Background
We examined associations between parental separation during childhood and offspring alcohol involvement, adjusting for genetic and environmental risks specific to parental alcohol (AD) and ...cannabis/other illicit drug dependence (DD).
Methods
The sample consisted of 1,828 offspring of male twins from the Vietnam Era Twin (VET) Registry, who completed a telephone diagnostic interview. Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were conducted predicting onset of first use, transition from first use to first AD symptom, and transition from first use to AD diagnosis from paternal and avuncular AD and DD history, parental separation, and offspring and family background characteristics. Paternal/avuncular DD/AD was based on the DSM‐III‐R; offspring and maternal AD were based on DSM‐IV criteria.
Results
Paternal DD/AD predicted increased offspring risk for all transitions, with genetic effects suggested on rate of transitioning to AD diagnosis. Parental separation was predictive of increased risk for early alcohol use, but a reduced rate of transition to both AD symptom onset and onset of AD. No interactions between separation and familial risk (indexed by paternal or avuncular DD/AD) were found.
Conclusions
Findings highlight the contribution of both parental separation and paternal substance dependence in predicting timing of offspring alcohol initiation and problems across adolescence into early adulthood.
Recent conceptualizations frame addiction recovery as a complex process involving changes across behavioral, physical, psychological, and social domains. These broad conceptualizations can be ...difficult to apply directly to research, making detailed models of individual dimensions necessary to guide empirical work and subsequent clinical interventions. We used Kelly and Hoeppner's biaxial formulation of recovery as a basis for a detailed examination of social processes in recovery using social network approaches. We delineated how appraisal of situational risks and social network resources result in coping actions, and how repeated iterations of this process change a person's social recovery capital over time. In addition, we incorporated the experience of interpersonal trauma and structural oppression and demonstrated how the model accommodates the complex issues often encountered during recovery. We present a measurable framework that can guide empirical testing of how social processes and social recovery capital change over time during recovery. The model presented here illuminates key factors in the recovery process that have the potential to support trauma- and social-network-informed interventions. We call for research that empirically tests this model in ways that will result in practical, trauma-informed social network interventions for people in recovery.
Purpose
Discrimination is a common stressor among African Americans and may increase vulnerability to risk behaviors, such as early initiation of substance use, substance use problems, and physical ...aggression; however, few studies have examined different types of discrimination and their associations with patterns of risk behaviors. This study examines the relationship between experiences of racial and socioeconomic discrimination and risk behaviors in African-American adolescents and young adults.
Methods
We investigated associations of two discrimination types with risk behavior patterns identified with latent class analysis in a high-risk sample of African Americans (
N
= 797,
M
age
= 17.9 years, 50.2% female).
Results
Four distinct classes of risk behaviors were characterized by High Use and Aggression (10%), Moderate Use and Aggression (10%), High Alcohol (17%), and Low Use and Aggression (63%). Classes that exhibit general risk behaviors, including substance use and aggression, were significantly associated with racial and socioeconomic discrimination, even in the fully adjusted model. Relative to other classes, the High Use and Aggression class demonstrated an elevated likelihood of experiencing both racial and socioeconomic discrimination.
Conclusions
Findings support a link between racial and socioeconomic discrimination and risk behavior in African-American youth, which may be stronger for socioeconomic discrimination. Understanding the relationship between discrimination and risk behavior can inform future interventions to prevent substance misuse and conduct problems in youth. Further study is needed to elucidate the relationship between discrimination and other risk behaviors.
A multistage model of drug addiction in which individuals' motivations for use change as they develop problems is widely accepted; however, the evidence for this model comes mostly from animal work ...and cross-sectional studies. We used longitudinal data to test whether positive and negative reinforcement associated with alcohol consumption differed as a function of alcohol dependence (AD). Specifically, we tested whether (a) positive reinforcement is more strongly associated with alcohol consumption than is negative reinforcement among individuals without AD, (b) negative reinforcement is more strongly associated with AD than is positive reinforcement, and (c) in the presence of AD, the association between positive reinforcement and alcohol consumption becomes weaker, whereas the association with negative reinforcement becomes stronger. We included assessments between Ages 18 and 30 years from participants who indicated they ever had a drink (N = 2,556; 51.6% female) from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism Prospective Study. Results from generalized estimating equations indicated that positive, but not negative, reinforcement was associated with alcohol consumption among individuals without AD. Both positive and negative reinforcement were associated with AD, but the association was stronger with negative reinforcement. Results from the multilevel growth model indicated that the association between negative reinforcement and alcohol consumption became stronger with the presence of AD, whereas the association between positive reinforcement and alcohol consumption did not differ as a function of AD. We provide empirical evidence that positive and negative reinforcement are differentially associated with alcohol consumption as a function of AD.
Attempts to identify opioid users with increased risk of escalating to opioid use disorder (OUD) have had limited success. Retrospectively assessed subjective effects of initial opioid misuse were ...compared in a pilot sample of opioid misusers (nonmedical use ≤60 times lifetime) who had never met criteria for OUD (N = 14) and heroin‐addicted individuals in treatment for OUD (N = 15). Relative to opioid misusers without a lifetime OUD diagnosis, individuals with OUD reported greater euphoria and other positive emotions, activation, pruritus, and internalizing symptoms. Consistent with these findings, proxy Addiction Research Center Inventory (ARCI) Amphetamine Group, and Morphine Benzedrine Group scale mean item scores were significantly higher in those with OUD. Replication was attempted in opioid misusers with (N = 25) and without OUD (N = 25) who were assessed as part of an ongoing genetic study. We observed similar significant between‐group differences in individual subjective effect items and ARCI scale mean item scores in the replication sample. We, thus confirm findings from prior reports that retrospectively assessed subjective responses to initial opioid exposure differ significantly between opioid users who do, and do not, progress to OUD. Our report extends these findings in comparisons limited to opioid misusers. Additional research will be necessary to examine prospectively whether the assessment of subjective effects after initial use has predictive utility in the identification of individuals more likely to progress to OUD.
