Efficacy of acceptance and mindful based relapse prevention program on emotion regulation difficulty among alcoholics in Kerala, India

Alcoholism is the devastating deadly disease destructively affects the individual, family and society. It is progressive and damaging that controls thinking and emotions of the alcoholic and produces severe consequences on physical and psychological well-being. Dysregulation of emotions is the important causal factor of alcohol dependence and relapse vulnerability. Growing evidence suggests that emotion regulation underlie clinically significant behaviors and psychological difficulties among the alcoholics. In response to these problems researcher integrates a focuses on difficulties in emotion regulation developed an intervention program based on acceptance and commitment strategy along with mindfulness and behavior change process. The study has two phases; Program development and assessment of the efficacy of the program in reducing emotion regulation difficulty thereby total abstinence and replacement of addictive pattern of behavior through experimental methods. Total 32 alcohol dependence randomly assigned to control (N=16) and experimental (N=16) situation. The difficulties in emotion regulation (DERS) scale was administered. The mean, paired sample t-test, independent sample t-test, and Cohen’s d were utilized for data analysis. The null hypothesis tested at 0.05 level of significant. Pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group showed significant difference (P=0.00) that revealed the effectiveness of the intervention program.