Stress and Binge Drinking: A Daily Process Examination of Stressor Pile-up and Socioeconomic Status in Affect Regulation.

The goal of this study was to enhance understanding of the interconnections between stress, negative mood, and alcohol use. To achieve this goal, daily diary data collected over eight consecutive nights from a nationally representative adult cohort were used to identify if: 1) both daily stress and stress pile-up were associated with increased risk of binge drinking, 2) negative affect mediated associations between stressor variables and binge drinking, and 3) associations among stress, negative affect and binge drinking were moderated by educational attainment as an indicator of socioeconomic status. Results from hierarchical linear models indicated that the odds of binge drinking was higher on days that individuals experienced more severe stressors in contrast to no stress days. Further, the odds of binge drinking also increased as stressors piled-up over consecutive days. There was no evidence indicating that negative affect mediated the effect of stressor exposure on binge drinking. Associations between stressor exposure (both daily stress and stress pile-up) and binge drinking were moderated by educational attainment. The findings of this study are consistent with previous daily process studies examining the association between stress and alcohol. However, the pattern of results from this study suggest that affect regulation researchers need to handle "stress" in a multidimensional way and better situate stressors and individuals stress responses within their social context.