Affect and alcohol: The moderating role of episode-specific drinking motives.

Findings regarding the moderating influence of drinking motives on the association between affect and alcohol consumption have been inconsistent. The current study extended previous work on this topic by examining episode-specific coping, enhancement, conformity, and social drinking motives as moderators of the association between daytime experiences of positive and negative affect and evening social and solitary alcohol consumption. Nine hundred and six participants completed daily diary surveys measuring their daily affect and evening drinking behavior each day for 30 days during college and again 5 years later, after they had left the college environment. Results of multilevel modeling analyses suggest that the associations between affect, drinking motives, and alcohol consumption are not straightforward. Specifically, whereas daytime positive affect and non-coping drinking motives predicted greater social consumption, daytime positive affect was related to lower solitary alcohol consumption among college students who were low in state social drinking motives. In addition, coping motives were related to greater social consumption during college and greater solitary alcohol consumption after college. Future research should continue to examine these episode-specific drinking motives in addition to trait-level drinking motives.