Who Becomes Alcoholic versus Drug Dependent? Exploring Social
Answers among Diverse Young Adults
Donald A. Lloyd, Florida State University
ABSTRACT
Stress has been implicated in the development of substance dependence, possibly as a
consequence of maladaptive coping behavior. This relationship was previously examined
separately with respect to drugs and alcohol using a representative sample of nearly 1800
community residing young adults (most aged 19-21) in South Florida. The relationship between
level of lifetime exposure to adverse experiences and the initial onset of both alcohol and drug
dependence consisted of independent effects stress measured both distally and proximally. This
pattern of relationship held in the context of controls for prior psychiatric disorders, AD/HD and
conduct disorder, as well as gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status and time. While stress
was shown to be an important predictor of drug and alcohol dependence disorder, variation in
stress exposure failed to explain social group differences in either type of dependence. The
observed statistical patterns were the same for alcohol and drug dependence, but most of the
affected individuals were different people in the two analyses. This paper explores whether
finding the same pattern of relationship with respect to different substance dependencies is
redundant, or whether the largely independent manifestation of alcohol and drug dependence in
different stress-exposed individuals has sociologically significant meaning.
Prepared for presentation to the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association,
August 2005, Philadelphia PA. This work was supported by a grant from The National Institute
on Drug Abuse to R. Jay Turner, number 5 RO1 DA 10772.
Contact: Donald A. Lloyd, PhD. Center for Demography and Population Health, and Department
of Sociology, Florida State University, Tallahassee FL 32306-2240; email ## email not listed ##;
telephone (850) 644-1753.
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