Real-world alcohol cue exposure and drinking risk in alcohol use disorder
Abstract
Alcohol-related cues are thought to contribute to drinking in alcohol use disorder (AUD), but their contribution in daily life remains difficult to separate from changing social contexts and internal states. We used ecological momentary assessment in two independent cohorts of non-treatment-seeking individuals, comprising a discovery cohort with AUD (17–62 years; n = 73) and a young-adult replication cohort screened for risky drinking (19–35 years; n = 56), to test whether alcohol cue exposure was associated with momentary drinking after simultaneous multivariable adjustment for social context, affective states, and event appraisal. In logistic mixed-effects models, within-person exposure to alcohol-related cues was significantly and reproducibly associated with higher odds of drinking in both cohorts. Being in company, exposure to drinking companions, and higher energetic arousal also showed reproducible within-person associations with drinking. Exploratory clustering of participant-specific slopes suggested meaningful alcohol cue-reactive and social context-reactive risk profile candidates. These findings identify alcohol cue exposure as a robust daily-life correlate of drinking and suggest candidate phenotypes motivating future validation studies of more personalized, context-aware interventions for AUD.
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BibTeX
@article{ghadami2026realworld,
title = {{Real-world alcohol cue exposure and drinking risk in alcohol use disorder}},
author = {Ali Ghadami and Abhijit Sreepada and Iris Reinhard and Marvin Ganz and Justin Boehmer and Kanya Meyer-Degering and Henrik Walter and Jamila Andoh and Bernd Lenz and Patrick Bach and Falk Kiefer and Emanuel Schwarz and Markus Reichert and Ulrich W. Ebner-Priemer and Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg and Christine Heim and Heike Tost},
journal = {Translational Psychiatry},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1038/s41398-026-04506-4},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-026-04506-4},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Real-world alcohol cue exposure and drinking risk in alcohol use disorder
AU - Ali Ghadami
AU - Abhijit Sreepada
AU - Iris Reinhard
AU - Marvin Ganz
AU - Justin Boehmer
AU - Kanya Meyer-Degering
AU - Henrik Walter
AU - Jamila Andoh
AU - Bernd Lenz
AU - Patrick Bach
AU - Falk Kiefer
AU - Emanuel Schwarz
AU - Markus Reichert
AU - Ulrich W. Ebner-Priemer
AU - Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg
AU - Christine Heim
AU - Heike Tost
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/08
JO - Translational Psychiatry
DO - 10.1038/s41398-026-04506-4
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-026-04506-4
AB - Alcohol-related cues are thought to contribute to drinking in alcohol use disorder (AUD), but their contribution in daily life remains difficult to separate from changing social contexts and internal states. We used ecological momentary assessment in two independent cohorts of non-treatment-seeking individuals, comprising a discovery cohort with AUD (17–62 years; n = 73) and a young-adult replication cohort screened for risky drinking (19–35 years; n = 56), to test whether alcohol cue exposure was associated with momentary drinking after simultaneous multivariable adjustment for social context, affective states, and event appraisal. In logistic mixed-effects models, within-person exposure to alcohol-related cues was significantly and reproducibly associated with higher odds of drinking in both cohorts. Being in company, exposure to drinking companions, and higher energetic arousal also showed reproducible within-person associations with drinking. Exploratory clustering of participant-specific slopes suggested meaningful alcohol cue-reactive and social context-reactive risk profile candidates. These findings identify alcohol cue exposure as a robust daily-life correlate of drinking and suggest candidate phenotypes motivating future validation studies of more personalized, context-aware interventions for AUD.
SN - 2158-3188
ER -