Alcohol use at Waves 5 and 6 was a latent variable with three indicators. First, teens reported the number of times they had consumed beer, wine, wine coolers, or other liquor within the past month. They also indicated their quantity of alcohol consumption by responding to the question “About how much (if at all) do you usually drink each time you drink?” on a scale ranging from (0) “I don’t drink alcohol” to (5) “More than 6 drinks.” Responses to these two items were standardized and summed to compute a quantity-frequency index. Second, teens were asked to indicate “During the past month, how many times have you had three or more drinks (beer, wine, or other liquor) in a row?” as a measure of heavy episodic drinking. To normalize the distribution, responses were categorized into (0) = “0”, (1) = “1,” and (2) = “2 or more.” Finally, teens indicated how many times in the past month they had been drunk from drinking beer, wine, wine coolers or other liquor. Responses were recoded into the three categories described above.
