{"doi":"10.1016/j.abrep.2022.100448","title":"Does loneliness before the age of twelve indirectly affect impaired control over drinking, alcohol use, and problems through perceived stress?","abstract":"Loneliness is the pain of feeling socially isolated from others (Russell et al., 1980). The Stress-Dampening Hypothesis (Marlatt, 1987; Sayette, 1993; Sher, 1987) posits that individuals drink to alleviate negative affect. To date, it has not been determined whether loneliness experienced as a child can indirectly influence at-risk patterns of alcohol use through the mediating mechanism of stress and impaired control. Impaired control over alcohol use (IC) is the difficulty adhering to one’s own self-proscribed limits on drinking behaviors (Heather et al., 1993). Impaired control is an at-risk pattern of use that is particularly relevant to emerging adults. Methods: We examined the direct and indirect relationships between childhood loneliness, stress, IC, and alcohol-related problems with a structural equation model. In a college student sample, we utilized a (k = 20,000) bootstrap technique and a model indirect command in Mplus to examine potential mediational pathways. Cisgender sex was included as a covariate. Results: Loneliness was directly linked to stress as well as to alcohol-related problems. Higher levels of loneliness were indirectly linked to both more alcohol use and alcohol-related problems through more stress and in turn, more impaired control over drinking. Conclusions: The current study is consistent with the Stress Dampening Hypothesis (Marlatt, 1987; Sayette, 1993; Sher, 1987). Our findings suggest that therapeutic interventions combating loneliness in childhood may disrupt the stress-dampening pathway to dysregulated alcohol use in emerging adulthood.","journal":"Addictive Behaviors Reports","year":2022,"id":266607,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":9,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9502,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":446938,"name":"Julie A. Patock‐Peckham","orcid":"0000-0003-4897-1271","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":926725,"name":"Kiana J. Guarino","orcid":"0000-0003-0172-381X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":926726,"name":"Tanvi Gupta","orcid":"0000-0002-6916-8341","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":395702,"name":"Federico Sanabria","orcid":"0000-0003-0719-6766","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":506719,"name":"Frank J. Infurna","orcid":"0000-0002-0690-9253","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":742545,"name":"S. Berberian","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":96,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:26:58.102271Z","pmid":"35875348","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}