Children of alcoholics are more likely to continue drug use during the transition into young adulthood, according to a report in the December 2005 Psychology of Addictive Behaviors. The effects of parental alcoholism seem to be independent of effects from other parental psychopathology.

David B. Flora, PhD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Laurie Chassin, PhD, of Arizona State University, examined the changes in drug use during the transition period from emerging adulthood into young adulthood among children of alcoholics and children of nonalcoholics. A total of 561 participants (52% male, 50% children of alcoholics) were categorized into three age-groups: 17 to 20, 21 to 24, and 25 to 30.

During the first assessment wave, lifetime DSM-III diagnoses of parental alcoholism, affective disorder, and antisocial personality disorder were determined. In each assessment wave, participants reported their use of eight types of drugs—marijuana, amphetamines, cocaine, hallucinogens, opiates, inhalants, barbiturates, and tranquilizers. Marital status was reported at waves 4 and 5.

Results indicated that men with an alcoholic parent had the highest levels of drug use (monthly use within the preceding year), which remained fairly stable during the transition into young adulthood. In comparison, unmarried male participants without an alcoholic parent decreased their drug use from three to five times in the previous year to once or twice in the preceding year during this transition. Unmarried female participants without an alcoholic parent demonstrated the lowest levels of drug use. "However, even among control participants, there was still a substantial number of individuals who actually increased their drug use during their 20s," said the researchers.

Drs. Flora and Chassin said, "[Children of alcoholics] do not typically follow the normative trend by which individuals are expected to mature out of drug use before age 30." They noted that children of alcoholics were less likely to be abstainers and more likely to increase drug use than were children of nonalcoholics.

According to the researchers, "25% of [children of alcoholics] had a parent who reported more than two lifetime drug consequences or dependence symptoms at baseline." However, they noted that "in additional analyses, these parental drug problems could not account for the parent alcoholism effects and did not significantly predict drug use trajectories. Thus, we conclude that parental alcoholism itself is a substantial risk factor for adult drug use, beyond the effects of parental drug problems."

Drs. Flora and Chassin hypothesized that "occupying an adult role, namely, marriage, would be related to drug use trajectories during the transition from emerging adulthood into young adulthood." They found that marriage predicted the amount of drug use in the 25-to-30 age-group. For example, approximately 94% of married men either remained abstinent from drugs or decreased their drug use, whereas a substantial proportion of unmarried men increased their drug use.

The researchers also found that "marriage mediated but did not moderate the relations between parental alcoholism and the rate of change in drug use during the transition into young adulthood and the level of drug use at ages 25 to 30." Children of alcoholics were less likely to be married and thus demonstrated smaller decreases in drug use, with subsequently higher levels of drug use at ages 25 to 30. Drs. Flora and Chassin noted that more research is needed to evaluate the effects of marriage on drug use among children of alcoholics during the transition into young adulthood.

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