IMPACT OF ADOLESCENT INTERMITTENT ETHANOL EXPOSURE IN MALE AND FEMALE RATS ON SOCIAL DRINKING AND NEUROPEPTIDE GENE EXPRESSION

Background: Alcohol use during adolescence can alter maturational changes that occur in brain regions associated with social and emotional responding. Our previous studies have shown that adult male, but not female rats demonstrate social anxiety-like alterations and enhanced sensitivity to ethanol-induced social facilitation following adolescent intermittent ethanol (AIE) exposure. These consequences of AIE may influence adult social drinking in a sex-specific manner. Methods: To test effects of AIE on social drinking, male and female Sprague-Dawley rats exposed to water or ethanol [0 or 4 g/kg, intragastrically, every other day, between postnatal day (P) 25 and 45] were tested as adults (P72-83) in a social drinking paradigm (30-minute access to a 10% ethanol solution in supersac or supersac alone in groups of three same-sex littermates across two 4-day cycles separated by 4 days off). Social behavior was assessed during the last drinking session, with further assessment of oxytocin (OXT), oxytocin receptor (OXTR), vasopressin (AVP) and vasopressin receptors 1a and 1b (AVPR1a, AVPR1b) in the hypothalamus and lateral septum. Results: Males exposed to AIE consumed more ethanol than water-exposed controls during the second drinking cycle, whereas AIE did not affect supersac intake in males. AIE-exposed females consumed less ethanol and more supersac than water-exposed controls. Water-exposed females drinking ethanol showed more social investigation as well as significantly higher hypothalamic OXTR, AVP, and AVPR1b gene expression than their counterparts ingesting supersac and AIE females drinking ethanol. In males, hypothalamic AVPR1b gene expression was affected by drinking solution, with significantly higher expression evident in males drinking ethanol than those consuming supersac. Conclusions: Collectively, these findings provide new evidence regarding sex-specific effects of AIE on social drinking and suggest that the hypothalamic OXT and AVP systems are implicated in the effects of ingested ethanol on social behavior in a sex- and adolescent exposure-dependent manner.

Cultural variation in the relationship between social motives, drinking, and alcohol-related problems

College students consume alcohol based on different motivations, and past research indicates that these drinking motives can differentially predict alcohol-related consequences. However, little is known about how drinking motives and consequences operate in Latinx individuals and other ethnic minority groups. The present study examined social drinking motives and their links to drinking consequences and problematic drinking in a college sample. Participants were 106 Latinx, Asian/Asian American, and European American undergraduates. Social motives were positively and significantly linked to drinking outcomes, but these main effects were qualified by an interaction between social motives and ethnicity on drinking outcomes, such that greater social motives was significantly linked to problematic drinking and drinking consequences for European Americans, but not for Latinx or Asian/Asian American participants. Implications for theory and intervention are discussed.

Drinking Trajectories and Factors in Koreans

This study aimed to explore the drinking culture in Korea by sex, age, household type, occupation, and income level to identify demographic groups with prominent drinking behaviors and factors affecting their drinking. Furthermore, we evaluated recent changes, including those due to COVID-19, in drinking behavior, using data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study from 2010 to 2020. Panel analysis was performed to reveal the effects of material deprivation, depression, and sociodemographic factors on drinking behavior. We used the AUDIT 3 scale including frequency of drinking, average amount of drinking, and frequency of excessive drinking. The two characteristics of Korean drinking are consistent with the claim of the ecological system theory that humans, as social beings, drink to facilitate social communication or promote problematic drinking when social communication is difficult. Drinking among Koreans is characterized by a pattern that alternates between social drinking and problem drinking. Our study recognizes drinking as a social problem that should be managed at social as well as national levels.

‘Next Time You Should be More Friendly!’ The Value of Social Drinking in the Babylonian Letter BM 108890

This paper presents a first edition of the Middle Babylonian letter BM 108890. The unknown author complains bitterly about the inhospitable treatment he has received. Reflective of the author’s mood is the lack of introduction and formal greeting. Since a direct reference is made to Nippur, it is likely that this tablet originates from central Babylonia.

Cheers together, but not alone: Peer drinking moderates alcohol consumption following interpersonal stress

In view of the importance of the need to belong in motivating behavior, we examined whether interpersonal and academic stress differentially influence social and solitary alcohol consumption and whether social and solitary alcohol consumption differentially predict next-day interpersonal and academic stress. Based on research suggesting that drinking with friends is related to increased alcohol consumption following belongingness threat, we also examined whether peer consumption moderates associations between daily interpersonal stress and social drinking. Each day for 30 days, 1641 undergraduates reported stress, alcohol consumption, and peer consumption. Academic stress was related to lower levels of social and solitary alcohol consumption. Interpersonal stress was associated with greater social alcohol consumption, but only when students reported being around others who were drinking greater than average peer quantities. However, although social drinking was related to lower next-day academic stress, it was unrelated to next-day interpersonal stress. Findings are consistent with the notion that individuals’ perceptions of peers’ alcohol use might serve as a signal to join in this behavior to reduce belongingness threats associated with interpersonal stressors, although this may not be an effective strategy.

The influence of negative mood on solitary drinking preference: An experiment with young adult solitary drinkers

Solitary drinking is a risk marker for alcohol use disorder; thus, it is important to identify why individuals drink alone and for whom this association is particularly relevant. Evidence suggests the desire to ameliorate negative affect (NA) motivates solitary drinking, with some individuals particularly likely to drink alone to cope, but all past studies are cross-sectional. The present study therefore aimed to determine whether 1) experimentally induced NA increased preferences to drink alcohol alone, and 2) whether the relationship between NA and choosing to drink alcohol alone was moderated by neuroticism, drinking to cope motives, and social anxiety. Current drinkers (ages 21-29) with a solitary drinking history (N=126) were randomly assigned to either NA, positive affect [PA], or no affect change (control) conditions via differing cognitive task feedback. After the mood manipulation, participants chose between drinking alcoholic or nonalcoholic beverages in one of two contexts: alone or socially. Evidence regarding effectiveness of the mood manipulation was mixed, and few chose non-alcoholic beverages in either context. Condition did not influence outcome choice. Across conditions, increases in NA and the importance placed on receiving one’s context choice were associated with solitary (versus social) alcohol preference. Neuroticism and its interaction with NA change also influenced choice; individuals high in neuroticism chose more solitary (versus social) drinking contexts while the opposite was true for those low in neuroticism, and among the latter, the preference difference was more pronounced with relatively smaller NA increases. Findings are discussed based on the existing solitary drinking literature.

Festovergrep

Youth, parties and drinking is a well-known mix. Most often it is social and fun. A sense of freedom can be present: You can do things that are prohibited in other circumstances. But sometimes things go wrong, boundaries are crossed, and someone ends up violated. This chapter explores such situations: sexual assaults that happen at parties or related to social drinking situations among youth. The aim is to understand the types of experience they represent for the victim: In what sense was the incident a violation? The empirical basis for our analysis is women’s narratives about party-related sexual assaults in their youth. The analysis points towards four main types of experience: manipulative assaults, opportunistically exploited vulnerability, situational appeal (effervescence) and scripted entrapment. These experiences are differentiated by the victim’s degree of agency in the sexual interaction and her interest in the assailant(s) or the social situation per se. We suggest that victims’ understandings of what happened to them hinge on how their experience relates to these dimensions. However, this is not the whole story. Victims’ interpretations of sexual assault situations are also impacted by their perception of the assailant’s position in the gender market: Situations involving assailants with low socio-sexual status are more often recognized as assaults.