Consistent with Zucker’s (2006) developmental–biopsychosocial systems formulation of alcoholism, an important empirical demonstration of a cascade model has charted a developmental sequence from family risk because of paternal alcoholism, to early childhood difficult temperamental traits (i.e., negative emotionality, reactive control, low ego resiliency), to the emergence of childhood attention problems and subsequent disruptive behavior problems, to ensuing substance abuse in adolescence (Martel et al., 2009). Support was obtained for this model, illustrating the influence of compromises in one domain unfolding to difficulties in subsequent areas of behavioral control and regulation. Of note, early risk processes coalesced to promote conduct disturbance as an important link in the cascade to adolescent substance problems.
