This study examined the relationship between patterns of alcohol consumption, including problem drinking, and psychiatric disorders in the general population. The paper utilizes data on 8,116 adults age 15–64 living in households who were interviewed for the Ontario Health Survey and the Mental Health Supplement. The University of Michigan Composite International Diagnostic Interview (UM-CIDI) was administered by trained lay interviewers to generate lifetime DSM-III-R diagnoses. Unlike previous studies, the results of this study provided no evidence of a U-shaped or J-shaped curve or relationship between alcohol use and mental health. Lifetime abstainers had the lowest risks for all mental disorders examined, while former at-risk drinkers (those who had not had a drink in the previous year but at one time regularly drank more than 12 drinks a week) had the highest risks, even after adjustment for age and gender.
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