The relationship of cognitive functioning to amount of recent and lifetime alcohol consumption in outpatient alcoholics.

Previous investigations of the relationship between drinking patterns and cognitive functioning have generally studied severely alcoholic patients, in whom the neurocognitive effects of alcohol consumption can be obscured by other medical or psychosocial factors. In the present study, cognitive functioning was examined after a minimum of 4 days of abstinence in 69 mildly to moderately alcohol-dependent outpatients without comorbid psychiatric, neurologic, or systemic medical illness. Circumscribed decrements in reaction time and verbal memory were associated with higher amounts of alcohol consumption in the 90 days prior to enrollment in the study, and amount of recent consumption was correlated with scores on numerous cognitive tests. In contrast, longer drinking history was not associated with poorer performance on any neuropsychological measures. Thus, in this group of high-functioning, mildly to moderately alcohol-dependent outpatients, mild cognitive deficits were related to the amount of recent, but not lifetime, alcohol consumption.