Interactions between adaptive coping and drinking to cope in predicting naturalistic drinking and drinking following a lab-based psychosocial stressor

Abstract

Using alcohol to cope (i.e., coping motivation) and general coping style both are theorized and demonstrated empirically to lead to problematic drinking. In the present study, we sought to examine whether these factors interact to predict alcohol use, both retrospectively reported and in the lab following a stressor task. Social drinkers (N=50, 50% women) received the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), and then consumed beer under the guise of a taste test. A Timeline Followback interview to assess past month alcohol use, the Drinking Motives Questionnaire (DMQ), and the COPE (to assess adaptive coping) were administered prior to the laboratory challenge. Multiple regression models were used to examine DMQ coping motives, adaptive coping, and their interaction as predictors of milliliters (mls) of beer consumed in a clinical laboratory setting. The association between coping motives and mls beer was positive at both high and low levels of adaptive coping, but at low levels of adaptive coping, this association was stronger. In contrast, there was no interaction between adaptive coping and coping motives in predicting quantity and frequency of drinking in the prior month. Findings suggest that stronger coping motives for drinking predict greater alcohol consumption following a stress provocation to a greater extent when an individual is lacking in adaptive coping strategies. As both general coping skills and coping motives for alcohol use are responsive to intervention, study of the conditions under which they exert unique and interactive effects is important.