What's the harm in starting early? Daily and long-term risks of daytime drinking in young adults (2025)

OBJECTIVE: There is a robust body of work demonstrating that certain drinking practices, such as pregaming or playing drinking games, are linked to heavier, riskier patterns of drinking among college students. However, less attention has been paid to other drinking practices that are relatively common among undergraduates, such as daytime drinking (i.e., drinking before 4:00 P.M.).
METHOD: Using data from an intensive longitudinal study (bursts of daily data over 12 months; 6,842 total days of data) collected from a high-risk sample of college students (N = 403), the present study tested daytime drinking as both a proximal (daily-level drinking outcomes) and distal (alcohol use disorder symptoms) risk factor for hazardous drinking.
RESULTS: Daytime drinking was reported by more than 70% of the sample and on approximately 15% of drinking days. Daily-level findings indicated that compared with non-daytime drinking days, daytime drinking days were significantly associated with more drinks consumed, more high-risk drinking practices (i.e., heavy episodic or high-intensity drinking), and greater subjective intoxication. Longitudinal analyses identified frequent daytime drinking as a risk factor for increased hazardous drinking behavior, particularly among individuals who were younger or reported lower hazardous drinking at baseline.
CONCLUSIONS: Findings add to a sparse literature supporting daytime drinking as a risky drinking practice among college students. Future work should aim to further characterize contextual and psychosocial factors associated with daytime drinking practices. [Author's abstract]