Telescoping of landmark events associated with drinking: A gender comparison

Objective: The literature suggests that women exhibit "telescoped" developm ent of (i.e., faster progression to) alcoholism, with fewer years drinking than men. The purpose of this study was to use data gathered in the course of a large clinical trial to further examine this issue. Method: Subjects i n this retrospective study were from a pool of 1,307 men and 419 women enro lled in Project MATCH, a multisite alcohol treatment matching study. MATCH subjects were recruited from both outpatient and aftercare settings over a 2-year period. Age-of-onset for landmark events in the development of alcoh olism were determined from self-report and clinical interviews given at bas eline entry into the study. Gender differences in age-of-onset variables we re assessed within both outpatient and aftercare settings. Gender differenc es in progression times between successive landmarks were also examined. Di fferences were tested with both multivariate and univariate ANOVA technique s. Results: Women generally began getting drunk regularly at a later averag e age than men (26.6 versus 22.7 years, p less than or equal to .001), bega n experiencing their first drinking problems at a later average age than me n (27.5 versus 25.0 years, p less than or equal to .001) and exhibited loss of control over their drinking at a later average age than men (29.8 versu s 27.2 years, p less than or equal to .001). However, these gender differen ces were most pronounced for older individuals and attenuated for younger s ubjects. Women also progressed faster than men, on average, between first g etting drunk regularly and first encountering drinking problems (0.9 versus 2.3 years, p less than or equal to .001) and between first loss of drinkin g control and onset of worst drinking problems (5.5 versus 7.8 years, p les s than or equal to .001). Women also exhibited shorter average progression times between first getting drunk regularly and first seeking treatment(11. 6 versus 15.8 years, p less than or equal to .001), although this effect wa s negligible for younger subjects. Conclusions: Telescoping is a relatively robust phenomenon in treatment-seeking alcoholics and indicates that women are more likely to progress faster through the landmark events in the deve lopment of alcoholism than are men.