers can begin to understand what's happening when a drug's popularity rapidly increases. They also talk about how people use nitrous oxide and in which circumstances use might be more likely. Finally, they relate nitrous oxide against criteria for substance use disorders taken from DSM-5 and discuss the implications from their findings.


    "We just need more data.... For a drug used this regularly, it's honestly quite astounding that we have so little scientific evidence to inform the public also healthcare professionals and policy makers." Emese Kroon


    Original article: Does nitrous oxide addiction exist? An evaluation of the evidence for the presence and prevalence of substance use disorder symptoms in recreational nitrous oxide users by Sammie Back and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


    The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect the views of the host and presenters and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official positions of the SSA or Addiction journal.

    The SSA does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of the information in external sources or links and accepts no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of such information.



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • In this episode Ben Scher talks to Professor Gerald (Jerry) Cochran about his article based on a randomized multisite pilot trial investigating the impact of Patient Navigation. Jerry begins by describing Patient Navigation, explaining how it works and how it can help people stay engaged in care. The research team explored whether this approach helps pregnant people to stay in contact with treatment services.


    Jerry then go on to discus the next steps for his research and explains how his research findings might be scaled up to influence policy. Jerry describes how Patient Navigation could be implemented within US Medicaid programmes summarising the data that would be needed to scale up the intervention. They then reflect on the economic implications for Medicade or state insurers.


    "That's really exiting and it's really satisfying when you're able to identify a partner like a Medicaid programme or a large pharmacy chain.... and help them integrate into their workflow into their systems something that might help patients and think 'oh wow'. You know, not only could we help patients in a single clinic but we could help people in a state or across the country"


    Original article: Patient Navigation for Pregnant Persons with Opioid Use Disorder: Results of a Randomized Multisite Pilot Trial by Gerald Cochran and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)

    The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect the views of the hosts and authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official positions of the SSA or Addiction journal.The SSA does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of the information in external sources or links and accepts no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of such information.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • In this episode Rob Calder talks to Francesco Manca about his research on Scotland's Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) policy for alcohol, and specifically about the impact that MUP has had on road traffic accidents. Francesco discusses how the research team selected appropriate comparitors to assess whether changes to road traffic accidents could be attributed to MUP. He also talks about how this study compares with previous studies that used similar datasets yet drew different conclusions. He describes how understanding the subtle differences between time frames and outcomes can aid researchers to gain an in-depth understanding of alcohol regulation.

    "The original 50 pence as a floor price .... maybe too low over the years as it can be eroded by external factors such as inflation - so maybe indexing with inflation may create a more consistent effect of the policy over time"

    Original article: Evaluating the impact of minimum unit pricing for alcohol on road traffic accidents in Scotland after 20 months: an interrupted time series study by Francesco Manca and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


    The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect the views of the presenter and interviewee and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official positions of the SSA.

    The SSA does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of the information in external sources or links and accepts no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of such information.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • In this episode, Zoe Swithenbank talks to Drs Amy O'Donnell and Kat Jackson about their recent study on how to improve care for people with coexisting heavy drinking and depression. The discuss the theoretical concept of Relational Autonomy and how it influenced their research.


    Amy and Kat describe how they set up the research, and in particular the challenges of recruiting participants from groups where your research is not their priority. They also talk about how much work it takes to conduct effective PPI (Patient and Public Involvement) and how important it is to do it well.


    They then go through their findings, discussing how they can inform theory and clinical practice:

    "A lot of people who we spoke to literally didn't have anybody. They'd been turned away from every formal health and social care service that they needed to access and they also didn't have any family relationships or friendships for various reasons. How are you supposed to get better if you don't have those?"

    Original article: Understanding people's experiences of the formal health and social care system for co-occurring heavy alcohol use and depression through the lens of relational autonomy: A qualitative study by Katherine Jackson and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


    The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect the views of the interviewer and interviewees and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official positions of the SSA.

    The SSA does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of the information in external sources or links and accepts no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of such information.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • In this episode, Rob Calder talks to Zoe Swithenbank about her recent article looking at how to improve research reports on smoking cessation trials. Zoe talks about the challenges of organising an international meeting of experts before the COVID-19 pandemic (before people were used to online working). She talks about some common errors and omissions that researchers make when reporting smoking cessation trials and how these can place limits on scientific progress. She talks about developing the CONSORT-SPI tool to help improve the ability of researchers to draw conclusions across studies.

    "It was important to get that balance and try and get a good range, and we did have quite a variety of people...different backgrounds, different expertise which made for some interesting debates."

    Original article: Tailoring CONSORT-SPI to improve the reporting of smoking cessation intervention trials: An expert consensus study by Zoe Swithenbank and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


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  • In this episode Ben Scher talks to Professor Laurence Lalanne about drug consumption rooms and the recent publication based on the COSINUS cohort study. They cover the range of interventions available in drug consumption rooms and how they can increase people's access to psychiatric support alongside barriers to accessing drug consumption rooms. Laurence talks about the epidemiological point of view in relation to the more biomedical aspects of drug consumption rooms, their objectives in reducing overdose and their impact on hospitals and the wider health-care system. 

