<p>“The age at which a person takes a first drink may influence genes linked to alcoholism, making the youngest drinkers the most susceptible to severe problems.”</p>
<p>…snip</p>
<p>“There seemed to be a greater genetic influence in those who took their first full drink at a younger age,” says first author Arpana Agrawal, Ph.D. “That’s very consistent with what has been predicted in the literature and in the classification of types of alcohol dependence, but we present a unique test of the hypothesis.”</p>
<p>No surprise. Even 25 years ago when I was working in the substance abuse field, previous research indicated that the earlier one’s first drink, the greater the chances that one will become alcoholic.</p>
<p>This seems to have a high chance of causation/correlation confusion…i.e., If one is someone who is going to be an alcoholic due to factors that are environmental, genetic, etc., then they are more likely to take a drink at a younger age. Its not that the first drink caused the alcoholism, but they were predisposed to do so (to some degree).</p>
<p>Was thinking the same thing as Clock26-- It may not be that earlier first drink predisposes one to alcoholism, but that predisposition to alcoholism leads one to start drinking earlier, or a third variable (such as parental behavior) causes both early consumption and later alcoholism and thus creating the correlation between the two (one which is not causal).</p>
<p>The thing about this study is that it dealt with twins who, in theory, have similar upbringing and environments.</p>
<p>…“examined previously collected data from identical and fraternal, male and female twins, using statistical methods to measure the extent to which age at first drink changed the role of heritable influences on symptoms of alcohol dependence.”</p>
<p>I know I read about a Scottish doctor who saved a premature baby by feeding it whiskey. Unfortunately, I can’t find a single article on the Web to link to, in order to prove my point, which is, of course, that people should start drinking in infancy. :)</p>
<p>I do not buy it. It is all cultural…
I grew up with wine with dinner. At some point (and I really do not remember when) my parents started to give me wine diluted with water for bigger occasions. Then it was Sunday dinners. It was absolutely normal, it was the drink I had to wash down my potatoes! I probably had my 100% wine when I was 16 or so.
To this day I HATE hard alcohol and do know my wine! I am not an alcoholic by any means, the fact that I drink it several times a week (if not daily) does not make me one.
It is all in your culture…
I will definitely have my kids drink wine (right now they are refusing due to the huge pressure coming from school about alcohol being poisonous) before they leave for college.
A glass of wine does not make you drunk neither makes you an alcoholic!!!</p>
<p>I grew up with wine with a fancy family dinner and I may drink a couple of glasses a week with friends now 50 years later. I started on the alcohol path at age 12. I believe it is cultural as well. My son grew up in a society where wine/beer consumption is normal with teens. He went to college already aware of the impact of drinking and told me he thought that the American college kids went crazy with alcohol. He had never seen anything like it. And as an aside, he said he had never seen kids speak about their parents in such a bad way. He grew up in a Mediterranean culture where family is everything and the place, as my dear parents said when visiting, the place is about 50 years behind the times. In my mind, it is connected. I am not a sociologist so I don’t know the hows and whys of it. Its not the alcohol, its the place we create in society for our teenagers.</p>
<p>*I know I read about a Scottish doctor who saved a premature baby by feeding it whiskey. *</p>
<p>I stopped premature contractions by drinking whiskey, ( or maybe it was rum- I was at my inlaws), but I have never heard of giving it to the infant- however I knew that they used to treat premature labor with an alcohol drip- I was also getting weekly progesterone shots which also relaxes smooth muscle.</p>
<p>I tend to think it is genetic predisposition but combined with environment.
I had my first drink at 15 , ( Mickey’s malt liquor, I weighed about 95 lbs, I was pretty loopy on one) and by the time I was 21, I had all but stopped drinking.</p>
<p>However, my H has more alcohol use in his family background and he had to go through treatment to stop drinking. ( I have no idea how old he was for his first drink)</p>