Children With ADHD At Risk For Future Alcoholism

The April issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research has published two stories confirming what has long been suspected; children with ADHD are at an increased risk for alcohol and other substance-abuse problems as they get older.

“Children with ADHD are believed to be at risk for alcoholism because of their impulsivity and distractibility, as well as other problems that often accompany ADHD such as school failure and behavior problems,” explained Brooke Molina, author for both studies.

The first study was on “Age Specificity” and found that drinking problems usually begin around age 15. “42 percent of those children with ADHD who also had serious, persistent behavior problems [later] had alcohol abuse or dependence by the age of 18 to 25.” Molina also says.

The second study was on “Life Stress”. “One of the reasons that children with ADHD might be at risk for alcohol problems is that alcoholism and ADHD tend to run together in families,” said Molina. “We found that parental alcoholism predicted heavy problem drinking among the teenagers, that the association was partly explained by higher rates of stress in these families, and these connections were stronger when the adolescent had ADHD in childhood. So, the bottom line is that when the child has ADHD and the parent has suffered from alcoholism, either currently or in the past, the child will have an increased risk for alcohol problems himself or herself.”

Very interesting studies, but they actually don’t have me worried. Neither my husband and I are alcoholics and no one that my son knows is an alcoholic. It isn’t being modeled for him so between the lack of alcoholics and the fact that good parenting will make a difference (yes I consider myself a good parent) I think that my son won’t fall into this statistical category.

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