When Kylie Hernandez, 34, felt an urge to drink, she used to give in without thinking. "I didn't have any other tools," she said in a study interview. "When life got hard, alcohol was my go-to." A new treatment might give people like Hernandez something new: actual tools.
Researchers have found that adding emotion regulation therapy to standard treatment can help people with alcohol use disorder drink less often. In a study of 194 adults, those who received this extra therapy had more days without drinking compared to people who only got standard care.
The study followed adults with moderate-to-severe alcohol use disorder who said they often drank when they felt upset or stressed. Half the participants got cognitive behavioral therapy, the most common treatment for alcohol problems. The other half got cognitive behavioral therapy plus emotion regulation treatment, which teaches people skills to handle difficult feelings in healthier ways.
Emotion regulation treatment borrows ideas from three types of therapy: dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness-based therapy, and prolonged exposure therapy. In plain terms, it helps people notice when they're feeling overwhelmed and gives them specific strategies to get through those moments without turning to alcohol.
Participants tracked their feelings and drinking in daily diaries. The results showed something interesting: people who got emotion regulation treatment started using healthier coping skills within the first week. Those skills — things like pausing before acting or finding other ways to calm down — were directly linked to more days without drinking.
"The real win wasn't just fewer drinks — it was learning new skills to handle hard feelings without reaching for a drink," said lead researcher Kyler S. Knapp.
The effects lasted. Researchers checked in with participants at the end of treatment and again at three, six, and twelve months after. The emotion regulation group still had more nondrinking days at each check-in.
One surprising finding: changes in how upset or craving participants felt didn't explain the improvement. What mattered was the new skills they learned. This suggests the therapy works by giving people alternatives, not necessarily by changing how they feel.
The effects were meaningful but not huge. Still, for people who have tried standard treatment and still struggled, adding emotion regulation skills could make a real difference.
The study was published in the journal Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research. Researchers say emotion regulation treatment could become a helpful addition to the tools clinicians use to help people with alcohol problems — especially those whose drinking is tied to hard emotions.