National Addiction Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Kings College London, London, UK.
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada.
Subst Abuse Treat Prev Policy. 2021 Sep 26;16(1):74. doi: 10.1186/s13011-021-00412-8.
To provide a preliminary test of the prediction that fewer former heavy drinkers will identify themselves as being in recovery in the UK versus the USA.
An online cross-sectional survey was completed by a convenience sample of former heavy drinkers. This sample was identified from participants recruited to complete a questionnaire about alcohol consumption. The recruitment advertisement specified that the participants did not need to drink alcohol. The survey included items assessing self-reported current and past levels of alcohol consumption, alcohol dependence at time of heaviest alcohol consumption (ICD-10 criteria), and questions regarding identifying as currently or ever being in recovery taken from a survey by Kelly et al. (2018).
Out of 5002 participants who completed the questionnaire, 150 were identified as former heavy drinkers from the UK or the USA. The proportion of participants reporting alcohol dependence, and the proportion of participants reporting past year abstinence, did not differ significantly between the UK and the USA (p = .841 and 0.300 respectively). Compared to participants from the UK, participants in the USA were more likely to report that they had a problem with drinking but now no longer do (24.1 % vs. 56.0 %; p < .001), and that they currently identified (4.2 % vs. 21.2 %; p = .003) or ever identified (7.4 % vs. 30.2 %; p = .001) as being in recovery.
Identifying as being in recovery appears more common in the USA than the UK among former heavy drinkers. This apparent difference in prevalence may reflect historic differences in treatment services offered in these countries, particularly with respect to the predominance of a 12-step approach in the USA. These findings should be replicated in a representative sample.
本研究旨在初步检验一个假设，即在英国，与美国相比，较少的前重度饮酒者会认为自己处于康复状态。
本研究通过对前重度饮酒者的便利抽样进行了一项在线横断面调查。该样本是从参与完成一项关于饮酒量的问卷调查的参与者中确定的。招募广告规定，参与者不需要饮酒。该调查包括评估自我报告的当前和过去饮酒水平、在饮酒最多时的酒精依赖程度（ICD-10 标准）以及来自 Kelly 等人（2018 年）调查中关于当前或曾经处于康复状态的问题的项目。
在完成问卷的 5002 名参与者中，有 150 名参与者来自英国或美国，被确定为前重度饮酒者。报告酒精依赖的参与者比例和报告过去一年戒酒的参与者比例在英国和美国之间没有显著差异（p=0.841 和 0.300）。与来自英国的参与者相比，来自美国的参与者更有可能报告他们曾经有饮酒问题但现在没有（24.1%比 56.0%；p<0.001），并且他们现在认为（4.2%比 21.2%；p=0.003）或曾经认为（7.4%比 30.2%；p=0.001）自己处于康复状态。
在英国和美国，前重度饮酒者中，自我认同为康复者的比例在美国似乎更高。这种流行率的明显差异可能反映了这两个国家在提供治疗服务方面的历史差异，特别是在 12 步治疗方法在美国的主导地位方面。这些发现应该在代表性样本中得到复制。
