Such papers illustrate how the direction and timing of longitudinal changes to drinking behaviour throughout the adult life‐course may represent important modifiers of disease risk that are largely overlooked by contemporary research. Although the number and frequency of repeated measures reported by existing studies are variable, and no study is yet to capture drinking behaviours throughout the whole adult life‐course 7, 33, the use of repeated measures is important if differences in risk between heterogeneous consumption trajectories are to be understood more clearly and sensitive periods identified during which particular alcohol consumption behaviours may be most harmful, aiding the targeting of alcohol reduction interventions 34. To date, however, there is no consistent approach to handling such data, with some opting to restrict analyses to participant whose consumption was stable within pre‐defined limits 35, or else categorizing participants according to whether their drinking increased, decreased or remained stable over a given period of time 13. In addition, there is no clear agreement concerning the appropriate means of classifying drinkers who cease consumption prior to baseline measurement. A number of proposals have
