A US longitudinal study of approximately 900 children with court-documented cases of childhood (0–11 years) sexual and physical abuse and neglect followed through to middle age showed that childhood maltreatment predicted the development of AD in women, but not men [21]. Moreover, in women, the pathway from childhood maltreatment to middle-aged drug use was moderated by negative risk factors [22, 23], but for men, there was no pathway from childhood maltreatment to adult drug use [23]. The ALSPAC (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children), a British, community-representative cohort study of 7,500 children followed from prebirth onward, showed that in both sexes, exposure to family adversity and SLEs in the first 3 years of life predicted hyperactivity and conduct problems at age 4, persisting until at least age 7 [24]. Some [25, 26], but not all [27] studies have shown that externalizing behavior in prepubertal children, particularly boys, predicts AUDs in early-adulthood. Therefore, by extrapolation, the ALSPAC study implies that early-life stress may predict adult AUDs.
