Alcohol abusers' and nonabusers' distraction by alcohol and concern-related stimuli

Alcohol abusers' and nonabusers' attentional distraction for neutral, alcoh ol-related, and concern-related (personally relevant) words was assessed wi th a word-word color-naming task. Abusers, unlike nonabusers, showed greate r attentional distraction for alcohol-related than concern-related words. E xploratory analyses indicated that abusers who were more distracted by alco hol-related than concern-related stimuli (i.e., "alcohol distracted") respo nded more slowly to neutral words than "concern-distracted'' participants. The results suggest that the relative degree of distraction by alcohol vers us other personally relevant stimuli holds promise for understanding the co gnitive and motivational processes underlying alcohol abuse.