Retrospective Self-Reports of Sensitivity to the Effects of Alcohol: Trait-Like Stability and Concomitant Changes With Alcohol Involvement

Abstract

Objective: Lower sensitivity to the acute effects of alcohol is known to confer risk for the development of alcohol use disorder. Alcohol sensitivity, or level of response to alcohol’s subjective effects, is heritable but also can change as a result of persistent alcohol exposure (i.e., acquired tolerance). Here, we examined how changes over time in four indices of alcohol involvement affected scores on two validated, retrospective self-report measures of alcohol response—the Self-Rating of the Effects of Alcohol (SRE) form and the Alcohol Sensitivity Questionnaire (ASQ)—in a sample of emerging adult drinkers. Method: Participants (N = 173; Mage = 19.5 years; 60% assigned female at birth) completed the ASQ, SRE, and measures of alcohol use and problems at two time points separated by a median of 0.77 years (range: 0.30–2.54 years). Results: Multiple linear regression showed that increases in drinking over this period accounted for increases in SRE and ASQ scores (i.e., in reported numbers of drinks needed to experience subjective effects of alcohol). Increased drinking accounted for more variance in the number of drinks needed to experience lighter drinking versus heavier drinking effects, and increases in the number of drinks consumed per occasion had a larger effect than did changes in total numbers of drinks consumed, number of binge-drinking occasions, or drinking-related problems. Conclusions: Findings suggest that both SRE and ASQ capture some stable, trait-like variability in alcohol response as well as some state-dependent, within-person variability in alcohol response acquired through increases in alcohol involvement.