of early substance use. In households where one or both parents has an AUD, there is a greater incidence of parental separation (15, 16), childhood trauma (15, 17), and decreased parental monitoring of child behavior (18, 19), factors which have also been associated with earlier ages at first drink (1, 16, 20), first cigarette, first use of cannabis (20), and earlier age at sexual debut (21). Parental separation in particular is a potent factor related to early age at first substance use (20, 22, 23) and sexual debut (21) even after adjustment for parental AUD. While parental AUDs are associated with earlier age at initiation of alcohol use (16, 24–28), few studies examine whether they also increase risk for early use of other substances and other risky behaviors (29, 30) or adjust for the strong effect of parental separation on early initiation (20–23). In the current study, we focus on associations of parental AUDs and parental separation with substance initiation and sexual debut to (1) test the strength and independence of the associations of parental AUDs and parental separation with time to initiation of alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis use, and sexual debut, and (2) compare the strength of association of
