Facilitation of human tobacco self-administration by ethanol: a behavioral analysis.
Alcohol reliably boosts cigarette smoking in alcoholic adults, so watch for dual surges.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave alcoholic adults ethanol or a placebo drink in a lab.
They then counted how many cigarettes each person smoked.
The study used tight controls to be sure any change was from the alcohol.
What they found
After ethanol, smoking rose 26–117 % above placebo levels.
The jump happened every time alcohol was given.
This shows ethanol itself makes people smoke more, not just the setting.
How this fits with other research
Glenn (1993) used the same single-case lab style. That study showed diazepam warps verbal self-reports while barely hurting true performance. Together, the two papers prove psychoactive drugs can skew different operant behaviors in different ways.
Giallo et al. (2006) also worked with adults who have substance-use disorders. They found the place of testing changes how gamblers value delayed rewards. The smoking paper adds that the drug inside the body matters too, not just the room you are in.
Wulfert et al. (2006) and Griffith et al. (2012) show behavioral treatments can cut addictive acts. The 1976 paper reminds us to control for drug-induced spikes before we claim our treatment worked.
Why it matters
If your client drinks, expect cigarette use to climb that same day. Track both substances together. Before treatment starts, record a true baseline on a sober day so later gains are not hidden by alcohol spikes.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a drink log next to the daily smoke count on your data sheet.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The effect of ethanol on the cigarette smoking of alcoholic subjects was studied in a residential laboratory. During daily 6-hr sessions, cigarettes were obtained either by request to the ward staff or by operation of a lever (fixed-ratio 5 or 10). In a mixed sequence across days, sessions involved ingestion of either vehicle (orange juice or vehicle plus ethanol (133.7 g). During ethanol sessions, the rate of cigarette smoking increased from 26% to 117% of vehicle levels. A series of control studies eliminated a number of potential behavorial mechanisms for the observed effect and indicated that the ethanol-induced increase in cigarette smoking occurred under a variety of experimental conditions: (1) when smoking could not occur concurrently with ethanol or vehicle consumption; (2) when subjects were not allowed to socialize; (3) when ingestion of ethanol or vehicle was scheduled for a number of consecutive days; (4) when various doses of ethanol were administered under blind conditions. In control experiments, weighing unsmoked tobacco and counting the number of puffs per cigarette indicated the effect was not due to smoking less of each cigarette. The effect was not limited to the experimental sessions alone, since total daily smoking was higher on ethanol days than vehicle days.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1976 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1976.25-279