The authors examined performances on 24 commonly used clinical
neuropsychological tests for drug-free alcoholic men in their mid to late
30s either within 2--6 days of their last drink (N = 59) or between 14 and
31 days after their last drink (N = 20). Although mean scores were
indicative of impairment on approximately half of the tests, no
statistically significant overall difference in performance between
individuals tested at these two time periods was observed. Recent and
chronic alcohol consumption variables were found to interact with each
other and with age and education in a nonlinear fashion in predicting
neuropsychological performance. Increased consumption predicted decreased
performance even on tests whose mean scores were in the normal range.
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