ABSTRACT
This article reports multivariate analyses of data from a 33-year prospective study of the 456 nondelinquent controls from the Gluecks' delinquency study. The data suggest that presence or absence of South European ethnicity (perhaps as a result of attitudes toward alcohol use and abuse) and the number of alcoholic relatives (perhaps more due to heredity rather than environment) accounted for most of the variance in adult alcoholism explained by childhood variables. Premorbid antisocial behavior also added significantly to the risk of alcoholism. However, an unstable family environment was a more important predictor of whether an individual loses control of alcohol at an early age and/or has multiple symptoms, than whether he has many alcoholic relatives.
