Parental alcohol problems could directly increase risk for alcoholism through genetic influences (Prescott et al. 2006) and modeling of parent behavior (Andrews et al. 1997; Hussong et al. 1998), and/or indirectly increase risk by creating predisposing environments associated with dysfunctional family relationships and childhood maltreatment (Kilpatrick et al. 2000). Parental psychopathology and parental alcohol problems are also associated with poor parenting (Chassin et al. 1996; Berg-Nielsen et al. 2002; Lovejoy et al. 2005), potentially putting children at an increased risk for both maltreatment exposure (through direct parent to child maltreatment and/or increased exposure to other forms of maltreatment) and later development of alcoholism. Furthermore, contextual family risk factors, such as poverty, are also associated with risk for both childhood maltreatment (for a review, see Freisthler et al. 2006) and problematic drinking (Van Oers et al. 1999; Hasin et al. 2007). Taken together, these overlapping risk factors make it difficult to determine the specific effects of childhood maltreatment on alcoholism risk, and suggest that the association may reflect a shared familial vulnerability to both.
