Association of Physical Activity with Alcohol Abuse and Dependence in a Nationally-Representative U.S. Sample

Abstract

Background Alcohol use is a pervasive and costly public health problem in the United States. Relapse rates from alcohol use disorders are high. Although exercise has been proposed as a strategy to prevent relapse, lifestyle modification is the least studied aspect of relapse prevention programs, especially among racial/ethnic minority populations. Objective The current study assessed whether being physically active was associated with remission from alcohol abuse or dependence among Black (African American and Afro Caribbean) adults in the U.S. Method We utilized data on Black adult participants (n = 4,828) from the nationally representative National Survey of American Life (NSAL) conducted in 2001–2003. Logistic regression models were estimated to assess the odds of being in 12-month remission or currently meeting DSM-IV criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence based on level of physical activity, adjusting for socio-demographic and neighborhood characteristics. Results People who endorsed being physically active had higher odds of being in 12-month remission from alcohol use problems (OR: 1.67, 95% CI: 1.28, 2.17) than people who were physically inactive, adjusting for individual- and neighborhood-level characteristics. People who were physically active did not differ significantly from those who were inactive with respect to odds of currently meeting DSM-IV criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence. Conclusions/Importance Physical activity was positively associated with being in 12-month remission from alcohol use problems. Longitudinal studies are needed to establish temporal ordering and to explore exercise as a potential relapse prevention strategy for alcohol use problems.

Physical Activity and the Development of Substance Use Disorders: Current Knowledge and Future Directions

“…Interestingly, there were no significant differences between the active and inactive groups on whether they had a current diagnosis of an alcohol use disorder (OR = 1.38 [95% CI: 0.86–2.22]). [54] Conversely, French et al (2009) analyzed data from 230,856 respondents from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and found a positive association between alcohol use in the past 30 days and total weekly minutes of exercise time. This relationship persisted even among the very heavy drinkers (≥21 drinks/week for women and ≥37 drinks/week for men).…”

Time Devoted to Individual, Collective, and Two-Person Sports: Its Association with Risk of Exercise Addiction and Alcohol Use Disorder

“…As in previous studies [23,33], results also suggest that EA and more time devoted to sport activity may be considered a potential risk factor of developing alcohol disorder. This may be surprising considering that sport is frequently presented as a protective factor against alcohol consumption [19][20][21][48][49][50] but these findings would be coherent with the fact that both EA and AUD are associated with syndromic entities such as borderline personality disorder [51,52] or specific eating disorders [53].…”