I am a lifespan-developmental addictions researcher. Although directly focused on problem drinking, my research can serve the broader purpose of understanding how all sorts of risky behaviors are reduced as individuals mature. Much of my graduate and postdoctoral research studied “maturing out” of problem drinking during young adulthood, with an emphasis on understanding family roles as influences on problem-drinking reductions. My NIH-funded K99/R00 Pathway to Independence grant (awarded May 2016) reflects an extension of my earlier research toward investigating desistance from problem drinking across the adult lifespan. An overarching objective of the K99/R00 project is to investigate differences across periods of the adult lifespan in mechanisms of problem-drinking desistance, as such insights can guide lifespan-developmentally-informed clinical and public-health interventions. Desistance mechanisms of interest in this work include family-roles (e.g., marriage, parenthood), personality maturation, "problem recognition," "effortful change," and health concerns. The award’s upcoming three-year independent (R00) phase will have a particular focus on health-related processes of problem-drinking desistance in midlife and older adulthood, facilitated by reassessments of participants from a longitudinal, multigenerational study of familial alcohol use disorder.
