In summary, the current findings are generally consistent with considerable work indicating that alcohol negatively impacts cognitive control. The current results go beyond previous findings by specifying that such effects appear limited to processes involved in recovery from control failure, at least in situations where overall performance is similar across alcohol and no-alcohol groups and where the probability of conflict is equal. In other words, when “all is well,” a moderately intoxicating dose of alcohol appears to have little effect on neural and behavioral indices generally thought to reflect the control of goal-directed action. Once control slips—which it inevitably does for most people—the presence of alcohol results in a cascade of neurocognitive impairments that contribute to difficulty in recovering control and, most likely, increases the probability of potentially harmful impulsive, externalizing behaviors.
