We also did not support the hypothesis that differences between alcoholics and controls are larger for negative emotional stimuli than neutral or positive emotional stimuli. We found comparable differences between groups for happy, neutral, and sad emotional stimuli. The cross-sectional nature of our study precludes us from making statements about normalization of emotional stimulus processing in alcoholics with long-term abstinence. We only observe those deficits that are present in long-term abstinence.
