WHAT IF AMERICANS DRANK LESS - THE POTENTIAL EFFECT ON THE PREVALENCEOF ALCOHOL-ABUSE AND DEPENDENCE

Objectives. Several advisory committees have recently recommended that alcohol consumption be limited to moderate levels. Moderate drinking has been defined generally as not more than two drinks per day for hea lthy men and not more than one drink per day for healthy, nonpregnant women. The impact of reducing alcohol consumption to within the recomm ended guidelines on the prevalence of two serious alcohol-related prob lems was examined by modeling the relationship between average daily e thanol intake and alcohol abuse and dependence. Methods. The recommend ed drinking guidelines, both in their existing form and modified by a measure of impairment, were applied to the observed distribution of co nsumption derived from a large representative survey of the US general population. Results. The results demonstrated that restricting drinki ng to the maximum allowable levels under the existing and the modified guide lines would reduce the prevalence of alcohol abuse and dependen ce by 14.2% and 47.1%, respectively, in the adult US general populatio n. Conclusions. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the validity of the assumptions underlying the models and the natur e and direction of future research that would form the basis of newly developed guidelines for safe drinking limits.