1972), e) alcoholism co-occurs at high rates with anxiety disorders (Kushner et al., 1990), suggesting that the two disorders represent manifestations of similar underlying mechanisms (Merikangas, Risch, & Weissman, 1994; Merikangas et al., 1998; Sinha, Robinson, & O'Malley, 1998), f) patients with co-morbid anxiety and alcoholism more frequently report that they use alcohol to control anxiety and panic symptoms as compared to other reasons for alcohol use (Kushner et al., 1990), g) increased sympathetic activation is seen during periods of increased anxiety and during prolonged alcohol abstinence (Ehrenreich et al., 1997; Sullivan et al., 1999), and h) increased sympathoadrenal activation and anxiety-like behavior is observed for long periods following termination of chronic alcohol consumption in rats (Rasmussen, Mitton, Green, & Puchalski, 2001; Rasmussen, Wilkinson, & Raskind, 2006). Taken together, these findings suggest that excessive sympathetic activation may contribute not only to maintenance of alcohol drinking and alcohol abuse but may also be one of the aversive physiological events that occur during alcohol withdrawal and abstinence that increases risk of relapse to alcohol drinking (Koob & LeMoal, 1997).
