The relationship of cognitive and affective processes to the functioning of substance abusers in treatment

Cognitive variables such as commitment to abstinence and motivation for treatment are strong predictors for rehabilitative treatment success. Affective variables, such as affect regulation and expression, have been associated with the personality of substance abusers. The major objective of this study was to assess the cognitive variables of commitment to abstinence and motivation for treatment, and the affective variables of emotion regulation and affective fluency as they affected the response to drug abuse treatment. Paper/pencil inventories were given to 103 subjects who were seeking treatment at a private outpatient substance abuse rehabilitative treatment center. The Thoughts About Abstinence Scale and the resistance to treatment scales of the RAATE-QI were used to assess the cognitive variables of commitment to abstinence and motivation for treatment respectively. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale was used to assess the affective component of alexithymia, and the Ego Control Inventory and the emotional subscale of the Coping Resources Inventory were used to assess affect regulation. Severity of drug use was measured by the DAST-20, and frequency of drug use was measured by self-report questionnaire. Many of the results found in this study replicated prior research espousing the link between the cognitive factors and drug use in treatment. Affective factors were not as strongly linked to drug use behavior in treatment in this study. In the current study, relationships between the cognitive and affect variables and the drug use variables often behaved in a complex manner based on nonlinear relationships between these predictor variables and outcome variables