During young adulthood drinking to cope (DTC) motivation becomes more highly associated with drinking- related problems, and decreases in DTC motivation predict maturing out of problem drinking. The deleterious effect of DTC has been attributed to its ineffectiveness as a coping strategy, i.e., it often fails to reduce distress and hinders more adaptive emotion-regulation, thus continuing the distress-DTC cycle. Indeed, evidence indicates that high levels of daily negative affect predict DTC motivation, which in turn predicts fatigue, negative affect and stress-reactivity. However, no study to date has examined whether these daily processes change during young adulthood. We propose conducting a third wave in our ongoing NIAAA-funded ARC multi-year intensive longitudinal (daily diary) measurement burst study that has examined college drinkers in wave 1 and the heavier drinkers within the cohort 5 years later (post-college). The proposed third wave, 6 years after wave 2, will capture participants (N after attrition ? 760) in their late 20s/early 30s. Participants will complete a phone-based research interview assessing AUD symptoms. They will then complete (a) an Internet- based survey of personality and contextual factors and (b) a 30-day Internet-based daily survey of their stress, affect, drinking level, drinking motives and drinking-related problems.
Our first aim i s to examine changes across the 3 assessment waves in day-level associations among DTC motivation and its antecedents and outcomes, and whether changes in these daily processes are related to individual differences in neuroticism, impulsivity, recent life stress, adult social role attainment, 5-HTTLPR, FKBP5, and PER1, and PER2 genotypes, and AUD symptoms.
Our second aim i s to assess the perceived coping effectiveness of episode-specific instances DTC and to test whether these appraisals moderate the effect of DTC on next-day affect, self-control depletion, stress-reactivity and drinking-related problems. In the proposed wave we will assess negative urgency, i.e., the tendency to act rashly when experiencing negative emotions, and test whether it moderates the day-level associations between DTC motivation and its proximal antecedents and outcomes. Results from this study hold the promise of identifying individuals at risk for the development of AUDs in early adulthood.
