Research suggests drinking motives and drinking context mediate the relation between social anxiety and alcohol problems. Study 1 examined coping with anxiety motives (CAM) and coping with depression motives (CDM) as distinct mediators in a self-report cross-sectional study of 263 undergraduate drinkers. CDM mediated the relation between social avoidance and alcohol problems (indirect effect = 0.07). Study 2 included drinking contexts and motives as mediators in a single model and included an additional coping with social anxiety drinking motive (CSAM) mediator in a self-report cross-sectional study of 189 undergraduate drinkers. Undergraduates with high levels of social avoidance drank for both CDM and CSAM, which in turn predicted heavy drinking in risky contexts (indirect effects = 0.09–0.16); however, drinking motives, rather than risky contexts, largely mediated the relation of social avoidance to alcohol problems (indirect effects = 0.08–0.14). Taken together, these results suggest that CDM and CSAM independently mediate the relationship between social avoidance and alcohol problems and might serve as useful intervention targets.