Drinking consequences and subsequent drinking in college students over 4 years

There is some evidence that college student drinkers may continue drinking in the face of adverse consequences. We examined 2 hypotheses: (a) that this seemingly pathological behavior is a phenomenon of university life, occurring with consistency throughout the entirety of college, and (b) that individuals accumulate these consequences over multiple semesters in college. A sample of 3,720 students from a large Midwestern university was asked to complete surveys the summer before college and every semester thereafter for 4 years. Results showed that certain drinking-related consequences (e.g., blackouts, regretted sexual experiences) consistently predicted continued frequent heavy drinking in the following semester, even after controlling for sex, race, age, and previous-semester frequent heavy drinking (range of odds ratio = 1.17 to 1.45 across semesters, p < .01). Such potent consequences may predict subsequent drinking for a number of possible reasons that may be examined and addressed as they would pertain to specific protective behavioral strategy-related and cognitive interventions. Furthermore, consequences were accumulated over multiple semesters by notable proportions of students. For example, 13.8% of students reported blacking out 5 time-points or more--describing a full half or more of their college careers. Experimental studies which aim to modify students' perceptions of norms associated with these consequences may aid in developing interventions to reduce the burden of harm to students. In the broader context, and given the prevalence of students' accumulation of consequences, future study might aim to determine how and in what ways these findings describe either pathological or normative processes.