Heavy drinking students experience a myriad of alcohol-related negative consequences. Use of eventlevel data permits predictions to be made regarding (a) the likelihood of alcohol-related consequences occurring after specific drinking events, and (b) moderators of the association between intoxication and consequences. College students (N = 183, 64% female) completed four consecutive 7-day drinking diaries and turned them in weekly. The diaries yielded prospective event-level data on daily drinks, time spent drinking, and negative consequences related to each drinking event. Alcohol intoxication on a given day was significantly associated with increased levels of risk, although this association was moderated by average level of intoxication. Furthermore, self-control was associated with increased likelihood of negative consequences at all levels of intoxication, and self-regulation and impulsivity moderated the event-level association between daily intoxication and likelihood of negative consequences. Results suggest that self-regulation subsumes impulsivity and self-control.
KeywordsAlcohol-related consequences; Event-level analyses; daily drinking diaries; moderation effects College students report experiencing a wide range of academic, interpersonal, health, and legal consequences due to alcohol use (e.g., Presley, Meilman, & Lyerla, 1994); estimates place the number of alcohol-related deaths among college students at 1,400 per year and alcohol-related injuries at over 500,000 per year (Hingson, Heeren, Zakocs, Kopstein, & Wechsler, 2002). As such, alcohol-related problems continue to concern college administrators, alcohol researchers, and the parents of students (National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2002). Relevant foci for research on alcohol-related consequences include: (a) identification of patterns of alcohol consumption that lead to problems; and (b) risk factors that can increase the likelihood of experiencing alcohol-related consequences.The association between alcohol consumption and alcohol-related consequences can be characterized using global-or event-level data. Global measures summarize some aspect of a person's drinking as a sum or average (e.g., average drinks per drinking day), whereas eventlevel data capture details of a particular drinking event (e.g., daily quantities). Although global measures of alcohol use have considerable utility in many contexts, their use can obscure information such as frequency or variability. A similar problem exists with measures of alcohol-related consequences. Although questionnaires such as the Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index (RAPI; White & Labouvie, 1989) and the Young Adult Alcohol Problem Screening Test (YAAPST;Hurlbut & Sher, 1992) and intensity of alcohol-related consequences, they fall short in capturing the acute relation between a drinking event and consequences experienced as a result of that event.The primary strength of event-level data collection is that it provides greater flexibility in modeling the relation between consum...