The Influence of Family and Peer on Adolescent Alcohol Addiction

Abstract

Substance abuse among adolescents is a significant concern today. Alcohol, as the most accessible addictive substance, is also the most likely to lead to adolescent alcohol consumption and eventually to the development of alcohol addiction. Alcohol addiction in adolescents can have harmful, even long-lasting effects on their psychology and physiology. Previous literatures have examined factors contributing to adolescent alcohol addiction from multiple perspectives. However, there are relatively fewer systematic reviews of family and peer influences on adolescent alcohol abuse. Therefore, this article aims to integrate the findings of previous literatures and address the impact of family and peers on adolescent alcohol consumption and alcohol addiction. Parents’ and peers’ open attitudes toward alcohol, negative peer and parent-child relationship, unhappy marital status, as well as peers’ problematic behaviors could assumably increase the likelihood of adolescent alcohol use. By discussing and analyzing two kinds of intimate relationships of adolescents, family and peers, this paper calls for social institutions to devote more attention to adolescent drinking behavior and their social relationships to prevent adolescent alcohol addiction and the harm caused by alcohol abuse. In addition, previous studies were mostly correlational cross-sectional studies, which had some limitations. Future studies could focus on longitudinal experiments and consider excluding confounding factors to obtain causal results.