Drinking Motives and Drinking Consequences across Days: Differences and Similarities between Moderate, Binge, and High-Intensity Drinking.

BACKGROUND

The current study examined the extent to which within-person variation in drinking motives differentiates moderate, binge, and high-intensity drinking; and independent associations of motives and drinking intensity with alcohol use consequences in a sample of young adult drinkers from across the United States.

METHODS

Participants were past 30-day drinkers in the U.S. nationally representative Monitoring the Future 12 grade sample in 2018, who also reported alcohol use during a 14-day data collection burst 1 year later (N = 484 people, mean age 19.3 [SD 0.40], 43% female; N = 1042 drinking days) as part of the Young Adult Daily Life Study in 2019. Weighted multilevel modeling estimated within- and between-person associations of drinking motives, drinking intensity (i.e., moderate [women 1-3, men 1-4 drinks], binge [women 4-7, men 5-9 drinks], and high-intensity drinking [women 8+, men 10+ drinks]), and number of positive and negative alcohol consequences.

RESULTS

On days participants reported greater enhancement and social motives, they were more likely to engage in high-intensity (vs. binge) drinking and binge (vs. moderate) drinking and experience more positive alcohol consequences. On days participants reported greater enhancement and coping motives, they experienced more negative alcohol consequences. Binge (vs. moderate) drinking on a given day was associated with more positive and negative alcohol consequences; high-intensity (vs. binge) drinking on a given day was associated with more negative alcohol consequences that day. Moderation analyses indicated that social motives were associated with high-intensity (vs. binge) drinking only among college students.

CONCLUSIONS

Stronger drinking motives on a given day were associated with drinking intensity (enhancement and social motives) and negative consequences (enhancement and coping). High-intensity (vs. binge or moderate) drinking was associated with more negative consequences but not more positive consequences. These results underscore that high-intensity drinking and consequences vary across days and time-varying, occasion-specific risks such as current motivational context are appropriate targets for intervention.