The maximum number of drinks ever consumed by mothers in a 24-hr period was associated with offspring conduct disorder diagnoses in particular and with disruptive behavior diagnoses in general. It was also associated with a variety of substance-related measures: initiation of substance use, having ever been intoxicated, breadth of substance experimentation, all by age 15, and with SUDs and offspring's own maximum drinks consumed in 24 hours, both by the time of the age-17 assessment. The characteristics associated with maternal maximum consumption are among those most consistently observed in children of alcoholics. These associations were independent of offspring gender. (There was also a replicated association with ODD in females only.) They were also independent of maternal alcohol dependence, whether a diagnosis or a symptom count. They replicated across the two age cohorts of MTFS twins. Furthermore, these findings almost exactly parallel our previous findings with respect to fathers' status on this measure of drinking density (Malone et al., 2002).
