We then inquired “Has there ever been a period when you drank more than you have during the past 12 months?” If the answer to that is “No,” participants are skipped to the next part of the alcohol section. If the answer is “Yes,” they are asked to give us their age during their period of heaviest drinking. We then repeated the assessment of drink frequency, regular quantity, maximum quantity, and drunk frequency for a “typical month during that year when you used alcohol the most.” In our sample, 66.7% of females and 71.0% of males reported there was a period when they drank more than in the past 12 months. They reported their average age at that time was, respectively, 22.5 (5.5) and 22.2 (5.3) years. The diagnoses of lifetime AD were derived algorithmically from our interviews based on DSM-IV criteria (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).
