Emotional deficits in persons with substance abuse disorder
Continued and pathological use of psychoactive substances (e.g., alcohol, cannabis, or nicotine) results in neuro-chemical modifications, which affect memory, learning, and impulse control. We found substance abuse patients to show severe impairment across a wide range of emotional abilities such as using emotions to facilitate thought, understand emotion information, and regulating emotions. Those patients did not show particular problems in perceiving emotions. Again, different results may be obtained when speed is an issue. The results confirm the assumption that substance abuse leads to serious problems, for instance affect instability. Patients with substance abuse disorder show the largest impairments in emotional abilities.