Table 2.

Withdrawal symptoms and perceptions of drinking and drinking control

Variable	Age Group
	Younger 18–30 (N=217) M (SD) or %	Middle-Aged 31–50 (N=588) M (SD) or %	Older ≥51 (N=264) M (SD) or %
Withdrawal symptomsd
No	73.3	79.8	84.1
Yes, mild	19.4	13.9	13.3
Yes, moderate	6.5	4.9	2.7
Yes, severe	0.9	1.4	0.0
Level of harm drinking causes in lifea,e	5.6 (2.1)	5.1 (2.0)	4.7 (2.4)
How beneficial will reducing drinking beb	7.5 (2.1)	7.6 (2.0)	7.5 (2.1)
Level of effort:
To resist drinking when have no plan to drinkc	6.7 (2.2)	6.6 (2.3)	6.5 (2.3)
To resist drinking heavily once started drinkingc,f	7.3 (2.3)	6.7 (2.5)	6.2 (2.7)
Compared to my friends, I drink:
Less	3.7	3.1	3.4
The same amount	26.4	22.2	15.6
More	69.9	74.7	81.0

^aResponse set: 1 “It has caused absolutely no harm whatsoever” to 10 “It has caused the worst possible harm”

^bResponse set: 1 “It will not benefit my life in any way” to 10 “My quality of life will improve massively if I reduce my drinking”

^cResponse set” 1 “No effort” to 10 “Extreme effort”

^dGroups significantly different at x²(6) = 13.0, p < .05.

^eAll groups significantly different from one another. F(2, 1059) = 12.4, p < .001

^fAll groups significantly different from one another. F(2, 1058) = 12.8, p < .001