Younger people are at greater risk for alcohol problems Younger people are both drinking and developing alcohol problems at an earlier age. People who develop alcoholism early in life have greater social and legal problems.
Women seem to be 'catching up' to men in terms of problem drinking.
Both family history and social changes play a role in who becomes alcohol dependent. A recent study looking at three different age groups that spanned two generations found that the youngest age group began regular use of alcohol at an earlier age than the other two groups. Among those individuals who were alcohol dependent, those in the youngest age group were more likely to have developed alcohol problems before the age of 25. What this means is that people are starting to drink at an earlier age and, as a direct consequence, developing alcohol problems at an earlier age. So if you can put off a person's initiation into regular drinking into their 20s or so, they're a lot less likely to develop these kinds of problems.