Current alcohol use and risk for hypomania in male students: generally more or more binging?

Alcohol use disorders and bipolar disorder are highly comorbid. Some studies suggest that alcohol abuse or misuse might even precede the onset of bipolar disorder, but few studies have looked at the daily drinking pattern beyond diagnostic categories. We therefore examined if risk for hypomania is associated with a specific drinking pattern when using a calendar-based interview.

A total of 120 students who completed the Hypomanic Personality Scale were independently interviewed with the FORM 90 to assess daily drinking and the Composite Diagnostic Interview to derive Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, diagnoses.

Conducting regression analyses, we found that an alcohol-related disorder was related to the amount and frequency of drinking, as expected. Risk for hypomania was specifically related to an unstable drinking pattern and binge drinking, but not generally higher consumption.

Risk for hypomania was associated with unstable alcohol consumption and binge drinking, even after controlling for alcohol-related disorders. This supports the idea that instability in different areas of behavior is characteristic of vulnerability to hypomania.