We previously found that the maximum number of drinks fathers had ever consumed in a single 24-hr period was associated with their children's risk for a number of troublesome outcomes: conduct disorder in particular and disruptive disorders in general; early substance initiation, misuse, and clinically significant problems in middle adolescence; and substance use disorders in late adolescence (Malone, McGue, & Iacono, 2002). Paternal maximum consumption thus predicted many of the problems most often observed in adolescent children of alcoholics. These are also the types of problem behaviors in adolescents that represent a highly heritable tendency toward disinhibited psychopathology (Krueger et al., 2002; Young, Stallings, Corley, Krauter, & Hewitt, 2000). Results held even after we statistically adjusted for effects of paternal alcoholism, whereas the reverse was not true, suggesting that the maximum number of drinks consumed at one time taps the liability for alcoholism more directly than a psychiatric diagnosis of alcohol dependence.
