Parental separation was a stronger predictor of sexual debut than was parental AUD, consistent with evidence that parental separation outweighs the effect of parental AUD on early use of alcohol in offspring of male twins (23), Australian twins (20) and European-American female twins (22). In an ethnically diverse sample of 12–17-year-old adolescents, age at sexual debut was significantly younger among subjects who did not live with both biological parents than among those who did (59), and 15 to 18-year old African American girls from high-poverty neighborhoods who lived with both parents were less likely than those living with single mothers to have had their sexual debut (60); neither of these studies included a measure of parental AUD. Our result showing that parental separation has a stronger effect on sexual debut than parental AUD is striking, since parental AUD is associated with increased risk for childhood adversities which themselves are associated with earlier sexual debut (61). Separated parents, like parents with AUDs, may provide less monitoring of their children, so that opportunities for substance use and risky sex are more plentiful.