    "You need a very long follow-up....we need to follow for two years and three years to show important results about mental health and to see how they improve their well-being and access to other care."

    This is the second of a two-part podcast. The first, featuring Dr Marie Jauffret-Roustide, can be found here.


    Original article: Drug consumption rooms are effective to reduce at-risk practices associated with HIV/HCV infections among people who inject drugs: Results from the COSINUS cohort study by Laurence Lalanne and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023).


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • In this episode Ben Scher talks to Dr Marie Jauffret-Roustide about drug consumption rooms and the recent publication based on the COSINUS cohort study. They cover a range of issues including the history of drug consumption rooms, the evidence on effectiveness and the challenges of studying this particular intervention.They also reflect on the social determinants of health and how drug consumption rooms can have a positive impact

    "We have 1% of people who attend drug consumption rooms who declared having ever shared injecting equipment in the last month before the interviews compared to 11% for people who were not exposed to drug consumption rooms"

    This is the first of a two-part podcast. The second, featuring Professor Laurence Lalanne can be found here.


    Original article: Drug consumption rooms are effective to reduce at-risk practices associated with HIV/HCV infections among people who inject drugs: Results from the COSINUS cohort study by Laurence Lalanne and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023).


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • In this episode, Rob Calder talks to Drs Caroline Copeland, Patrick Courtney and Paul Royall about their recent article assessing the time it would take for drones to deliver naloxone to people who are overdosing on opioids. The study team used NPSAD (National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths) data to map out overdoses in Teeside over recent years and then to predict how long it would have taken a drone to make the journey and deliver naloxone to a bystander who would then be able to administer it. They then compared this time with the time it takes ambulances to attend the scene. Along the way they discuss take off stations, weather, traffic congestion, no-fly zones and the importance of considering whether a drone will be destroyed along the way.

    "The initial design we came up with was a sort of cargo transport box on top of the drone, whereby the drone lands and then the bystander can remove the naloxone home kit or naloxone nasal spray from the top of that transport holder. At that point we then follow the guidance and recommendations of the at home naloxone or nasal spray." - Paul Royall

    Original article: An evaluation of naloxone transit for opioid overdose using drones: A case study using real-world coroner data. By Caroline Copeland and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


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  • In this episode Dr Merve Mollaametoglu talks to Dr Catherine Paradis director of health promotion and scientific alcohol lead at the Canadian Centre of Substance Use and Addiction, Dr Kevin Shield from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto and Dr Peter Butt clinical associate professor Department of Family Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan.


    They discuss their recent article looking at ways of making of low-risk alcohol drinking guidelines. They talk about how difficult it is to reach consensus on low-risk alcohol thresholds and how scientific evidence and public opinion meet. And the development of their ‘risk-zone’ approach. And how this can be interpreted by people who had differing perceptions of risk.


    They talk about why people in alcohol focused cultures appear to be willing to accept a higher rate of risk from alcohol than they do from other risk-based activities.

    "I would liken the development of the risk-zones the risk curves allowing people to situate themselves to other scientific discoveries….A lot of other public health agencies and a lot of people who have been involved in the development of these guidelines really are taken to the utility of those risk zones and hopefully we’ll see that picked up in a lot more guidelines as well” - Dr Kevin Shield

    Original article:  New perspectives on how to formulate alcohol drinking guidelines by Kevin Shield and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023).


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • Dr Elle Wadsworth talks here to Brandon Cheng about his research on social media posting and drinking behaviour. Brandon talks about the influence that media and social media have on young people and how they can influence their drinking behaviour.

    “A young person watching a short video of people enjoying drinks [is] likely to develop a much more vivid imagery of what drinking can be like … compared to a viewer just to see an image or text relating to someone having a good time drinking.”

    Original article: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the relationship between youth drinking, self-posting of alcohol use and other social media engagement (2012 – 2021) by Brandon Cheng and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023).


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  • In this episode Dr Rob Calder talks to Dr Thomas Hudzik about his work with the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA). Tom talks about the three principles by which a substance is assessed and how they use the latest research and policy changes to make decisions about whether a substance is banned and how it is detected. They specifically cover the decision to implement and in-competition ban cannabis and the basis on which that decision was made.

    "The substance use can represent a risk to the athlete's health them-self or the health of those around them.... somebody who is allowed to perform in a group type of situation, their judgement will be impaired most likely. And that may affect the score that you have, but it could also mean that you do something silly physically that you might not have done otherwise because your reaction time is slow, your temporal estimation capabilities are slow."

    Original article: Cannabis and sport: A World Anti-Doping perspective by Thomas Hudzik and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


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  • Ben Scher talks to Dr Joseph Friedman about his research on fentanyl overdoses. Joseph explains the four waves of opioid overdoses in the US and how opiate and opioid overdoses have changed.


