The conditional prevalence rates presented in Table 1 demonstrate salient effects for age in transitions among the stages of alcohol use. Only a few (22.8%) of the youngest users progressed to regular alcohol use, and 13.2% of this latter group developed abuse with or without dependence. By comparison, most adolescents (60.2%) 17 to 18 years old who used alcohol later reported regular alcohol use, and nearly 1 in 3 regular users (32.1%) in this age cohort met criteria for lifetime alcohol abuse with or without dependence. Regarding sex differences, male adolescents were more likely to make transitions among the stages, especially among the oldest adolescents. In addition, generally robust racial/ethnic differences were observed in the proportion of individuals making transitions from one alcohol stage to another. The percentage of individuals at each stage making transitions to the next was generally lowest for the black and other ethnic groups and was observable across all age cohorts.
