There is evidence that exerting self-control during alcohol craving can diminish performance on subsequent tasks that require self-control.
Based on the resource depletion model (Muraven and Baumeister, 2000), we examined the influence of alcohol cue exposure on detoxified alcohol-dependent patients' ability to inhibit ongoing responses.
Twenty alcohol-dependent patients were randomly assigned to an alcohol-cue exposure and a control-cue exposure condition and thereafter had to perform an inhibition task (i.e., stop-signal task).
Participants who sniffed alcohol before performing the inhibition task reported a stronger urge to drink alcohol than the control group that sniffed water. Participants who sniffed alcohol were also impaired in their inhibitory performance but not in their noninhibitory performance on the stop-signal task.
The urge to drink presumably reduced participants' self-control, and this interfered with their ability to inhibit responding.
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