ALCOHOLGreca 1991. For a review of sociological, psycho-
logical, and biological theories of alcohol and drug
behavior see Goode 1993.)
SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS AND TRENDS
IN DRINKING BEHAVIORAge. Table 1 shows that by time of high
school graduation, the percentages of current teen-
age drinkers (still under the legal age) is quite high,
rivaling that of adults. The peak years for drinking
are the young adult years (eighteen to thirty-four),
but these are nearly equaled by students who are in
the last year of high school (seventeen to eighteen
years of age). For both men and women, the
probability that one will drink at all stays relatively
high from that time up to age thirty-five; about
eight out of ten are drinkers, two-thirds are cur-
rent drinkers, and one in twenty are daily drinkers.
The many young men and women who are in
college are even more likely to drink (Berkowitz
and Perkins 1986; Wechsler et al. 1994). Heavy
and frequent drinking peaks out in later years,
somewhat sooner for men than women. After that
the probability for both drinking and heavy drink-
ing declines noticeably, particularly among the
elderly. After the age of sixty, both the proportion
of drinkers and of frequent or heavy drinkers
decrease. Studies in the general population have
consistently found that the elderly are less likely
than younger persons to be drinkers, heavy drink-
ers, and problem drinkers (Cahalan and Cisin
1968; Fitzgerald and Mulford 1981; Meyers et al.
1981-1982; Borgatta et al. 1982; Holzer et al. 1984;
Akers 1992).
Sex. The difference is not as great as it once
was, but more men than women drink and have
higher rates of problem drinking in all age, relig-
ious, racial, social class, and ethnic groups and in
all regions and communities. Teenage boys are
more likely to drink and to drink more frequently
than girls, but the difference between male and
female percentages of current drinkers at this age
is less than it is in any older age group. Among
adults, men are three to four times more likely
than women (among the elderly as much as ten
times more likely) to be heavy drinkers and two to
three times more likely to report negative personal
and social consequences of drinking (National
Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism 1987).
Age Group Lifetime Past Year Past Month
12-17 39.7 34 20.5
High School 81.7 74.8 52.7
Seniors
18-25 83.5 75.1 58.4
26-34 88.9 74.6 60.2
35+ 87 64.1 52.8Percentages Reporting Drinking
by Age Group (1997)Table 1
SOURCE: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration 1998; University of Michigan (for high school
seniors) 1998.Social Class. The proportion of men and
women who drink is higher in the middle class and
upper class than in the lower class. The more
highly educated and the fully employed are more
likely to be current drinkers than the less educated
and unemployed. Drinking by elderly adults in-
creases as education increases, but there are either
mixed or inconsistent findings regarding the varia-
tions in drinking by occupational status, employ-
ment status, and income (Holzer 1984; Borgatta
1982; Akers and La Greca 1991).Community and Location. Rates of drinking
are higher in urban and suburban areas than in
small towns and rural areas. As the whole country
has become more urbanized the regional differ-
ences have leveled out so that, while the South
continues to have the lowest proportion of drink-
ers, there is no difference among the other regions
for both teenagers and adults. Although there are
fewer of them in the South, those who do drink
tend to drink more per person than drinkers in
other regions (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse
and Alcoholism 1998a).Race, Ethnicity, and Religion. The percent of
drinking is higher among both white males and
females than among African-American men and
women. Drinking among non-Hispanic whites is
also higher than among Hispanic whites. The pro-
portion of problem or heavy drinkers is about the
same for African Americans and white Americans
(Fishburne et al. 1980; National Institute on Drug
Abuse, 1988; National Institute on Alcohol Abuse
and Alcoholism 1998a). There may be a tendency
for blacks to fall into the two extreme categories,
heavy drinkers or abstainers (Brown and Tooley