Could recalling old parties encourage moderate drinking?

It's the morning after a heavy night. Your head is banging. Your mouth is dry. Your heart is pounding. You're anxious. In this state, it's easy to declare that you're never drinking again. Yet as the hangover slips away, this avowal is often forgotten.  

Actively hanging onto memories of a drinking episode, however, might be one way of curbing further alcohol use — at least according to a new study by Lorenzo Stafford and colleagues. Their recent research finds that recalling recent drinking led women to drink much slower, potentially reducing desire for alcohol and avoiding over-consumption.

Participants were 50 women, all of whom consumed between 2 and 40 units of alcohol per week (in the UK, two units is equivalent to around one pint of beer or a medium glass of wine). They were only eligible to take part if they scored low enough on a test which measures for "hazardous, harmful, or dependent alcohol consumption".

Women were placed into one of two conditions. In the first condition, participants were asked to reflect on and write in detail about the most recent time they consumed alcohol, including who they were with, what they drank, and where. They were also asked to estimate the number of calories they'd consumed from these drinks. Those in the control condition wrote about the most recent time they had travelled in a car. Participants then took part in a measure of positive and negative mood.

After these measures, all of the women were given a WKD Blue: a 275ml vodka-based drink equivalent to 1.1 units. The team asked the women to drink the whole drink "at a rate that feels comfortable", stressing that the session length would be the same regardless of how fast they drank it. Women also indicated how much WKD they would consume if it was the only thing they could drink that evening.

Finally, they completed a test on their knowledge of how many calories were in different kinds of alcohol, asked to report how many hours had passed since their last drink, and selected which drinks they consumed most regularly from a long, multiple-choice list.

Overall, the study's results suggest that recalling a previous drinking episode can reduce alcohol consumption both in terms of how quickly drinks are consumed and how much participants intended to drink later on.

Firstly, there was a difference between those who recalled their last drinking session and those who did not. Those in the experimental condition, who had reflected on their alcohol use, took 14% longer to finish their WKD Blue than those in the control condition, who had merely thought about a car journey. This group also estimated that they would drink 17% less than those in the control condition (though this result was not significant).

It's important to note that there was also a correlation between someone's general pattern of drinking and how fast they drank their WKD; recalling the episode of drinking wasn't the only thing that had an impact here. Those who scored highly in the alcohol use test taken at the start of the experiment drank 8% faster than those with a lower score, and their estimated intake was also 19% higher.

The team do note that health warnings have a bigger impact on people's intention to drink than the intervention from this study, making it clear that this is not the most effective way to discourage overconsumption. However, if you're conscious you want to remain mindful about your alcohol consumption at this year's end-of-year festivities, these findings do suggest that remembering previous drinking experiences may help you achieve moderation.

Read the paper in full:
Stafford, L. D., Gould, C., Kelly, D., Parker, M. O., Seddon, J., & Clay, J. (2024). Recollecting a previous drinking episode reduces subsequent motivation for alcohol in females. Food Quality and Preference, 121, 105283–105283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2024.105283

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