not yet fulfill the criteria for a diagnosis of AUD (only 2 % scored above 19 on the AUDIT, the threshold for requiring referral to specialist for diagnostic evaluation and treatment); this allowed studying the early stage of the trajectory to addiction. It is indeed of utmost importance to consider early life factors and the period of young adulthood, which is a key developmental period of the brain accompanied by behavioral traits such as risk taking and novelty seeking, and psychosocial factors such as drinking for coping reasons that can predispose to alcohol misuse.
