Alcohol and mood: an updated review.

Research since 1968 on the relationship between alcohol and mood is reviewed and updated. There are measurement and methodological barriers to delineating this relationship. The literature is replete with mixed findings that the motivation for drinking alcohol is psychological benefit, tension reduction, or affective improvement. Conflicting and equivocal data have characterized self-reports of depression and other affects in alcoholics. Evidence suggests that alcoholics experience increasing dysphoria as a consequence of alcohol consumption, while nonalcoholics anticipate--and generally attain--elevated moods as a result of drinking. Suggestions are made for further alcohol-mood research.