The earlier you drink, the faster and harder you’re likely to fall

That’s the case with early drinking leading to alcoholism, according to the Boston University School of Health.

Drinking before age 14 increases your likelihood of later alcoholism more than 10-fold.

The researchers found that 47 percent of people who had started drinking before age 14 met criteria for alcohol dependence within 10 years, compared to 4 percent of those who started drinking at age 21. Twenty-seven percent of the men and women who started drinking before age 14 were alcohol dependent before the age of 25, compared with 4 percent of those who began drinking at 21.

Now, a reasonable counter-assumption would be that this could be a statistical, not a causal, correlation, such as depression or childhood abuse causing both the early onset of drinking and the susceptibility to alcoholism. But, not so fast>

Using statistical techniques, the researchers factored in the influence of multiple factors that could be related to early drinking and the development of alcohol dependence, such as antisocial behavior during childhood, a family history of alcoholism, depression and education level.

Even after controlling for such factors, people who started drinking early were 2.6 times more likely to have episodes of alcohol dependence lasting longer than year and nearly three times as likely to have 6 to 7 symptoms of alcohol dependence versus 3 to 5 symptoms.

So, even with factoring out other elements, the “priming” factor of early drinking has a threefold increase in causative power.

Now, unfortunately, one thing the study does not appear to address is physiological vs. psychological addiction and, to the degree they can be distinguished, whether the early drinking contributes more to the former or the latter. I’d guess the latter, given that, compared to many illicit drugs, alcohol is not hugely addictive physically.

Otherwise, based on my life experiences, this sounds pretty much spot-on.