Subjective Responses to Alcohol in the Development and Maintenance of Alcohol Use Disorder
King and colleagues followed nearly two hundred young adult drinkers for a decade, giving each of them the same alcohol challenge at the start, at five years and at ten, alongside repeated assessment of their drinking and any symptoms of alcohol use disorder. The retention is unusually good for a study of this length, which matters for the strength of the conclusion. By the end, around one in five met the criteria for a past-year alcohol use disorder, and who they were was predictable from the first session. The people who reported the greatest stimulation, liking and wanting when they first drank in the laboratory were the most likely to have developed the disorder ten years later. The pattern also intensified: among those with the most symptoms, stimulation and wanting grew stronger across the decade rather than fading. This runs against the intuition that problem drinking comes from tolerance and diminished enjoyment, and it fits the sensitisation account of addiction this vault cites elsewhere.
King and colleagues followed nearly two hundred young adult drinkers for a decade, giving each of them the same alcohol challenge at the start, at five years and at ten, alongside repeated assessment of their drinking and any symptoms of alcohol use disorder. The retention is unusually good for a study of this length, which matters for the strength of the conclusion. By the end, around one in five met the criteria for a past-year alcohol use disorder, and who they were was predictable from the first session. The people who reported the greatest stimulation, liking and wanting when they first drank in the laboratory were the most likely to have developed the disorder ten years later. The pattern also intensified: among those with the most symptoms, stimulation and wanting grew stronger across the decade rather than fading. This runs against the intuition that problem drinking comes from tolerance and diminished enjoyment, and it fits the sensitisation account of addiction this vault cites elsewhere.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
King, A. C. et al. (2021), on increasing wanting alongside stable liking in the development of alcohol use disorder, cited in Robinson & Berridge (2025), §5.5. [WRITER: pull the primary citation from the review's reference list before publication]
Where we use it
- Wanting Is Not Liking, Why We Engage
Reliability of this reference
The link below is the right work, with one detail that does not line up. The citation carries a writer placeholder and no title. Identified as King et al. 2021. Confirm against the Robinson and Berridge reference list before publication. Worth opening before quoting a figure from it.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20030247
DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20030247