Frequent binge drinking during the 18–25-year-olds: A risk of adulthood alcohol dependence?

Introduction Alcohol addiction in adult life is one of the most investigated long-term consequences of adolescence alcohol consumption but few studies focus on casual inferences of binge drinking behaviour in young adulthood on adulthood itself. The purpose of this study is to identify the binge drinking between 18 and 25 years as a risk factor of alcohol dependence at 25–45 years. Methods A case control study in a population of 25–45 years was carried out in France. The cases were alcohol dependent (AD) patients diagnosed by a physician and included in an hospital department of addictology. The controls were non-alcohol dependent (NAD) with the AUDIT test inferior to 8. A self-anonymous questionnaire collected at in-person interview during a medical consultation for the cases and with an online questionnaire for the control. Socio demographics data, family alcoholism history, frequency of binge drinking and occasion (with friends, family or lonely), and alcohol consumption between 18 and 25 years were collected. Binge drinking (5 or more drinks per drinking on any occasion) were classified as follows: more than twice a month as frequent, once a month or less as occasional and none binge drinking as never. Results A total of 199 adults of 25–45 years were included: 83 cases (72 males and 11 females) and 116 controls (72 males and 44 females). The mean age was 34.6 years (standard deviation: 5.1). The prevalence of the frequent binge drinking during the 18–25 years period were 75.9% in AD and 35.3% in NAD (P  Discussion A new knowledge was highlighted about the association between frequent binge drinking during the 18–25-years-old and the alcohol dependence in adulthood. Prevention and caution about binge drinking during pre-adulthood, specially the lonely binge drinking, should be implemented to avoid acute consequences as injuries and death but also long-term consequences as alcohol dependence.