Abstract
Objective: Drinking motives predict later levels of alcohol consumption and development of alcohol dependence, but their effects on stress-related drinking are less clear. Proximity to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) on 9/11/01 was significantly associated with alcohol consumption 1 and 16weeks after 9/11/01. We investigated the relationship between drinking motives measured a decade earlier, proximity to the WTC, and drinking after 9/11/01. This event constitutes a natural experiment for studying the effects of previously measured drinking motives on alcohol consumption after fateful trauma. Methods: Adult drinkers (N=644) residing in a New Jersey county were evaluated for four drinking motives: coping with negative affect, for enjoyment, for social facilitation and social pressure. After 9/11/01, their exposure to the WTC attack and subsequent drinking were assessed. Poisson regression was used to assess the relationships between proximity to the WTC, drinking motives and post-9/11/01 drinking; models were adjusted for alcohol dependence, age, gender and race. Results: Drinking to cope with negative affect predicted alcohol consumption 1week after 9/11/01 (p=0.04) and drinking for enjoyment predicted drinking 1 and 16weeks after 9/11/01 (p=0.001 and 0.01, respectively). The associations were independent of proximity to the WTC. No interactions were observed between drinking motives, proximity to the WTC or lifetime alcohol dependence. Conclusion: Drinking motives a decade earlier predicted higher alcohol consumption after fateful trauma independently from proximity to the WTC on 9/11/01. Results suggest that drinking motives constitute a robust, enduring influence on drinking behavior, including after traumatic experiences.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1004-1010 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research |
Volume | 35 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 2011 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Alcohol
- Drinking motives
- Trauma
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Medicine (miscellaneous)
- Toxicology
- Psychiatry and Mental health