Alcohol and illicit drug dependence among parents: associations with offspring externalizing disorders

Previous research indicates that alcohol and drug dependence constitute aspects of a general vulnerability to externalizing disorders that accounts for much of the parent-offspring resemblance for these and related disorders. This study examined how adolescent offspring risk for externalizing psychopathology varies with respect to parental alcoholism and illicit drug dependence.

Data from the Minnesota Twin Family Study, a community-based investigation of adolescents (age 17 years, n=1252) and their parents, were used. Lifetime diagnoses of alcohol and drug dependence (among both parents and offspring) and offspring attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, adult antisocial behavior, and nicotine dependence were assessed via structured interviews.

Parental alcohol dependence and parental drug dependence were similarly associated with increased risk for nearly all offspring disorders, with offspring of alcohol and drug-dependent parents having approximately 2-3 times the odds for developing a disorder by late adolescence compared to low-risk offspring. Compared to parental dependence on other illicit drugs, parental cannabis dependence was associated with weaker increased risk for offspring externalizing disorders.

Both parental alcohol and drug dependence are independently associated with an increased risk for a broad range of externalizing psychopathology among late-adolescent offspring.