More generally, depressive and anxiety symptoms could lead to alcohol misuse via expectations about alcohol use, interpersonal skill deficits, and coping motives [4], Hussong and colleagues state that whilst internalizing symptoms might be related to a delay in the onset of alcohol use, e.g. due to social withdrawal [43] which could impact one’s access to peers who use alcohol, such symptoms do not necessarily reduce the risk of alcohol use later in adolescence and beyond [4]. Indeed, many studies have demonstrated that adolescents with current or past symptoms of depression are more likely than their peers to engage in a variety of alcohol-related behaviours such as drinking to intoxication, binge drinking and drinking without parental permission [1, 9, 34–36].
