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Background: Young adults report the heaviest drinking of any age group, and many are at risk for experiencing an alcohol use disorder. Most research investigating young adult drinking has focused on single indicators of use. Using multiple dimensions of consumption, such as federal guidelines for daily/weekly drinking and engagement in drinking at twice the binge threshold (“high-intensity drinking”) to characterize drinking behavior could illuminate drinking patterns linked with harms. Objectives: We used a person-centered approach to examine latent classes of drinkers from a national sample of young adults. Further, we compared classes on college status. Methods: We used 2012-2013 data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC)-III. We included past-year drinkers aged 18-22 years (n = 2213). Latent classes were estimated based on drinking frequency, daily/weekly drinking, frequency of heavy episodic drinking (4+/5+ drinks for women/men), frequency of high-intensity drinking (8+/10+ drinks), and intoxication frequency. Results: Five latent classes were identified: Occasional, Light Drinkers (30%), Regular Drinkers (6%), Infrequent Drinkers with Occasional Binging (10%), Frequent Drinkers with Occasional Binging (22%), and High-Intensity Drinkers (32%). Although membership in the two riskiest classes were more common among college-attenders, odds of being a High-Intensity Drinker relative to the second riskiest class was not significantly different for college- and non-college-attending young adults. Conclusions/Importance: As high-intensity drinking does not appear to be a drinking pattern unique to college-attenders and non-college-attenders are less likely to mature out of heavy drinking patterns, intervention efforts are needed for this at-risk age group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Crude single-item consumption metrics, such as “binge drinking” measures, mask the complexity and heterogeneity in young people's drinking; thus limiting our understanding of young people's drinking patterns as well as how alcohol drinking is associated with violent outcomes.Objectives: The current study employed a range of consumption and contextual indicators to explore heterogeneity in young people's (16–29 years) drinking practices, giving due consideration to their social nature. It also assessed to what extent heterogeneity in drinking practices was associated with violent outcomes.Methods: Employing data from the 2006 Offending Crime and Justice Survey, three measures of alcohol consumption and nine drinking context indicators were utilized within latent class analysis to create typologies of drinking practices among current drinkers in England and Wales (n= 2711) and examine their association with violent outcomes. The validity of the typologies was also assessed on age, sex, and socio-economic status.Results: Three discernible drinking profiles were identified: “regular social drinkers” (48%), “regular pub binge drinkers” (32%), and “moderate drinkers” (20%). The “regular pub binge drinkers” were found to be more than twice as likely to commit an assault offence (odds ratio = 2.8 95% CI [1.3, 6.2]) when compared to “moderate drinkers” and “regular social drinkers” (odds ratio = 2.2 95% CI [1.4, 3.4]).Conclusions: Interventions aimed at reducing alcohol-related violence ought to give due consideration to the social context of drinking as well as levels of consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This point-of-view commentary explores a selected range of issues relevant to alcoholic beverage drinking and nondrinking patterns documented by the AMPHORA European study which, with hind-sight, limits its generalizability, with fore-sight are generally inadequately considered and documented and, with ordinary insight, are not likely to affect the ongoing and future behaviors of policy making and sustaining stakeholders whatever their sources of influence and whatever the levels and quality of evidence-informed data, information, and derived knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heat maps are presented here as an innovative technique for evaluating longitudinal drinking outcomes. The Life Transitions Study followed alcohol dependent individuals for 2.5 years during 2004--2009 in a Midwestern city ( N == 364). The TimeLine Follow-Back obtained drinking information. Heat map results were compared with those obtained using growth mixture modeling. Heat map classes differed significantly on baseline clinical and demographic indicators. Data were gathered with support from NIAAA R01AA014442. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pilot study was conducted in the Russian city Novosibirsk during 2006–2007 with 40 participants sampled from clients admitted to health services for drinking-related problems to explore surrogates for alcoholic beverage drinking using semistructured interviews. Types of surrogates consumed and reasons for their consumption were investigated. Results revealed that the most prevalent reported surrogate used was industrial spirit. The main reasons for drinking surrogates were the high affordability and physical availability of surrogates combined with the need to relieve severe withdrawal symptoms. The study limitations are described, and suggestions for future research are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]