Projected alcohol demand in college students with heavy drinking

Measures of the relative reinforcing value of alcohol (i.e., alcohol demand) are associated with concurrent and future rates of alcohol use. Given that college-age young adults may fail to predict escalation of substance use, the present project explores the novel construct of projected future demand by college students who engage in heavy drinking and whether it can predict future alcohol use. During an initial session, participants completed a standard alcohol purchase task, a projected alcohol purchase task (i.e., "three months from now"), and measures of past-month alcohol consumption and associated risk. During a follow-up session 3 months later, participants completed another standard alcohol purchase task and measures of consumption and risk. We found that college students (n = 40) projected increases in demand for 3 months in the future but did not exhibit subsequent changes in demand. In addition, measures of projected future demand were associated with subsequent alcohol use. However, when baseline alcohol use and risk were included as additional predictors, projected demand was not a unique predictor of future alcohol use. The current study signals the potential of novel measures of projected demand, which when contrasted with measures of current demand, may lend predictive utility on subsequent trajectories of alcohol use.