Playing Drinking Games as a Typical Form of Prepartying among Young Adults

Abstract

Prepartying, or drinking prior to going out, and playing drinking games (DG) can increase young adults’ risk of heavy alcohol consumption. In the present study, we examined whether playing DG as a typical form of prepartying can increase alcohol consumption risk when compared with prepartying alone or with friends, and whether the type of DG played while prepartying can increase this risk. Participants consisted of young adults from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (N = 482, M age=22.56, 44.2% women, 74.3% White, 62.7% were current college students) who played a DG within the past month and completed an anonymous online survey about their prepartying and DG behaviors. Results indicated that team games (e.g. beer pong) are the most commonly played type of DG while prepartying. Controlling for alcohol use on drinking occasions when DGs were not played, gender, and college status, those who played DG as a form of prepartying (n = 163) consumed more alcohol while prepartying than those who prepartied alone or with friends. Finally, those who played card games (e.g. Kings) while prepartying also consumed more preparty drinks than those who do not typically play card games. Implications for prevention and intervention as well as future research directions are briefly discussed.