A hangover works as a drinking deterrent for about as long as it lasts (for frequent drinkers), according to a new study published Monday in the journal, Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
Researchers sought to dispel the supposedly common belief that hangovers dissuade their sufferers from future drinking, the Doctor's Lounge reported. It's important to keep in mind, however, that the 400 or so men and women surveyed were all frequent drinkers. Overcoming hangovers, then, might be a necessary passage to hard drinking.
If so, perhaps that's why some less frequent drinkers remain so: they are turned off by a hangover. Thus, as Dr. Damaris Rohsenow, a professor of behavioral and social sciences at Brown University School of Public Health who co-led the study, said, "it is probably a waste of time to discuss hangovers when trying to motivate a problem drinker to drink less or drink less often," but it may still be worthwhile to motivate those on the fence.
Rohsenow and colleagues connected their results to the importance of immediacy in positive and negative reinforcement, meaning short-term effects are more likely to influence a behavior than long (or longer) terms ones. Since, the good feelings of alcohol come before the bad ones, they're more influential. The doctor also noted that hangovers may be viewed as a "nuisance" rather than a significant consequence.
"People who drink heavily generally experience pleasurable effects while drinking, and that is what drives the decision to drink heavily again," Rohsenow said. "The pain of hangover is temporary, and may be considered a nuisance rather than an important negative consequence."
The 400 or so participants self-identified as frequent drinkers kept a journal for three weeks in which they'd detail their drinking habits and rate how much they felt like drinking each day.
"On average, the time between drinking episodes was extended by only a few hours after a hangover," Thomas Piasecki, a professor in the department of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri and Rohsenow's co-author, said of the results. "We looked to see whether there were particular subgroups of drinkers who might show distinctive patterns like 'hair of the dog' use [drinking sooner in the hopes of feeling better], but we didn't find clear evidence for that."
