Parental EB, operationalized as substance use problems, antisocial behavior, and/or criminal behavior, is a robust predictor of alcohol problems in their children. While some component of risk is conferred biologically – i.e., children of alcoholics inherit genetic variants that increase their own risk for AUD – prior research suggests that the environmental exposure to parental EB may also be pathogenic. For example, a previous study of Swedish adoptees indicated that individuals whose adoptive parents had a history of AUD or criminal behavior were more likely to develop AUD themselves (11). The effect size of an adoptive parent’s AUD was similar to that of a biological parent’s AUD, suggesting an important role for social modeling of antisocial behavior and substance use disorders. The environmental aspect of risk, unlike that which is heritable, is potentially temporally dynamic.
