Recruitment for the Prospective Study began in December 2004 among adolescents (age between 12 and 17 years) and young adults (age between 18 and 21 years) who were part of a current COGA family. Recruited participants had at least one parent who was interviewed in one of the previous phases of COGA. Individuals were interviewed using the Semi-Structured Assessment for the Genetics of Alcoholism (SSAGA-IV), for adults 18 years or older, and using its adolescent version (C-SSAGA-IV) for subjects under 18 years (Reich, Herjanic et al. 1982). Here we focus on responses to the item “How often did you get drunk during the last 12 months?”. Responses are grouped into 13 categories, from “NEVER” to “EVERY DAY”, and the responses were converted into numeric values by taking the midpoint of each response category. For example, the category “EVERYDAY” corresponds to 365/year, and the category “2 DAYS PER WEEK (100 – 149 DAYS)” corresponds to 124.5/year in the converted variable.
