Anthony Moss

Who are you?

My name's Tony Moss. I'm a professor of Addictive Behaviour Science. I've been working in the addictions field for probably about 20 years now, researching the effects of different types of drugs and alcohol and addictive behaviours. My particular interest is understanding how it is that people develop problems with addiction and what you can do to try and prevent those and what you can do to help people that have developed problems of addictive behaviour. Particular specialism of mine is alcohol and alcohol use, and that's a particular interest because a lot of the harm that comes from alcohol use actually doesn't come about from the development of more serious forms of addiction, but from people's longer term heavy drinking over long periods of time. And so I've always had an interest in how it is that we can raise awareness for people about the harms of alcohol use and what you can do to try to avoid them.

What is your background?

So my academic background is as a psychologist, and so I've studied human psychology as human behaviour for over 20 years now. And as part of that, I've been a researcher involved in a number of funded research projects, looking at the ways in which we can promote and help people to understand the effects of alcohol and the harms that potentially come from alcohol use. That's included consulting on national campaigns that have been developed and launched in the addictions field. I've also published extensively in the area in various different aspects of addictive behaviour and public health. I've got a particular interest in alcohol use and alcohol related harm. And a lot of the research that I have done has been looking at understanding how it is that people develop different types of drinking pattern and different relationships with alcohol. And as part of that work, I'm also deputy director of an organisation called First South Bank, and we run public health evaluations across different parts of the uk working with public health professionals to understand what the things are that work to reduce harms in various different areas of public health.

Why did you become an expert in addictive behaviour?

So my early interests in addictive behaviours really began with wanting to understand how it is that alcohol affects people's behaviour, the way that we think, the way that we behave. And one of the fascinating things about alcohol as a drug is that it affects us all in different ways, and it affects individuals in different ways at different times. A big part of the reason for that is more to do with psychology than to do with pharmacology. So the actual drug itself in most alcoholic drinks is the same. It is ethanol. The reason that it affects people differently is because of various different psychological processes. And so my interest in this area, and the reason that I began doing work in this area was to try to understand both how it is that alcohol affects people and the decisions that we make and the harms that can arise from excessive use of alcohol, but probably more importantly than that, to develop ways in which we can help people to understand more about those things. So the more that people understand about the harms from alcohol, the more we're able to protect ourselves from them. Throughout my career, that's developed into a broader interest into areas such as gambling, smoking, and vaping, and different types of addictive behaviour. Because although there are lots of different types of addiction, there's a lot of commonality in the way that people develop problems with addictive behaviour, and also in terms of then their journey out of those problems. So that's been an interest of mine. And fundamentally, there's something about addiction, which is very misunderstood. There's a lot of stigma associated with addiction, far more so than most other areas of mental health. And so that stigma is something that carries with it a lot of shame for individuals that have problems with whether it's alcohol, gambling, drug use, and so on. And so really what motivates me working in this area is to try to help develop a better understanding about how it is that people can be supported to overcome problems of addictive behaviours. And I think throughout my career, hopefully have made a contribution to that.

Have you ever been addicted to something?

What is an addictive behaviour?