One of the most robust findings in the alcohol literature came out of an influential study by Grant and Dawson15 reporting that individuals who reported that they had first tried alcohol before the age of 15 years were 4 times more likely to have a lifetime diagnosis of alcohol dependence than individuals who reported that they had first tried alcohol after the age of 20 years. This finding has been replicated in many independent samples, using retrospective16–19 and prospective20 data. Alcohol use before 15 years of age is also found to predict other forms of adult disinhibitory psychopathology, including substance use disorders and antisocial personality disorder. Many mechanisms for this association have been proposed.
