As a secondary analysis, we examined whether the relation between internalizing symptoms and alcohol use outcomes varied across different manifestations of internalizing symptomatology by conducting an item-level analysis. Because trajectory analyses indicated that the course of internalizing symptoms was not relevant to alcohol outcomes – only whether one had ever experienced elevated symptoms – we did not examine trajectories for each of the specific internalizing items. Rather, binary variables were derived for each (see Methods). Results, provided in Table 6, indicated that items suggestive of phobia and separation anxiety were consistently negatively associated with the four alcohol outcomes, with only one exception. Associations involved the remaining items were much less consistent.
