Alcohol use from adolescence to adulthood follows different, complex pathways

Adolescence is often a time of novelty seeking and risk taking, including the initiation of drinking. While heavy drinking that begins in adolescence can lead to problematic alcohol use later in life, other risk factors are also involved in trajectories of alcohol use that may develop. A study of factors predicting alcohol use and patterns of use over time has identified six distinct trajectories that concern level of alcohol use, rate of increase in use during early adolescence, and persistence of use into adulthood.

Results will be published in the March 2013 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

"Increased levels of exploration and risk taking seem to mark the transition from adolescence to adulthood," said Marieke Wichers, associate professor at Maastricht University Medical Centre as well as corresponding author for the study. "From an evolutionary point of view, this boost of explorative behaviour may be advantageous to adolescents in order to get to know the world around them and become independent. Thus, we see that that all over the world – on average – adolescents have higher levels of novelty seeking and are more risk taking that other age groups."

"Some teens begin adult behaviors ranging from sexual behavior to driving to taking their first job very early while others delay initiating these behaviors," added Victor Hesselbrock, professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. "Novelty seeking is likely one of several personality factors that may influence the timing of the initiation of drinking behaviors. Many do consider teenage drinking a 'rite of passage,' given the ubiquity of the behavior across different environments and cultures."

"We tried to identify whether subgroups exist that follow similar changes in alcohol use over time," said Wichers. "This is important in order to differentiate adolescents in terms of their future course of alcohol use and identify the characteristics that may predict which course adolescents will follow."

"Most current studies of alcohol and other substance use in adolescence now use some variant of the 'developmental trajectories' approach," noted Hesselbrock. "This study is somewhat unique in that the sample size is fairly large and contains both girls and boys. Importantly, it assesses a number of relevant psychological traits and environmental factors considered either risk or protective for onset of drinking behavior. The sample also covers the age range of 15 to 36 years of age. This is important as it captures the typical age of initiation of drinking but also other drinking milestones such as first intoxication, onset of regular drinking, appearance of early drinking problems, as well as the period of time in early adulthood when drinking behaviors further diverge into different patterns."

Wichers and her colleagues obtained retrospective data from 1,560 adult male twins concerning their average monthly alcohol use, as well as risk and protective factors in their lives, through interviews and questionnaires. The age span addressed was from 15 to 36 years of age. Risk factors included parental alcohol use, poor school performance, and specific personality traits. Protective factors included religiosity, parental monitoring, and social activities.