Psychosocial and behavioral factors differentiating past drinkers and life-long abstainers.

Studies of the health effects associated with alcohol consumption often use a single non-drinker category as a referent. In this community study (N = 1,672) from Tecumseh, Michigan, past drinkers (N = 191) and life-long abstainers (N = 215) differed substantially for certain behavioral and psychosocial factors. In addition, 65 per cent of the male and 36 per cent of the female non-drinkers were past drinkers. Our findings suggest that a single non-drinking category might lead to ambiguous inferences across studies.