Relationship of dreams of drinking and negative expectancies to alcohol treatment outcome in a Veterans Administration alcoholic inpatient treatment population

Despite anecdotal reports of dreams of drinking in recovering alcoholics, very little research has been conducted to explore the phenomenon and what role these dreams may play in the recovery process. Ninety-eight subjects were recruited from three Veteran Affairs inpatient substance abuse treatment units to examine whether dreams of drinking occurred and were associated with higher levels of concern over the importance of abstinence as indicated by a measure of negative expectancy for the consequences of drinking. A baseline group of 60 subjects recruited from General Psychology classes at a university were used for a comparison. VA subjects were also readministered the questionnaires at discharge and at two follow-up periods to determine if dreams of drinking and negative expectancy were associated with abstinence.; Significantly more VA inpatient subjects reported experiencing dreams of drinking than the university group, which suggests that these dreams are more likely to occur with those who possess substantial alcohol treatment issues than nontreatment controls. This study also found that VA subjects who reported experiencing dreams of drinking prior to their admission to the inpatient units demonstrated a significantly higher concern for the consequences of relapse. This result was not found at discharge or during the follow-up periods. The study failed to demonstrate a relationship between dreams of drinking, negative expectancy, and continued abstinence following treatment. However these results could have been significantly effected by the very high dropout rate. This study represented an investigation into an area of alcohol research that has received very little attention to date. The drinking dream phenomena is worthy of additional research and may provide an increased understanding of how these dreams fit within the recovery process and possibly how they might be used to facilitate treatment.