Experimentation with drugs and alcohol during adolescence is considered a normal part of social development for both girls and boys. However, it is also a time during which inherent vulnerability interacts with physiological and social developmental changes that either reinforce or restrict specific behavioral patterns. Monitoring and evaluating alcohol involvement over time is therefore useful in depicting how various biological and environmental changes influence the progression of alcohol involvement from adolescence into adulthood (Chassin, Flora, & King, 2004).
