How would you label your own drinking pattern overall? An evaluation of answers provided by 181 high functioning middle-aged men.

The self-rating of drinking habits was compared to DSM-III-R diagnoses of alcohol abuse and dependence in 181 men with an average age (+/- SD) of 38.7 +/- 1.91 years. Results indicate that the 150 subjects without alcohol-related diagnosis (Group 1) rated themselves as 'non-problem drinker', in categories from 'non-drinker' to 'heavy drinker'. Among the 15 individuals with alcohol abuse (Group 2), none rated their drinking pattern as 'problem drinker'. Two (12.5%) subjects in the group of 16 individuals with alcohol dependence (Group 3) rated themselves as 'problem drinker', while most did not consider their drinking patterns as problematic. Within subjects who identified themselves as the same type of drinker (e.g. 'infrequent drinker', 'moderate drinker', etc ...), the quantity, frequency, and number of alcohol-related problems were higher in Groups 2 and 3, compared to Group 1. The self-rating of drinking habits using a single question failed to identify over 90% of the subjects diagnosed with alcohol use disorder (100% of those with alcohol abuse and 87.5% of those with alcohol dependence), and did not differentiate between levels of alcohol intake and number of alcohol-related problems for subjects who identified as a particular drinking type.