Intensity of Daily Drinking and Its Relation to Alcohol Use Disorders.

Background: Daily drinking is an important public health concern and informative for evaluating diagnostic classification. In particular, daily binge drinkers might be considered as the prototype of some forms of alcoholism, as this drinking pattern may drive many alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms. However, daily drinking potentially captures a wide range of drinkers, including light-moderate daily drinkers who exhibit presumed control over their drinking behavior and might benefit from salutary effects on health.

Developmental emergence of alcohol use disorder symptoms and their potential as early indicators for progression to alcohol dependence in a high risk sample: a longitudinal study from childhood to early adulthood.

This study characterized developmental emergence of individual alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms, and evaluated their ability as early indicators of progression into alcohol dependence (AD), conditional upon gender, parental alcohol dependence, early onset of drinking, and level of delinquent behavior at onset. The two parameters of interest were (a) likelihood of specific AUD symptom appearance once drinking has begun, and (b) primacy of symptom appearance as an indicator of likelihood for eventual move into diagnosis. We analyzed prospective data from a community sample of high risk youth from childhood to early adulthood.