I just read an article about alcohol cravings while experience ‘negative emotions’ and I thought it was pretty interesting and should share. Although women are at higher risk for experiencing depression and men usually have more alcohol-use disorders, it was found that men are more likely to want alcohol when upset. During their research they looked at 54 adults who are considered to be healthy social drinkers (27 men and 27 women). They gave the adults three different types of scripts like stressful, alcohol-related and a neutral/relaxing one each performed in different sessions, days and order. “After listening to the stressful story, women reported more sadness and anxiety than men,” said Chaplin, “as well as greater behavioral arousal. But, for the men … emotional arousal was linked to increases in alcohol craving. In other words, when men are upset, they are more likely to want alcohol. These findings – in addition to the fact that the men drank more than the women on average – meant that the men had more experience with alcohol, perhaps leading them to turn to alcohol as a way of coping with distress, added Chaplin. “Men’s tendency to crave alcohol when upset may be a learned behavior or may be related to known gender differences in reward pathways in the brain,” she said. “And this tendency may contribute to risk for alcohol-use disorders.”