    They discuss how patterns of poly-substance use are different across the US and how the combination of fentanyl and methamphetamines is become more prevalent across states. Along with the challenges of standardising results when coroners’ reports vary across the US.

    One of the main takeaways here is just understanding that poly-substance drug overdose is really becoming the norm….The percent of US overdose deaths involving both fentanyl and stimulants in 2010 was 0.6% so one in every 200 overdose deaths and by 2021 it rose to one-third of all [overdose] deaths.

    Original article: Charting the Fourth Wave: Geographic, Temporal, Race/Ethnicity, and Demographic Trends in Polysubstance Fentanyl Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2010-2021 by Joseph Friedman and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


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  • Rob Calder talks to Vassilis Sideropoulos about a recent paper on the role of vaping products in smoking cessation. The first author for this paper was Dr Catherine Kimber.


    Vassilis talks about the array of components that can contribute to quitting smoking when using vaping products. He summarises the research team’s work on identifying which combinations of support types are most effective. He talks about their research into advice on vaping products, nicotine strength and e-liquid flavours, as well as providing information on the relative harms of vaping and smoking and text message support.

    There's so many different flavours right now you can pick up almost anything now..... it's a massive raise and I think that's why flavour is a component that we need to understand better.

    Vassilis also talks about the challenges of recruiting participants from social media and how to exclude bots from your research participant group.


    Original article: E-cigarette support for smoking cessation: Identifying the effectiveness of intervention components in an on-line randomized optimization experiment by Catherine Kimber and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


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  • Rob Calder talks to Dr Eleni Domzaridou about her recent article on the risk of overdose among people prescribe medication for opioid use at the same time as being prescribed other medication - such as for mental health disorders.

    People who use opioid drugs are often prescribed drugs for physical or mental health problems or for pain management. Eleni and the research team studied non-fatal overdoses among this group of people. In this podcast, Eleni outlines why the marker of non-fatal overdose is important when seeking to prevent fatal overdoses. Eleni also talks about the challenges and practicalities of using a large data-set with data from GP surgeries to draw conclusions about associations between prescribed drug use and overdoses.

    There is an elevated non-fatal overdose risk for patients prescribed opioid agonists concurrently with benzodiazepines, gabapentinoids, z-drugs or antipsychotics.

    Original article: Non-fatal overdose risk associated with prescribing opioid agonists concurrently with other medication: cohort study conducted using linked primary care, secondary care, and mortality records by Eleni Domzaridou and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


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  • In this episode Ben Scher talks to Dr Rebecca McKetin about her recent article looking the relationship between psychosis, psychotic symptoms and methamphetamine use. They discuss the implications and talk about who exactly is at risk of methamphetamine-related psychosis. Along the way, they cover the background of methamphetamine use in Australia and how this varies from country to country.


    They then discuss the relative risk for psychotic symptoms among people with and without a family history of psychosis. The risk also changes when people are (or are not) actively using methamphetamine. Rebecca also talks about the potential for people to progress to schizophrenia and how treatment services should respond. Rebecca talks about the range of interventions that could be used to address methamphetamine related risks use and drug-related mental health problems.

    We need to target methamphetamine use as a risk factor for psychosis, regardless of whether people have a history of psychosis on their family.... the other one is that we need to be looking at people who do have a family history of psychosis at being at very high risk of having psychotic symptoms.

    Original article: How does a family history of psychosis influence the risk of methamphetamine-related psychotic symptoms: Evidence from longitudinal panel data by Rebecca McKetin and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


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  • In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Dr Katherine Keyes about her study examining changes to hallucinogen use among young adults in the US. Katherine also talks about using the Monitoring The Future survey to identify patterns of substance use among young adults.

    "...going from 2020 to 2021 we really saw substantial increases in the prevalence of young adults who are reporting that they use hallucinogens other than LSD. And we didn't see the same trend of use of LSD."

    Original article: Hallucinogen use among young adults ages 19–30 in the United States: Changes from 2018 to 2021 by Katherine M. Keyes and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2023)


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  • In this episode Ben Scher talks to Professor Louise Nadeau about her recent article anaysing the content of a Latin-language treatise on gambling addiction written nearly 500 years ago. Ben and Louise discuss the medical model of gambling and issues of historic identification. They unpick how the original authors wrote about the medical model of addiction long before it was called that. Parts of the treatise refer to non-problematic gambling - noting that there was a small population who had problems. There are also references to gambling harms and models of treatment that go back to the 6th century AD.


    This podcast offers a fascinating historical insight in a way that illuminates our current understanding of addiction and co-occurring disorders.

    "So here was this person in 1561 who was thinking of erroneous cognitions who thought of genetic vulnerability - all that at the end of the Renaissance."

    Original article: A re-discovered treatise from 1561 by Louise Nadeau and Marc Valleur. Published in Addiction (2023)


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