Findings for prediction to the alcohol outcomes in middle school indicated that the specific effects of parent and peer alcohol use alone were predictive of the intercept of both use and volume of use, and in the presence of these factors, none of the general risk factors for antisocial behavior were significant. Thus, alcohol use by members of the young adolescent’s social network was critical to the initiation of alcohol use. As hypothesized, changes in levels of peer alcohol were associated with the slope of both use and volume of use of alcohol in middle school and, in fact, were the sole positive predictors of the slopes, confirming the importance of this specific social influence on early adolescent alcohol use.
