Importantly, our results indicated that with the presence of AD, the association between positive reinforcement and alcohol consumption remained similar, whereas the association between negative reinforcement and alcohol consumption increased. That is, positive reinforcement is important in the association with alcohol consumption regardless of the status of AD. In addition, negative reinforcement becomes increasingly important in the presence of AD. This result provided initial support for the proposition of the multistage model of addiction regarding the increasing salience of negative reinforcement as individuals progress from earlier to later stages of addiction. We note that mean levels of negative reinforcement remained stable among individuals who did not develop AD in our sample, indicating that the change in negative reinforcement associated with alcohol consumption as a function of AD was not confounded by a general developmental change in negative reinforcement as a function of age. This finding extends the extant literature on the potential differential importance of positive and negative reinforcement across alcohol use outcomes by providing empirical evidence of within-individual change in the relationship between negative reinforcement and alcohol consumption as
