Table 3 summarizes the definitions of alcohol abuse and dependence from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Inclusion of frank alcoholism in binge samples may result in biased drinking correlates stemming from the negative consequences of alcoholism as well as binging. Alcohol dependence also can alter binge-drinking outcomes. College students who are frequent heavy episodic drinkers (5/4 or more drinks on three or more occasions in the past 2 weeks) had 19 times greater odds of being classified with alcohol dependence and 13 times greater odds of being classified with alcohol abuse compared with nonheavy episodic drinkers. The occasional episodic drinkers (heavy drinking on one or two occasions during the past 2 weeks) were found to have 4 times greater odds of dependence or abuse compared with the nonheavy episodic drinkers (Knight et al., 2002). However, earlier reports suggest that the comorbidity of binge drinking (periodic heavy drinking followed by a period of abstinence), with alcohol addiction or dependence, is not clinically supported (Levy, 1988; Levy & Kunitz, 1974).
