In the fully adjusted model, parental separation predicted earlier offspring alcohol initiation relative to offspring from intact families, with hazard of use increased more than threefold before age 13 and 20% from age 13 onwards. However, the effect of parental separation was reversed for both AD symptom onset and onset of AD. In final models adjusting for all covariates, parental separation was associated with a 19% and 35% reduced rate of transitioning. Simple regression analyses to clarify this finding confirmed that parental separation was associated with significantly increased lifetime risk of having at least one DSM-IV AD symptom. Given that individuals whose parents separated were much more likely to have a full drink of alcohol before age 13, this delay in transition associated with parental separation may simply reflect differences in the ease of access to alcohol and density of alcohol-using peers in early adolescence. As a consequence of limited access and opportunity to use alcohol, early drinkers may exhibit slower transitions to alcohol problems but accumulate more years at risk, yielding a higher cumulative risk of dependence. While somewhat
