Although other studies have reported the stability of consumption according to baseline categories of drinking 11, 12, 13, this is the first study of which we are aware to describe changes from a life‐course perspective as opposed to shifts during follow‐up. Analyses benefited from seven phases of observation covering almost 50 years of the adult life‐course. Although representing a geographically concentrated and occupationally narrow cohort, trajectories derived from Whitehall II data are consistent with those reported from nationally representative, UK‐based cohorts 7. This increases our confidence that trajectories stratified by baseline consumption should be generalizable to other cohorts.
