While research suggests that the association between stress and drinking behaviors is moderated by the specific nature of the stressor (e.g., Veenstra et al., 2006), our goal was to follow up on Dawson and colleagues’ (2007) finding that stress-reactive drinking was unique to events potentially caused by drinking. Therefore, we did not separately examine the stress-alcohol association by specific event type. Our use of a validated measure of event dependence was particularly apt for the purpose of this study. In light of these findings, future research may investigate sex, drinking motives (e.g., Young-Wolff et al., 2009), coping style (e.g., Cooper et al., 1992), psychological distress (e.g., Mulia et al., 2008), event type, and their interactions as mediators or moderators of the association among drinking onset, SLE and drinking behavior.
