Alcohol stands out as the one agent that is consistently associated with increased risk-taking, criminal activity, and aggressive or violent behavior more than many other drugs (Ensor and Godfrey 1993; Taylor and Chermack 1993; Freemantle 1993; Knight and Godfrey 1993; Seto and Barbaree 1995; Galanter 1997; Lanza-Kaduce et al 1997; Giancola et al 2003; Miczek et al 2003; Lane et al 2004). Research overwhelmingly indicates that children of alcoholics (who are more likely to develop significant alcohol problems) also develop behavioral problems more often than children of nonalcoholics. Miranda et al (2002) used an emotion-modulated startle paradigm to test the hypothesis that young adults with positive paternal history of alcoholism may have altered emotional reactivity to environmental cues. Alcohol or other substance abusers tended to have specific kinds of conduct disorder traits when they were children (eg, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, rule breaking, and poor response to discipline), and later they developed antisocial personality disorder. A lack of response to social censure and physical punishment is atypical, and there is emerging evidence that the systems embedded in the brain that
