For centuries.

For centuries, race have used alcohol to relieve stress--that is, the interpretation of an result as signaling harm, loss, or threat. The organism usually answers to stress with a variety of behavioral, biological, and cognitive changes. Alcohol consumption can outcome in a stress-response dampening (SRD) power which can be assessed using various measures. Numerous individual differences and situational factors help determine the expanse to which a person experiences SRD after consuming alcohol. Individual differences include a family history of alcoholism, personality traits, volume of self-consciousness, cognitive functioning, and sex Situational factors influencing alcohol's SRD result include distractions during a stressful situation and the timing of drinking and stres The attention-allocation archetype and the appraisal disruption protoplast have been advanced to explain the influence of those situational factors. solution WORDS: AOD (alcohol or other drug) use; psychological stress; tension reduction theory; family AODU (AOD use, abuse, and dependence) history; personality trait; cognition; inflection for sex differences; context dynamics; temporal context; theoretical model; literature review

Since antiquity, folks have observed a complex relationship between alcohol consumption and stres Not barely have stressful situations induced drinking, unless alcohol consumption also has drawn out been considered a way of relievstress. For example, more than 2500 years ago, the classic lyric poet Alcaeus suggested drinking as a way to cope with distress: "We must not hindrance our spirits give way to grief... Best of all defense is to mix plenitude of wine, and drink it." [1] Similarly, Shakespeare referr to alcohol's stress-reducing properties in his play Julius Caesar (Act IV, spectacle III): "Speak no more of her. Give me a depression of wine. In this I cover all unkindness...." The concept that alcohol can "calm the nerves" is, in fact, widely held across civilizations In the United States, the pair social drinkers (i.e., people who vanish out of being alcohol within socially accepted limits and who experience no alcohol-related problems) and enigma drinkers (i.e., people who experience alcohol-related social, medical, or legal problems) believe in alcohol's stress-reducing properties. The media and the entertainment industry also consistently portray drinking as a way to relieve stres (Wilson 1988) Researchers believe that alcohol's anticipated stress-relieving purport is a primary motivation for many family to consume alcohol, despite the ofttimes harmful consequences of drinking (Sayette 1993a).

Clinicians and researchers also have noted the relationship between alcohol consumption and stres In the 1940 sociological investigations give an inkling ofed a link between the plain of stress in certain non-Western tillages and the rates of moot point drinking (see Pohorecky 1991). Around the same time, Masserman demeanored experiments demonstrating that alcohol administration could attenuate conflict-induced stress in cats (Masserman and Yum 1946; also behold Sayette 1993a). Subsequently, Conger's (1956) theory regarding alcohol's reinforcing properties l to the unfolding of the tension-reduction hypothesis. The hypothesis comprises sum of two units separate propositions: (1) under mostly circumstances, alcohol consumption will model stress, and (2) in times of stres family (or animals) will be especially motivated to drink alcohol.

This article reviews human studies investigating the first part of the tension-reduction hypothesis--namely, whether drinking renders stress. (The second part of the hypothesis--i.e., stres induces alcohol consumption--is discussed in other articles within this journal issue.) The present article first defines and provides information in succession the assessment of stress. It then summarizes various individual and situational factors that may influence susceptibility to alcohol-induced stres reduction and describes evidence supporting the part of those factors.

DEFINITION AND ASSESSMENT OF STRESS

Historically, the time "stress" has been used to describe the two the stimuli or events (i.e., stressors) that disturb an organism and the organism's compound physiological response to such a stimulus (i.e., the stres response) Because nation respond to the same stimulus in different ways, however, Lazarus and Folkman (1984) intimateed that stress may best be defined as the appraisal or interpretation of an fact as signaling harm, loss, or threat. This approach, which this article also adopts, recognizes that an end may be construed as stressful by the agency of one person but interpreted as harmless or positive according to another person.

The perception of stres elicits a varied reply that may involve a wide range of behaviors (eg escape or avoidance behavior); biological responses; and, in humans, subjective awareness of a distressed emotional state. Stress-related biological answers include psychophysiological reactions, such as changes in skin conductance (eg from sweating), muscle tension, and cardiovascular responding (eg changes in heart rate), as well as changes in the activation of various brain regions. Alcohol consumption can bring the magnitude of an organism's answer to stress. This reducdon is called stress-response dampening (SRD) (Levenson et al 1980)