One of the most striking findings of the study was that young females were more likely to develop an alcohol use disorder if they drank regularly when alone.
According to a recent study from Carnegie Mellon University, drinking alone when a teenager or young adult significantly raises the chance of developing alcohol use disorder (AUD) later in life.
For women specifically, this risk is very high.
The findings were published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence today.
“Most young people who drink do it with others in social settings, but a substantial minority of young people are drinking alone,” says lead author Kasey Creswell.
“Solitary drinking is a unique and robust risk factor for future alcohol use disorder,” adds the author.
“Even after we account for well-known risk factors, like binge drinking, frequency of alcohol use, socioeconomic status, and gender,” the study found “a strong signal that drinking alone as a young person predicts alcohol problems in adulthood.”
Excessive alcohol consumption is a global problem, accounting for 3 million fatalities per year. Doctors often ask young people questions about how often and how much alcohol they drink to see if they are drinking too much to be safe. According to Creswell, the social setting in which young people consume alcohol is an important but sometimes disregarded predictor of future alcohol abuse.
The Monitoring the Future research is an ongoing epidemiological study of drug and alcohol use among American teenagers followed into adulthood, and Creswell collaborated with Yvonne Terry-McElrath and Megan Patrick of the University of Michigan to examine the data.
Around 4,500 18-year-olds participated in a study designed to learn more about their alcohol use habits and whether or not they drank alcohol alone.
These participants were then monitored for 17 years, providing details about their alcohol use, including information regarding drinking alone while they were young adults (ages 23 to 24), as well as reporting AUD symptoms as adults (age 35).
Results demonstrated that compared to peers who only drank in socializing, adolescents and young adults who reported drinking alone were more likely to experience symptoms of AUD as adults.
The researchers accounted for a number of well-established early risk factors for alcohol issues, such as binge drinking and heavy drinking.
They discovered that young adults who drank alone had a 60% higher chance of developing AUD symptoms at age 35 than social drinkers, and that the risks were 35% higher for adolescents.
Adolescent females who drank alone appeared to be at a higher risk of developing adult alcohol issues.
Around 25% of teenagers and 40% of young adults admitted to drinking alone. These results imply that focused interventions may be useful to educate and teach these populations, particularly young women, of the dangers of solo drinking in order to stop the future emergence of AUD.
Creswell and colleagues’ prior research has demonstrated that young individuals drink alone as a coping mechanism for unpleasant feelings, which is a pattern of alcohol use that has been repeatedly related to the emergence of alcohol issues. Creswell pointed out that the pandemic has increased young people’s lone drinking.
“With concurrent increases in pandemic-related depression and anxiety, we may very well see an increase in alcohol problems among the nation’s youth,” adds Creswell.
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