Coping-motivated escalations in adolescent alcohol problems following early adversity.

Findings support enduring elevations in drinking risk over 6 years following disruptive family relations in early adolescence. Such risks appear to be driven by negative affect regulation mechanisms through coping-motivated drinking. Future work should assess generalizability of these findings across diverse samples and could test similar negative reinforcement mechanisms of drinking following exposure to clinically impairing traumatic experiences. Public Health Significance Statement: This study demonstrated that disruptive family relations in early adolescence are linked to greater motivation to drink to cope with negative affect up to 6 years later. Greater coping motives, in turn, were related to increases in alcohol problems over time, even when controlling for alcohol consumption. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).