Beer à no‐go: learning to stop responding to alcohol cues reduces alcohol intake via reduced affective associations rather than increased response inhibition

AIMS: Previous research has shown that consistently not responding to alcohol-related stimuli in a go/no-go training procedure reduces drinking behaviour. This study aimed to examine further the mechanisms underlying this go/no-go training effect. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Fifty-seven heavy drinkers were assigned randomly to two training conditions: in the beer/no-go condition, alcohol-related stimuli were always paired with a stopping response, while in the beer/go condition participants always responded to alcohol-related stimuli. Participants were tested individually in a laboratory at Maastricht University. MEASUREMENTS: Weekly alcohol intake, implicit attitudes towards beer, approach-avoidance action tendencies towards beer and response inhibition were measured before and after the training. FINDINGS: Results showed a significant reduction in both implicit attitudes (P = 0.03) and alcohol intake (P = 0.02) in the beer/no-go condition, but not in the beer/go condition. There were no significant training effects on action tendencies or response inhibition. CONCLUSIONS: Repeatedly stopping pre-potent responses towards alcohol-related stimuli reduces excessive alcohol use via a devaluation of alcohol-related stimuli rather than via increased inhibitory control over alcohol-related responses.