The presentation focuses on women's drinking problems, early relations, their mood states and expectancies as important factors influencing individual patterns of drinking. The objective is two-fold: (1) to investigate states of mood and expectancies preceding a typical drinking occasion; and (2) to study possible connections between mood state, expectancies, and relation to parents versus drinking patterns.

The population consists of 50 female alcohol patients from a Swedish clinic for women with alcohol dependence problems. Semi-structured interviews were conducted. A mixed method design was used to treat qualitative interview-data and quantitative data from questionnaires and medical journals.

Four out of five patients were children of parents with dependence problems. Moods were described by patients as mostly negative states, and expectancies showed a preference for escaping from a stressful situation or for enhancing one's own experience. About 60 % of the patients reported negative family relations, pointing to deficient parental modeling.

Sweden represents a non-traditional culture with multiple role demands. Thus, it is proposed that coping characterized by the urge to escape from overwhelming pressures may be a risk factor for drinking problems in the present patient population. Combined analyses of quantitative and qualitative data will be presented and the discussion will focus on the need to develop treatment designs that include gender and cultural analyses.