Researchers at the University of Wales, Bangor, have developed a new training technology in order to make heavy drinkers ignore alcohol and give up the unhealthy and harmful habit. The scientists have established one of the main factors that enhance and maintain some people's addiction to alcohol. This relates to the alcoholic drinks ads that are present everywhere around us, at TV, in the street, in the supermarkets where we shop everyday etc.

The ads are external stimuli that keep the addicted person prisoner to his/her habit. Professor Miles Cox of the University in Bangor stated in this regard for BBC News: "When excessive drinkers encounter drink-related stimuli, this activates automatic thought processes which stimulate them to want a drink and to actually take a drink. Hence the simple consequence of helping excessive drinkers pay less attention to alcohol in their environment is that they gain more confidence in their ability to control their own behavior, and then they drink less."

The computer program developed by scientists in order to cut high rates of alcohol addiction in individuals is called Alcohol Attention-Control Training Program (AACTP). This new type of training technique against alcohol drinking has been already tested on about a hundred heavy drinkers and it was shown to be really working. After the initial session of the program, the subjects were improving and continued to improve three months after the initial sessions were over.

The main principle on which the against-drinking program functions lies in the fact that addicts should learn to ignore external stimuli and focus on themselves. They should also search for the power within themselves to give up the habit - by earning confidence in their own person and in their control abilities. When an addict becomes aware that he is really able to control himself and he has the power to do it anytime he wants to, then the habit is stopped.

The AACTP will be tested again on about 250 addicts and if it will prove again to be working, then there are high hopes for health service to start using it for the benefit of heavy drinkers. Professor Cox claimed that it is now a "tried and tested training program. AACTP is also a highly accessible tool in that it will eventually offer excessive drinkers the opportunity to participate in this training in their own home over the internet. After additional research, we hope the health service will begin using the program."