ARE MEN OR WOMEN MORE LIKELY TO STOP DRINKING BECAUSE OF ALCOHOL-PROBLEMS

Using a national population sample of adults who had ever consumed at least 12 drinks per year, men and women were compared in terms of the proportions who had stopped drinking because of alcohol problems. Overall, 24% of the male drinkers and 31% of the female drinkers had stopped drinking as of the time of interview, but men were more likely than women to have stopped drinking because of alcohol-related problems (4.3 vs 2.3%). After using survival techniques to adjust for women's greater competing risk of stopping drinking for other reasons and men's greater exposure time due to their earlier initiation of drinking, the conditional probabilities of having stopped drinking because of alcohol problems were almost identical for men and women during the first 15 years of their drinking histories. Thereafter, the conditional probabilities were 50% higher for men than for women. The observed durations of drinking history were about five years longer for men than women. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, family history of alcoholism, and patterns of alcohol consumption, there was no gender difference in the hazard of stopping drinking because of alcohol problems among persons who drank alcohol on less than a daily basis during their period of heaviest consumption. However, among daily drinkers, the hazard of stopping drinking because of alcohol problems was greater for women than men, by a factor of 1.5 to 3, depending on quantity of consumption and interval since first drink.