Intrusive drug memories and cocaine craving with Amelie Zacher and Boris QuednowIntrusive drug memories and cocaine craving with Amelie Zacher and Boris Quednow
Addiction Audio
Researchers discuss how intrusive, sensory-rich memories of cocaine use relate to craving in everyday life. Their findings suggest these memories could become important targets for future psychological and pharmacological treatments for cocaine use disorder.
20:56•6 Nov 2026
Intrusive Cocaine Memories, Craving, and New Treatment Clues
Episode Overview
- Addiction is discussed as a memory-related condition, with drug use memories becoming increasingly prominent in daily life.
- Substance-related intrusive memories are common in cocaine use disorder and can be vivid, sensory-rich and emotionally charged.
- Intrusive memories and craving are related but distinct; both can occur together or separately, suggesting different targets for treatment.
- Real-time smartphone-based assessment helps capture intrusive memories in daily life with less recall bias and greater ecological validity.
- Future treatment directions may include psychoeducation, mindfulness, CBT approaches that address internal triggers, and memory reconsolidation techniques.
“Craving itself doesn't appear out of nowhere, right?”
How do people cope with the challenges of staying sober when their own memories seem to work against them? This conversation on Addiction Audio zooms in on cocaine use disorder and a subtle but powerful process: drug-related intrusive memories. Dr Tsen Vei Lim chats with postdoctoral researcher Dr Amelie Zacher and Professor Boris B.
Quednow from Zurich, who frame modern addiction theory as "a kind of memory disorder." They explain how people with cocaine use disorder can be hit by sudden, vivid recollections of using cocaine, complete with sensory details like taste, smell, music and specific places. As Amelie puts it, these are "involuntary memories that occur spontaneously," often highly vivid and emotionally loaded. You’ll hear how these intrusive memories link to craving, but aren’t the same thing.
The team used ecological momentary assessment via a smartphone app over two weeks, asking participants to report each intrusive memory as it happened. This approach reduced recall bias and kept the focus on real-life experiences rather than lab guesses. Their headline finding? Intrusive memories are common, distinguishable from craving, and sometimes appear with craving, sometimes without. The more vivid and intrusive the memory, the stronger the associated craving tends to be.
Boris notes that this shows "there are intrusions also without craving" and that craving can come with or without intrusions, hinting at a targetable memory trace behind some craving episodes. For people interested in treatment, the episode outlines early ideas rather than firm solutions: psychoeducation, mindfulness, CBT-style work that includes internal triggers, and future possibilities like memory reconsolidation and pharmacological approaches.
The guests stress that this is still basic research, but hope psychotherapists will build on these results to refine interventions for cocaine use disorder. If intrusive memories can drive craving, could understanding and working with those memories become a key part of recovery in the future?
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