This proposal requests 5-years of additional funding (beginning with Year 12 of the project) to enter the next important stage in the evaluation of 454 men. The sample was originally selected using criteria developed in the mid-1970s as part of an investigation matching 227 drinking but not alcoholic sons of alcoholic fathers with 227 controls with no known family history of alcoholism. When tested at an average age of approximately 20 years, 40% of the young men at high future risk for alcoholism but only 5% of the family history negative controls demonstrated a markedly less intense response to alcohol as measured by subjective feelings, changes in body sway, alterations in 3 hormones, and changes in several electrophysiological measures. The first stage of the follow-up carried out between 1989 and 1994 has demonstrated an impressive relationship between a lower response to alcohol at approximately age 20 and the development of alcohol abuse or dependence by age 30. At that latter time, subjects were followed up through personal interviews, reports on their problems as offered by a resource person (usually a spouse), evaluation of available public and treatment records, as well as with corroboratory blood tests of state markers of heavy drinking and urine toxicology screens. The proposed competitive renewal will incorporate a markedly expanded evaluation protocol for subjects and resource persons in order to evaluate potential mediating and moderating effects for 6 additional influences, while controlling for the potential power for the prediction of alcohol abuse or dependence offered by family history and a reduced responsivity to alcohol. The 6 domains to be evaluated as they relate to the current status and to the course of alcohol problems over the subsequent years include psychological evaluations for Behavior Undercontrol, styles of coping, levels of life stress, the strength of the social support network, expectations of alcohol reinforcement, and the levels of alcohol intake in the """"""""significant other"""""""" and peer group. A second important emphasis for the proposed work will be gathering data on the sons and daughters of the original subjects so that these children can be followed prospectively and their alcohol and other substance use patterns and problems and their mental health difficulties can be evaluated. The third major goal will be to maintain contact with the original subjects and their families in a manner that will facilitate future follow-ups as this group of men enter their 40s and beyond. Based on our results from the 10-year follow-up of these same subjects carried out between 1989 and 1994, we project cooperation from 99% of the 454 men at the time of the proposed 15-year follow-up.
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