Age of Drinking Onset, Alcohol Use Disorders, Frequent Heavy Drinking, and Unintentionally Injuring Oneself and Others After Drinking

Abstract

Delaying drinking onset may help reduce unintentional alcohol-related injuries that drinkers may inflict on themselves and others.

Drug use in college students: a 13-year trend

“…Use is initiated at the age of 16. 5 Even though alcoholrelated disorders are more prevalent among adults over 25 years old, high-risk use is more frequent among young drinkers. Such use is associated with several negative consequences and is one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality among college students.…”

Binge Drinking Intensity

“…3,4 Binge drinking also is associated with a range of health and social problems, such as motor vehicle crashes, interpersonal violence, new HIV infections and sexually transmitted infections, liver cirrhosis, cancers, stroke, and alcohol dependence. [5][6][7][8] The risk of binge drinking-related harm increases with the intensity of binge drinking (i.e., the number of drinks consumed). 9 Yet, adult binge drinkers often report drinking at levels that far exceed those used to define this pattern of alcohol consumption.…”

The usefulness of ‘age at first drink’ as a concept in alcohol research and prevention

“…Rather than being a fatal weakness, the replication of those relations using a variety of terms suggests a robust association, which has been found in cross-sectional surveys [4][5][6], in some [7][8][9][10][11] but not all [12] longitudinal studies and studies that control for genetics [13], such as studies of identical twins [14].…”