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Article Excerpt
ONE OF THE MOST CONSISTENT FINDINGS in the alcohol literature is that early age at first alcohol use is significantly associated with alcohol-related problems and disorders in adulthood (Chou and Pickering, 1992; Dewit et al., 2000; Grant and Dawson, 1997; Guo et al., 2000; Hawkins et al., 1997), although there are several noteworthy exceptions (Labouvie et al., 1997; Labouvie and White, 2002; Prescott and Kendler, 1999) and wide variability in the exact age that constitutes "early" use. Thus, the first drinking experience may be a key event foretelling later patterns of drinking. Robinson (1992) argues that the first drinking experience is culturally normative and, as such, is often recounted as part of one's own history. Research and theory on memory also suggest that the first drinking experience can be a seminal or momentous occasion, because it represents a step toward autonomous identify formation (Baumrind and Moselle, 1985), an assumption of an adult social identity (Neisser and Libby, 2000), or a life transition from child to adult status (Pillemer, 2001). Therefore, not only the age of first alcohol use, but also aspects of the first experience are hypothesized to shape subsequent development into adulthood.
Some data have shown that first use of alcohol for most youth occurs with parents or family members (Porter-Serviss et al., 1994; Strycker et al., 2003), but consequences of this type of initiation have not been studied. Although it is frequently assumed that initiation to alcohol in the context of family celebrations and religious observances (e.g., in studies of Jewish families) may serve as a protective factor for later alcohol problems (Glassner, 1991), empirical studies do not support this conclusion (e.g., Flasher and Maisto, 1984).
Other empirical evidence supports the utility of examining subjective measures of the alcohol-use experience. Midanik (1999), for example, found that subjective measures were more strongly associated with dependence symptoms and problems than objective alcohol consumption measures. Jackson and colleagues (2001) differentiated college student drinkers based on reports of the number of times they felt high or lightheaded or got drunk when they used alcohol. These researchers endorsed using subjective experiences of alcohol effects, in addition to traditional quantity-frequency measures, to describe groups of drinkers. In a study of fifth, seventh, and ninth graders, self-reported positive experiences with alcohol (not necessarily during the first alcohol episode) were associated with drinking 6 months later (Goldberg et al., 2002).
Modest evidence supports that initial reaction to alcohol, at least among males, may influence the later development of problem drinking (Schuckit et al., 2005), although it is not clear whether it is a positive or negative reaction that is more predictive of risk of alcoholism. In an early study, a sample of adult males who had developed alcohol problems were more likely than college students to retrospectively report getting drunk the first time they tried alcohol (Ullman, 1962), possibly because of a heightened neurobiological sensitivity to alcohol; however, because of the retrospective design, recall bias cannot be ruled out. Conversely, studies that assess physiological responses to alcohol find that behavioral responses among sons of alcoholics are not as strong as controls' responses to alcohol (Pollack, 1992; Schuckit and Smith, 2000, 2001), possibly because of a higher degree of tolerance among those with parental history of alcoholism. However, in these studies, participants had all tried alcohol previously. To begin to understand how early reactions to alcohol influence later drinking patterns, studies are needed that capture subjective experiences as close to the first event as possible.
Interpretations of results from prior examinations of drinking experiences underscore that biogenetic and environmental influences may interact in complex ways that determine the physiological and psychological response to alcohol consumption (Crespi, 1995; Ripple and Luthar, 1996; Trim and Chassin, 2004; West and Prinz, 1987). The complexity could be observed in the first drinking episode in specific ways. For example, first drinking at a family gathering is likely to reflect social environment influences, although family history may factor into parents' decisions to allow offspring to drink at family functions. One's subjective reaction to alcohol may be influenced by a history of observing family members drink, physiological susceptibility that was informed by parents' genetic makeup, or both. As such, the extent to which family history interacts with early drinking experiences to predict developmental trajectories may help illuminate the relative contribution of socialization and genetic influences.
The purpose of this study is to examine the objective and subjective effects of the first drinking experience on the development of problem drinking and to determine whether family history of alcoholism moderates the experience. The theoretical framework for this study combines two perspectives. The first pertains to developmental psychology theories that emphasize both the timing and the experience of key transitional events on subsequent development (i.e., the age at which alcohol is first used and the subjective experience during the first drinking episode). The second perspective pertains to the role of family history in influencing the development of alcohol-use problems. Although genetic risk of alcohol abuse can be merely inferred from a family history of alcoholism, Moffitt et al. (2005) have argued that results from studies (such as the present study) may point to areas of inquiry about developmental processes that merit inclusion on the agenda of researchers working at the interface of genes and social environment.
In addition to advancing knowledge regarding the etiological consequences of the first drinking experience, the present study adds to the growing body of research on individual variation in drinking patterns. Although growth-mixture modeling and latent growth modeling are increasingly being used to understand intra-individual variations in alcohol use across the life course (Jackson and Sher, 2005; Muthen and Muthen, 2000a; White et al., 1998), most of these studies have focused on alcohol-use measures that assess quantity or frequency of alcohol consumption (or both) in the past month (e.g., Flory et al., 2004; Tucker et al., 2005) or past year (Li et al., 2002), weekly consumption (Greenbaum et al., 2005), or heavy drinking (Windle et al., 2005), rather than the development of problem drinking.
Furthermore, analyses have tended to be limited to alcohol use during adolescence (e.g., Chung et al., 2004; Hill et al., 2000; Reboussin et al., 2006; Simons-Morton and Chen, 2005), the time in the life course when initiation and experimentation with alcohol are most likely to occur, with some studies following youths to young adulthood (Flory et al., 2004; Osterle et al., 2004; Tucker et al., 2003; Windle et al., 2005). The broadest age ranges are likely to provide information about meaningful, long-term age-related changes in drinking patterns. For example, in one study, three heavy-drinking trajectories were identified for 18- to 24-year-olds, but four were identified when additional data collection expanded analysis to age 30 years (Muthen and Muthen, 2000b; Muthen and Shedden, 1999). Studies of individual variation in problem drinking are relatively rare and have focused on disparate age groups: a student sample assessed from Grades 7 through 12 (Colder et al., 2002) and men from a twin registry followed into their 40s who qualified at some point in their lives for a diagnosis of alcohol dependence (Jacob et al., 2005). The one study that used a general population sample surveyed individuals from ages 18-37 (Muth6n and Muth6n, 2000b), thereby missing development during adolescence.
Jackson and Sher (2005) provide a systematic...
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