Drinking during the daytime (i.e., “day drinking”), defined as drinking that starts before 4:00 PM, is emerging as a high-risk behavior among college students. Prior studies show that nearly 50% of college drinkers engage in daytime drinking on about 9% of drinking days, with more frequent daytime drinking linked to higher overall consumption, increased negative consequences, and greater odds of simultaneous alcohol and cannabis use. Despite these associations and its potential as an early warning sign for alcohol use disorder, the long-term risks of daytime drinking remain understudied. To address this gap, the present study aims to examine proximal (i.e., current day alcohol-related behaviors and risks) and distal (i.e., changes in hazardous drinking levels one year later) risks of daytime drinking in college students.
The study recruited 403 high-risk college students, from both 2-year and 4-year institutions in the Seattle metropolitan area. Participants were selected based on criteria that included frequent drinking, recent episodes of heavy episodic drinking, and the experience of negative alcohol-related consequences. Data were collected using a mobile application over a 12-month period, including an initial 21-day burst followed by three 14-day bursts at 1, 6, and 12 months. Daily surveys captured previous day’s alcohol use, including the timing of the first drink, total drinks consumed, instances of heavy episodic and high-intensity drinking, subjective intoxication, and negative consequences. Hazardous drinking was assessed via the AUDIT at baseline and the 12-month follow-up. Multilevel Poisson and logistic regression models were employed for daily-level analyses, while negative binomial regression was applied for long-term outcomes, controlling for confounding variables such as cannabis and nicotine use, weekday versus weekend differences, and demographic factors.
The findings revealed that 70.2% of participants reported engaging in daytime drinking at least once, with such instances accounting for 15% of all drinking days. Regarding daily-level associations between daytime drinking days and alcohol use, students consumed approximately 31% more alcohol and experienced 2.43 times greater odds of heavy episodic drinking and 4.36 times greater odds of high-intensity drinking compared to days with solely evening consumption. Especially, among heavy episodic drinking days, the likelihood of escalating to high-intensity drinking was more than doubled when daytime drinking occurred. Additionally, daytime drinking did not directly affect subjective intoxication or negative consequences; instead, it increased alcohol consumption, which in turn indirectly amplified both subjective intoxication and negative consequences. In the distal analysis, a higher proportion of daytime drinking days significantly predicted an increase in AUDIT scores over one year, with this association being particularly pronounced among younger students and those with lower baseline AUDIT scores. These findings highlight the need for implementing comprehensive screening for daytime alcohol consumption among college students, as well as the necessity for preventive measures to mitigate associated risks.
Takeaway: Daytime drinking poses a high risk among college students by boosting daily alcohol intake and heaving drinking episodes, which in turn contributes to an escalation in long-term hazardous drinking.