After age 30, the incidence and prevalence of alcohol consumption generally decreases gradually with age, particularly after age 65 (Chan et al. 2007). In the 2002 NESARC, respondents ages 30–44 had a 25 percent lower prevalence of any past-year drinking compared with respondents ages 18–29. Respondents ages 45–64 and age 65 and older had a 50 percent and 68 percent, respectively, lower prevalence of any past-year drinking compared with the youngest group (Dawson et al. 2004). In the 2002 NSDUH, lifetime and past-year alcohol-use prevalence among adults age 65 and older was 78 percent and 50 percent, respectively (Moore et al. 2009). In the NESARC Wave 1 sample, the odds of past-year alcohol use were particularly low among respondents age 85 or older (odds ratio [OR] = 0.64) and ages 75–84 (OR = 0.64), compared with a reference group of 65- to 74-year-olds (Moore et al. 2009). More recently, in the 2007 NSDUH sample, 43 percent of adults age 65 and older reported past-year alcohol use (Blazer and Wu 2011). The mean number of drinks per drinking occasion also declines
