The present study addressed the question of whether time to first full drink is accelerated among youth who experience parental divorce/separation. We attempted to disentangle risk specific to parental separation/divorce from family history of alcoholism and parental drinking, which are more common in non-intact families and might confer risk for alcohol use via environmental and genetic influences (D’Onofrio et al., 2007; Zucker, 2006). In addition to testing for sex differences in the association between parental separation/divorce and drinking onset given the evidence for sex differences in drinking rates (Chen & Jacobson, 2012) and adverse outcomes of parental divorce (Huurre, Junkkari, & Aro, 2006), we aimed to identify developmental specificity in terms of timing of both parental divorce and first drink. Building on recent work by Waldron et al. (2014a; 2014b) and Grant et al. (2015), we also tested whether there were additive (or even synergistic) effects whereby risk for early initiation of alcohol use was greatest among those with both parental divorce/separation and parent drinking. In an extension of this line of research, we considered the previously unexamined role of perceived stress as potentially exacerbating risk for early initiation conferred by parental divorce/separation.
