The Impact of Drinking History on Alcohol Response

Alcohol use remains a major public health concern and economic burden. Extant literature suggests that young adulthood is a particularly high-risk developmental period for heavy drinking. Given this, it is imperative to understand possible risk and protective factors for heavy drinking and related consequences during this risky developmental period. Prior research has shown that both drinking history and alcohol response (AR) are consistent predictors of future drinking outcomes. However, it is unclear how they may work together to confer this risk. The current study aimed to fill this gap in the literature by examining how alcohol use trajectories across adolescence and early adulthood impacted relations between AR after an alcohol challenge and drinking outcomes over a 2-year period in a sample of young adult moderate to heavy drinkers. Results showed that both drinking history and AR were independently predictive of alcohol outcomes at the 6-month follow-up such that a more extensive drinking history, greater high arousal positive effects, and lesser low arousal negative effects predicted greater drinking and alcohol-related problems 6-months later. However, drinking history and AR were largely not predictive of change in drinking outcomes over time. Finally, AR did not mediate the relationship between drinking history and later alcohol-related outcomes. This is the first study to address relations among drinking history, AR, and later drinking outcomes using a longitudinal alcohol challenge design with a full account of early drinking history. Future research would benefit from inclusion of a broad range of drinkers and longer follow-up assessments to better understand the complex pathways of risk from early drinking history and AR to future drinking outcomes. Such efforts may increase the understanding of who is at greatest risk and/or would benefit most from specific intervention programs.