Table 2.

Qualitative Themes and Representative Quotes

Representative Quotes	ID, sex
Theme 1 Students’ drinking frequency increased, while their drinking quantity decreased
Instead of like drinking a lot, like multiple drinks on the weekend, I’ll have like one drink per night. I’ll like have a beer with dinner, instead of like 4 mixed drinks before I go to a party or like at a party – so it’s definitely changed – It’s been more spaced out and more low key – I definitely haven’t been getting drunk.	1018, female
I’m doing more like one beer a night…. It’s more casual now and less with the intention of getting drunk. More like, “I have a few beers in the fridge, so I’m going to have a beer”. So it feels more distributed than the high concentration drinking nights of the semester. There is nothing really to be drinking for now I guess.	1005, male
I definitely drink a lot less now than I did before. At school, I drink as a social thing. At home, there’s no reason for me to drink. Occasionally I would have a drink with my parents, but that’s all the drinking I did.	1003, female
It’s definitely changed my drinking habits. I still will like occasionally have something to drink but it definitely was less often. Probably on a night that I’m going out, it would be about 8 or 9 drinks, but that would be spread out over a couple of hours – some at the pregame and some at the party. Whereas now it’s probably like 4 or 5.	1012, male
Theme 2: The type of alcohol students consumed changed, from hard liquor to wine and/or beer.
I’m drinking a lot less hard alcohol and more wine and beer.	1004, female
…less hard alcohol for sure. Definitely more wine and beer. I think because normally I would drink more shots of liquor and hard alcohol at like outdoor gathering functions and because those aren’t really available anymore, I just have more at home where I drink more casually, slowly, more with just like eating dinner.	1010, male
My drinking changed a little bit in terms of the type of alcohol I was using, especially since I focused more on drinking wine. I have been sort of re‐evaluating my drinking and sort of seeing what kind of substitutes I can be using for the things I was doing before, and found that wine was something I really enjoyed and so I probably had a couple of glasses every day with dinner and stuff. Before, with parties and things and going out a lot more, it was beer and hard liquor were much more common, but now it’s a lot less. Before, wine was more like for a personal moment or something that’s only saved for special occasions and beer or liquor would be a lot more common, but I think that transition from those two types of alcohol to more so wine during dinner.	1011, male
Theme 3: A main contributor to changes in drinking behavior is a decrease in in‐person social interaction and different contexts of drinking.
I like to drink when I go out dancing and so that’s definitely changed. I also think much more of my drinking at home is more like casual – I’m like making dinner and I have some wine or I’m doing homework and I have a cider. Or the other circumstance would be like being on Facetime with friends and having like a Zoom party, but I’m not…it’s much calmer and that changes. Also like the desire to be intoxicated is less. There still like is that element but because I’m alone, it’s changed.	1017, female
Now with COVID‐19, it’s sort of been similar that I drink on the weekends, but it’s a different kind of drinking because it’s with a couple of friends rather than a large group or an actual party, so it’s more relaxed. I have maybe 2 people over on the weekends now…It’s less as well definitely. Even if the time spans the same, I still have fewer drinks.	1007, male
As a first‐year at college, I would say the large majority of my drinking is social drinking. With that limited social activity, that’s not happening. That’s been the limiting agent in my drinking behavior. If I do drink [now] it’s with a meal. Then it’s 1‐2 beverages, which is not what it would be at school.	1009, male
I would say I drink a lot more at [school] just because I’m surrounded by people, like a social event where I would (a) drink more and (b) drink more heavily	1016, female
Theme 4: Another contributor to changes in drinking behavior is a change in living situation, particularly a move off campus and home with parents
I’m not comfortable drinking around my mom at least not anything past a single glass of wine so that’s definitely changed it.	1017, female
I would also drink less because there’s no big incentive to drinking at home. It’s also harder to get alcohol at home.	1002, female
I have relocated from my off‐campus apartment to my parents’ house. Only one person in my family drinks alcohol at all, so there’s really not a lot of it in the house and I didn’t bring any with me… [at school] I have alcohol on hand, I have a large bottle of vodka on hand I can pour from whenever I feel like it. But here, unless I go out and buy beer for instance, there just won’t be any…Additionally, since only one person in the house drinks there is sort of a reverse social pressure. Moralizing aside, you don’t want to be the only drunk person. And the one person in the house who drinks is very moderate, only one or two drinks with dinner. I would say my pattern has also shifted to more or less exclusively one or two beers with dinner.	1006, non‐binary female
[My parents] are fine with drinking, but obviously like they wouldn’t want me to be like super, super drunk, but they’re OK with me having a couple drinks. I still see my girlfriend, and like on weekends we’ll maybe have some wine or some mixed drinks or something but it’s usually not very much since we have to be at one of our houses, even if our parents are asleep, they could wake up so we can’t get like blasted.	1012, male

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