The quality of parent-child interactions can widely vary in humans, from emotional warmth and physical affection to neglect and detachment. This impacts attachment patterns and consequently the emotional and social development of the offspring [47]. Insecure bonding, such as childhood neglect, has been linked to early alcohol initiation and alcohol misuse [47–51]. Early environmental adversity can indeed program the stress response system and imprint brain development with long-term repercussions on neuroplasticity, behavior, and vulnerability to addiction [52]. Nevertheless, not every individual exposed to environmental stressors will misuse alcohol; yet an adverse environment is likely to be a prerequisite for the penetrance of genetic risk factors [15, 52]. Therefore, both constitutional and psychosocial factors are of importance to the risk trajectory that ultimately can culminate into addiction [15].
