Am J Psychiatry. 1975 Sep; 132(9): 942-5.

Meditation and the prevention of alcohol abuse.

Shafil M, Lavely R, Jaffe R.

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.