heavy drinking in the general population (Kerr and Greenfield, 2007): no or very low heavy drinking (40% of the sample), low (30%), moderate (20%), and high (10%). Table 1 shows how these four levels of the composite measure differ with respect to the three heavy drinking indicators, and prevalence of alcohol-related problems. Given the extremely low rate of problems at the “no/very low” heavy drinking level, we combined the two lowest levels (none/very low, and low) to gain greater statistical power. Among the 2,897 drinkers at the combined no/low heavy drinking level, one-fourth (24.7%) reported either 5+ drinking in a day, or drunkenness, and an additional one-fifth (19.6%) reported 3+ drinking. All further analyses were conducted using the three-level indicator of heavy drinking: none/low (n=2897), moderate (n=865), and high (n=421).
