The Context of HIV Risk Among Drug Users and Their Sexual Partners

Alcohol Use Patterns
Table 2 shows that while alcohol use is common in the cohort, heavy
alcohol consumption (defined as more than 60 drinks/month or an
average of 2 or more drinks per day) was reported by approximately
28 percent of the men at baseline, dropped rapidly during the first year to
approximately half that level, and has continued at around 10 to
15 percent thereafter. Most of the drop in heavy alcohol use has been
reflected in a corresponding rise in the proportion of abstainers, which
has risen slowly from less than 5 percent at baseline to approximately
10 to 15 percent during recent visits. No differences in the longitudinal
patterns of alcohol use between prevalent seropositive and seronegative
men were observed, other than that seropositive men began the study
with higher rates of alcohol use, which rapidly fell to the same levels as
reported by seronegative men by visit 3 or 4.
Other Study Findings
There are at least three other studies that lend credence to the
generalizability of the patterns of NMPD use observed in the Chicago
MACS/CCS cohort of sexually active gay/bisexual men between 1984
and 1990. The most similar study in terms of time and site is the 1985
Social Issues Survey conducted by McKiman and Peterson (1989a)
among Chicago’s gay and lesbian community. In that study,
approximately 21,000 anonymous self-report questionnaires were
distributed as inserts in a gay community newsletter, at large social
events, and through a broad variety of social, religious, political, or
professional organizations serving the community. Thirty-four hundred
(16 percent) were returned, including 2,652 from men with demographic
and socioeconomic characteristics similar to the Chicago MACS/CCS
cohort at baseline. Using the same definition of heavy drinking,
McKirnan and Peterson found that among their male respondents,
13 percent were abstainers, 70 percent were moderate users, and
17 percent qualified as heavy users. Prevalence rates for the use of
marijuana (56 percent) and cocaine (23 percent) in the past year were
lower than the baseline rates (70 percent and 34 percent, respectively) and
closer to the visit 4 rates of the Chicago MACS/CCS. However, their
reported 21 percent popper use rate among men was considerably lower
than the rate reported at any time among the Chicago MACS/CCS
participants.
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