Subjective effects of initial opioid misuse were assessed in two samples of opioid misusers that included low‐level users who never met criteria for opioid use disorder (OUD) and heavier users with OUD. In both samples, OUD+ individuals reported greater euphoria, activation, pruritus, and internalizing symptoms (replication sample data are displayed).
•Children of mothers with multiple DUIs have elevated mortality risk through age 17.•Maternal mortality among women with multiple DUIs was not elevated until child age 6.•Referral for treatment may ...be especially effective before child age 6.
We tested variation in the timing of child and maternal mortality associated with severe maternal AUD, as represented by recurrent arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol (rDUI).
rDUI mothers (N = 1614) and Controls with no alcohol-related driving offenses (N = 109,928) who gave birth in Missouri from 2000 to 2004 were identified using vital records. Propensity score matching adjusted for birth record measures including delayed prenatal care, smoking during pregnancy, relationship with reproductive partner married/unmarried, paternity acknowledged/unacknowledged, partner DUI status from driving records, and for socioeconomic characteristics of maternal residential census tract at birth derived from census data. Survival analysis was used to test months from childbirth to child or maternal death as a function of lifetime rDUI status.
Maternal rDUIs were associated with a consistently elevated probability of child mortality from birth through child age 17 after propensity score-adjustment (Hazard Ratio HR = 1.70, 95 % CI = 1.17–2.47). Maternal mortality was not elevated, relative to Controls, until child age 6−11 (HR = 1.58, 95 % CI = 1.05−2.35) and increased again from child age 12−17 (HR = 4.12, 95 % CI = 3.04−5.86).
Severe maternal AUD, as characterized by rDUI, increases the risk for child mortality over that of Controls through age 17. Delays in rDUI maternal mortality until child age 6 may indicate a period when maternal referral for intervention to reduce harm to child and mother is likely to be especially effective.
Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified genetic markers of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in civilian and military populations. However, studies have yet to examine the ...genetics of PTSD while factoring in risk for alcohol dependence, which commonly co-occur. We examined genome-wide associations for DSM-IV PTSD among 4,978 trauma-exposed participants (31% with alcohol dependence, 50% female, 30% African ancestry) from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA). We also examined associations of polygenic risk scores (PRS) derived from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC)-PTSD Freeze 2 (N = 3533) and Million Veterans Program GWAS of PTSD (N = 5200) with PTSD and substance dependence in COGA, and moderating effects of sex and alcohol dependence. 7.3% of COGA participants met criteria for PTSD, with higher rates in females (10.1%) and those with alcohol dependence (12.3%). No independent loci met genome-wide significance in the PTSD meta-analysis of European (EA) and African ancestry (AA) participants. The PGC-PTSD PRS was associated with increased risk for PTSD (B = 0.126, p < 0.001), alcohol dependence (B = 0.231, p < 0.001), and cocaine dependence (B = 0.086, p < 0.01) in EA individuals. A significant interaction was observed, such that EA individuals with alcohol dependence and higher polygenic risk for PTSD were more likely to have PTSD (B = 0.090, p < 0.01) than those without alcohol dependence. These results further support the importance of examining substance dependence, specifically alcohol dependence, and PTSD together when investigating genetic influence on these disorders.
We tested whether aspects of the childhood/adolescent home environment mediate genetic risk for alcohol problems within families across generations. Parental relationship discord and parental divorce ...were the focal environments examined. The sample included participants of European ancestry (N = 4806, 51% female) and African ancestry (N = 1960, 52% female) from the high-risk Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism. Alcohol outcomes in the child generation included lifetime criterion counts for DSM-5 Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), lifetime maximum drinks in 24 h, age at initiation of regular drinking, and age at first alcohol intoxication. Predictors in the parent generation included relationship discord, divorce, alcohol measures parallel to those in the child generation, and polygenic scores for alcohol problems. Parental polygenic scores were partitioned into alleles that were transmitted and non-transmitted to the child. The results from structural equation models were consistent with genetic nurture effects in European ancestry families. Exposure to parental relationship discord and parental divorce mediated, in part, the transmission of genetic risk for alcohol problems from parents to children to predict earlier ages regular drinking (β
= -0.018 -0.026, -0.011) and intoxication (β
= -0.015 -0.023, -0.008), greater lifetime maximum drinks (β
= 0.006 0.002, 0.01) and more lifetime AUD criteria (β
= 0.011 0.006, 0.016). In contrast, there was no evidence that parental alleles had indirect effects on offspring alcohol outcomes via parental relationship discord or divorce in the smaller number of families of African ancestry. In conclusion, parents transmit genetic risk for alcohol problems to their children not only directly, but also indirectly via genetically influenced aspects of the home environment. Further investigation of genetic nurture in non-European samples is needed.
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