At each age, boys reported their typical quantity of drinks per occasion (6-point scale ranging from 0 to 6 or more drinks) separately for beer, wine, and hard liquor, and the maximum quantity was used. Heavy drinking was dichotomized and coded 1 if the boy typically drank 6 or more drinks per occasion of any alcoholic beverage regardless of the number of times he drank during the year. Between ages 12 and 17, we counted the number of years of heavy drinking (M = 0.81, SD = 1.23), ranging from 0 to 6. At age 24/25 we used a dichotomous measure of any heavy drinking coded 1 (34%) or 0 for none.
