Background: We can obtain important information about the treatment of addictive behaviors by understanding the underlying causes of substance abuse disorders such as anxiety sensitivity and emotion regulation strategies. The aim of our present study was to compare anxiety sensitivity and emotion regulation between substance dependent Individuals and healthy population.

Materials and methods: In this study, 120 substance abusers and 120 normal individuals were selected using purposive sampling. The groups were matched together with their demographic characteristics. The participants completed anxiety sensitivity questionnaires and emotional regulation scale. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software and descriptive statistic method of Multivariate Analysis of Variance.

Results: The results showed that substance abusers had higher anxiety sensitivity and suppression emotion regulation and also a lower reappraisal emotion regulation than normal individuals.

Conclusion: Individuals with high levels of anxiety sensitivity get extremely stressful situations by their thoughts and feelings. Also, since there is a limited attention to the sources of threat or risk, anxiety becomes chronic. Therefore, to escape from this painful emotional situation, people start to avoidant behaviors (such as drug abuse) as a mechanism to adjust and adapt to the negative emotions of life.