In the current paper, we describe a developmental model that may guide the creation of prevention programs targeting younger children living with alcoholic parents. We focus this model on risk for the internalizing pathway to SUDs which may be especially salient in children of parents who evidence affective disturbance and alcoholism, either comorbidly at the individual parent level (e.g., in the form of Negative Affect Alcoholism) or as co-occurring risks within the family context (e.g., families where fathers have an AUD and mothers have a Major Depressive Disorder). Although we expect that the processes implicated here that define and explain the internalizing pathway are especially evident in COA families, we posit that these mechanisms are not limited to COA families but may occur more broadly for youth from a variety of family backgrounds.
