Using a drinking motivation scale to predict degrees of problematic drinking

Much of the recent interest in the role of cognitive factors in decisions to drink has focused on alcohol beliefs and drinking motivations. In this study, male alcoholics in treatment, untreated problem drinkers and non-problem drinkers were studied using a variation of the Mulford and Miller Definitions of Alcohol Scale, which assesses personal-deficiency and social/celebratory reasons for drinking. The three groups of drinkers differed significantly on their mean level of endorsement of items comprising each drinking motivation subscale. The alcoholics scored highest on both personal-deficiency and social/celebratory reasons for drinking, followed by the problem drinkers and then non-problem drinkers. The problem drinkers and non-problem drinkers, relative to the alcoholics, rated their social/celebratory reasons for drinking stronger than their personal-deficiency reasons. A multiple discriminant analysis yielded a function which was moderately successful in classifying the alcoholics (70% correctly classified) and non-problem drinkers (67%). The problem drinkers were much more difficult to correctly classify (32% were classified as alcoholic, 49% as non-problem drinkers). The findings suggest that potentially important differences exist in drinkers' motivations to consume alcohol, motivations that vary as a function of problem drinking severity. These are results which might productively be used in assessment and treatment endeavors.