Drinking During Adolescence

For many people, experience with drinking alcohol begins in adolescence. Yet for some youth, such early experimentation can spiral into problematic drinking patterns. Research has associated a variety of serious health risks with adolescent drinking, including the three leading causes of death among this age group (i.e., unintentional injuries, homicide, and suicide) as well as unsafe sexual behavior. Although alcohol abuse and dependence are not often clinically diagnosed among youth of high school age and younger, it is possible that applying adult diagnostic criteria does not fully capture the extent of adolescent problem drinking. Risk factors for adolescent drinking encompass sociocultural factors, such as regulation of alcohol availability; parental behavior and drinking patterns; the influence and drinking habits of siblings and peers; personality traits, particularly those indicating low self-regulation; and positive beliefs about alcohol’s effects. More research is necessary, however, to distinguish the factors that can predict adolescent problem drinking from those that predict consumption in general.