The onset of drinking and intoxication among university students

To study the effect of the onset of drinking on subsequent alcohol use, self-administered questionnaires were completed by 856 unmarried undergraduate students from two universities in the southeastern region of the United States. The present study focuses on the 524 (61.2%) students who reported using alcohol at least occasionally. In this subsample, the strongest predictors of the extent of undergraduate intoxication are the frequency of intoxication at the onset of drinking and age at the onset. The more often an individual drinks to intoxication and the younger that individual begins to drink, the more frequently he or she will become intoxicated when a university student. Racial differences in the extent of undergraduate intoxication were also found. White students were markedly more prone to intoxication than were Black students. Sex differences, although not statistically significant, showed a tendency for drunkenness among male undergraduates to exceed that among female undergraduates. The implications of the findings for intervention and prevention strategies are discussed.