Romantic relationship status, stress, and maturing out of problematic drinking

The current study examined the unique influences of romantic relationship status and episodic and chronic stress associated with relationships in predicting changes in alcohol consumption and drinking motivations from college to post-college life.

Moderate to heavy college student drinkers reported their drinking level and drinking motives using an Internet-based daily diary for 30 days in college and again 5 years later. At the post-college wave, participants also completed a semi-structured phone-based interview to assess romantic relationship stress.

Multiple regression analysis indicated that chronic relationship stress and relationship dissolution stress were uniquely related to mean daily levels of post-college drinking to cope (DTC) motivation, but not to mean daily levels of enhancement motivation. Some evidence was found for the effect of relationship status, but not stress, on mean daily heavy drinking levels. We also found evidence that chronic stress moderated the effect of relationship dissolution stress, with individuals showing higher mean daily chronic stress levels displaying a stronger positive association between relationship dissolution and post-college DTC motivation.

Results are discussed in terms of how negative reinforcement processes might be an important mechanism underlying commonly found associations between romantic relationship status and problematic drinking during young adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).