Many studies on the effects of parental alcohol dependence have focused on fathers’ alcohol dependence or operationalized parental alcohol dependence broadly (e.g., having a parent with alcohol dependence or not) (e.g., Chassin et al., 2004; Elkins et al., 2004; Kachadourian et al., 2009). Thus, there is a limited understanding of the unique roles of fathers’ and mothers’ alcohol dependence in influencing adolescent outcomes. This is important to note, given that the effects of parental alcohol dependence may differ between fathers and mothers. Ohannessian and colleagues (2005), for example, found that fathers’ alcohol dependence, but not mothers’ alcohol dependence, was related to drinking behaviors among adolescents. It was also found that fathers’ and mothers’ problem drinking differentially affect substance use for boys and girls such that the association between parental problem drinking and adolescent substance use was stronger in same-sex parent-adolescent dyads (e.g., mother-daughter; Ohannessian, 2012). Furthermore, some studies suggest that fathers’ and mothers’ problem drinking may influence adolescents’ substance use and externalizing problems via different mediating pathways (Finan et al., 2015; Shorey et al., 2013).
