Of particular interest, gender differences in the association of stressful life events and substance use may be related to how stress is characterized. Our results demonstrate that past year stressful life events (e.g., combined interpersonal, job, financial, and legal stressors) increased the odds of new alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and opioid use disorders for both men and women. However, prior research from our group has demonstrated that women with a history of childhood maltreatment are more vulnerable to escalated time from first use of alcohol to alcohol dependence.44 Similarly, past year stressful life events were more strongly associated with a decreased likelihood of smoking cessation in women with a history of childhood adversity compared to men.45 Further, women were more likely to maintain smoking or relapse to smoking in response to a financial stressor compared to men.46 In the current study, exploratory analyses collapsing total past year stressful life events into four stress categories (interpersonal problems or loss, job problems or loss, financial problems, and legal- or crime-related stress) did not demonstrate a differential pattern of results from our initial analysis.
