The frequency of heavy episodic drinking was assessed via the item “How often did you have 5 or more [standard] drinks in a 24-hour period in the last 12 months?” in the Alcohol Use Disorder Section of the SSAGA-IV. Participants were first queried as to whether or not they ever consumed any alcoholic drinks (e.g., beer, wine, liquor, etc.) in their lifetime. A positive response was followed by additional queries regarding their alcohol use, otherwise, the interviewer skipped to the next section of the SSAGA-IV. Participants who stated they had “never had even one full drink of alcohol” at the time of the assessment were included in the analyses so that the sample more fully captured the diversity of drinking patterns and did not reflect an exclusively high-risk group. Participants were then given a card with definitions for a standard drink and asked to recall the number of days they consumed 5 or more standard drinks in a 24-hour period in the last 12-months. Their response was then converted onto a 13-point quasi-continuous scale, where higher numbers corresponded to greater
