Changes in substance use during times of stress: college students the week before exams

A situational factor that is commonly thought to influence substance use is stress. The tension reduction theory posits that alcohol relieves stress-reactions and that most people drink alcohol in stressful situations in order to relieve stress-reactions. We conducted a naturalistic study in which we surveyed seventy-three college students' alcohol and drug use, behaviors, and emotions during a typical week and the week before final exams. As expected our subjects experienced an increase in aversive emotions during the week before exams. The simple tension reduction hypothesis predicts that these subjects' alcohol use should have increased during this time. Our data showed the opposite: subjects' alcohol use decreased during the week before exams. We hypothesized that this was due to the availability of effective alternatives for reducing anxiety. Implications for prevention were discussed.