Associations Among Stressful Events, Social Support, and Alcohol Use in Women and Men

Recent stressors may increase the risk of alcohol misuse. However, the number and duration of recent stress, whether social support (SS) moderates these effects, and whether this differs for men and women, are unclear. This cross-sectional study examined the effects of these factors on alcohol use severity, amount, and frequency in 462 community adult women and men. Linear regression (controlling for sex, age, and education) indicated that more stressful life events and longer stress duration were associated with a greater probability of any alcohol use and greater alcohol use severity as measured by the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT). More stressful events were associated with a greater amount of alcohol consumption. Longer stress duration also interacted with sex and SS to predict AUDIT scores, such that high SS, only for men, predicted a higher AUDIT score, but higher stress duration predicted AUDIT scores for women, regardless of SS score. More stress events with high social support predicted a greater alcohol use amount, only in men. Current findings demonstrate that significant impacts of the number and duration of recent stressors increase the risk of alcohol intake and severity. Furthermore, SS uniquely promotes drinking in men, suggesting male-specific increased alcohol risk. Future work would benefit from further disentangling whether these effects stem from certain types of SS (i.e., emotional, financial, practical) or if these effects were due to the nature of the social interactions (i.e., drinking buddies). Moreover, future work should continue to explore the multifaceted nature of stress as well as consider how sex and SS impact alcohol use.