Paths of Drinking: From Teens to Seniors

The study looks at how people’s drinking habits change from age 12 up to 65. It uses a statistical tool called Bayesian simulation and another called simulated annealing to figure out how likely it is that someone will move from one drinking level to another. The four levels are low, medium, high and very high, plus a state of no drinking and a state of alcohol dependence. Results show that the heavier you drink, the more likely you are to keep drinking or even get worse. But the chance of staying in the dependence state is only about half, so there’s a good chance people can recover.The biggest drop in drinking happens when people move back from high risk to medium, or from medium to low. The study does not include details about race, place of living or religion, so the numbers may not fit everyone. It also cannot say much about how teenagers move out of dependence because it has no data on that. Knowing these transition numbers helps doctors and schools plan programs to stop teens from drinking too much. They can also use the data to see how long an intervention will help over a person’s whole life.