Meditation and the prevention of alcohol abuse.

The authors surveyed the frequency of alcohol use in individuals identified as practitioners of Transcendental Meditation (N equals 126) and a matched control group (N equals 90). No control subjects reported discontinuation of beer and wine use; 40 percent of subjects who had meditated for more than 2 years reported discontinuation within the first 6 months. After 25-39 months of meditation, this figure increased to 60 percent. In addition, 54 percent of this group, versus 1 percent of the control group, had stopped drinking hard liquor. The authors suggest that meditation could be an effective preventive tool in the area of alcohol abuse.