How would you label your own drinking pattern overall? An evaluation of answers provided by 181 high functioning middle-aged men

The self-rating of drinking habits was compared to DSM-III-R diagnoses of a lcohol abuse and dependence in 181 men with an average age (+/- SD) of 38.7 +/- 1.91 years. Results indicate that the 150 subjects without alcohol-rel ated diagnosis (Group 1) rated themselves as 'non-problem drinker', in cate gories from 'non-drinker' to 'heavy drinker'. Among the 15 individuals with alcohol abuse (Group 2), none rated their drinking pattern as 'problem dri nker'. Two (12.5%) subjects in the group of 16 individuals with alcohol dep endence (Group 3) rated themselves as 'problem drinker', while most did not consider their drinking patterns as problematic. Within subjects who ident ified themselves as the same type of drinker (e.g. 'infrequent drinker', 'm oderate drinker', etc...), the quantity, frequency, and number of alcohol-r elated problems were higher in Groups 2 and 3, compared to Group 1. The sel f-rating of drinking habits using a single question failed to identify over 90% of the subjects diagnosed with alcohol use disorder (100% of those wit h alcohol abuse and 87.5% of those with alcohol dependence), and did not di fferentiate between levels of alcohol intake and number of alcohol-related problems for subjects who identified as a particular drinking type.