Temporal drinking patterns and variation in social consequences.

Temporal drinking patterns and their associated social consequences are described for a sample of US adults aged 18 years and over who drank at least 12 drinks in the preceding year and did not restrict their drinking to special occasions (n = 16086). The earliest time of day when these current regular drinkers reported usually drinking was between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m. for 1.2%, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. for 7.3%, between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. for 31.2%, and after 6 p.m. for 60.3%. Less than one-tenth (7.7%) reported any drinking (not necessarily their earliest drinking) between midnight and 6 a. m. Characteristics associated with above-average rates of both early (6 a.m.-3 p.m.) and late-night (midnight-6 a.m.) drinking included male gender, black race, low education and income and heavy quantity of ethanol intake per drinking day. Early drinking was also characteristic of the elderly and daily drinkers. Prior to adjusting for background variables and quantity and frequency of intake, early drinking was associated with a two- to nine-fold increase in the risk of alcohol-related interpersonal problems, hazardous use, job/school problems and legal problems, and late-night drinking was associated with a three- to eight-fold increase in their prevalence. After adjusting for these factors in multiple logistic regression models, early drinking was associated with a 54% increase in the odds of interpersonal problems, a 39% increase in the odds of hazardous use and a 52% increase in the odds of legal problems. The association between early drinking and job/school problems fell just short of statistical significance. After adjusting for other factors, late-night drinking retained a significant association with all of the outcomes except legal problems. The magnitude of its association was greater than that of early drinking but varied substantially (i.e. interacted) with quantity of intake, race, ethnicity and gender.