Readiness to Quit Smoking among Smokers in Substance Use Treatment: Associations with Stress, Substance Use Severity, Relapse Concerns and Gender.

Smoking prevalence among individuals in substance use treatment remains higher than in the general population. Given that many smokers in substance use treatment are reluctant to quit smoking, it is important to understand the factors that impede smokers' readiness to quit. The current study used baseline data from a randomized controlled trial involving 60 adult smokers receiving substance use treatment to investigate relations between the severity of substance use problems (SSUP), perceived stress (PS), concerns about relapse (i.e., concerns that quitting smoking would hurt one's recovery process (CR)), and readiness to quit smoking. This study also investigated moderating roles of concerns about relapse and gender. Regression analyses showed a significant main effect of concerns about relapse on readiness to quit in the next 30 days, but no effect for either severity of substance use problems, perceived stress, or the SSUPxCR interaction. There were significant interaction effects between PS and both gender and CR. Among men and those with lower concerns about relapse, higher perceived stress was significantly associated with lower readiness to quit. Findings suggest that psychoeducation to alleviate concerns that quitting smoking could limit substance use recovery could be beneficial. Stress management interventions may be especially beneficial to men.

Learning functions in short-term cocaine users.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined learning functions in short-term cocaine users and control participants. METHOD: Seventeen active cocaine users (reporting 3.5 mean years of cocaine use) and seventeen non-cocaine-using controls (with similar reported levels of alcohol and marijuana use) were compared on tasks measuring different aspects of learning. RESULTS: The cocaine users performed more poorly on the Weather Prediction and List-Learning tasks, as well as supplementary executive and psychomotor function tasks, than controls. CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with a relatively short duration of cocaine use exhibited moderate weaknesses in probabilistic category learning, verbal learning and psychomotor functions, relative to controls. These weaknesses may underpin difficulty in learning from the probabilistic consequences of behavior and hinder the ability to respond to cognitive-behavioral treatments.