Three studies of substance abuse

These studies offer interesting perspectives on substance use by teens. First, Adamsons & Russell (2023) published “Longitudinal Transmission of Risk Behaviors Between Mothers, Fathers, and Adolescents” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here’s the abstract with bold:

Despite the critical need to understand the processes and predictors behind adolescent substance use and risk behaviors, research has focused primarily on individual predictors rather than family dynamics, and mothers rather than fathers. Family systems theory would suggest that children are impacted both directly by parents’ behavior (e.g., modeling risk behaviors) and indirectly by their parents’ behaviors toward one another (e.g., coparenting) and their relationships with their parents (mother–child and father–child closeness). This article investigates links between parental substance use at child age 9 and children’s substance use and delinquent behaviors at age 15, and relational mediators of these associations (coparenting, parent–child closeness). Data from 2,453 mothers, fathers, and children from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (Reichman et al., 2001) were analyzed. Fathers’ drug and alcohol use at child age 9 were not directly associated with adolescent risk behaviors at age 15, but his drug use was associated with adolescent substance use indirectly via its influence on maternal coparenting and thereafter father-child closeness. Mothers’ alcohol and drug use were both directly associated with later adolescent drug use and delinquency, and indirectly with delinquency via their associations with fathers’ coparenting and thereafter mother–child closeness. 

While this is an important study in highlighting the role of parents, the next study looks directly at the teens. Walters & Simons (2023) published “Affective Dependence, Self-regulation, and Alcohol Problems: Between- and within-person associations” in Emotion.  Here’s the abstract:

Positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) are associated with goal pursuit in addition to dysregulated behavior. Affective dependence (i.e., the correlation between PA and NA) may be a marker for good self-regulation on the one hand (weaker dependence) and poor self-regulation on the other (stronger dependence). This study sought to elucidate the role of affective dependence as a predictor of goal pursuit and alcohol problems at the within- and between-person levels. Participants were 100 college students aged 18–25 years, who drank alcohol at least moderately, and completed a 21-day ecological momentary assessment study regarding affect, academic goal pursuit, idiographic goal pursuit, alcohol use, and alcohol problems. Multilevel time series models were estimated. Consistent with hypotheses, affective dependence predicted more alcohol problems and decreased academic goal pursuit at the within-person level. Importantly, effects on academic goal pursuit included perceived achievement and progress related to academics, as well as time spent studying, an objective marker for academic engagement. Effects were significant controlling for autoregressive effects, lagged residuals of PA and NA, concurrent alcohol use, day of the week, age, gender, and trait affective dependence. Thus, this study provides robust tests of lagged within-person effects of affective dependence. The effect of affective dependence on idiographic goal pursuit was not significant, contrary to hypothesis. Affective dependence was not significantly associated with alcohol problems or goal pursuit at the between-person level. Results suggest that affective dependence is a common factor explaining problems related to alcohol use and psychological functioning more broadly. 

When teens experience high levels of both positive and negative affect (high affective dependence), they are more likely to use alcohol and have less academic interest. The third study examines cannabis use. Thompson et al. (2023) published “An Exploratory Follow-up Study of Cannabis Use and Decision-making under Various Risk Conditions within Adolescence” in Neuropsychology. Here’s the edited abstract and impact statement:

Question: Does performance on various DM tasks differentially predict escalation in cannabis use (CU) frequency, CU-related problems, and CU disorder among a predominantly Hispanic sample of adolescents? Studies examining the associations between decision-making (DM) and cannabis use (CU) often use cross-sectional, adult samples, and composite scores or single tasks to assess DM. The present study explored differential associations between tasks assessing DM under various risk conditions (i.e., ambiguous vs. explicit; gain vs. loss) and CU frequency, CU-related problems, and CU disorder (CUD) onset across a 2-year period within adolescence. Adolescents (n = 401, 90% Hispanic) aged 14–17 at baseline participated in five biannual assessments. CU frequency, CU-related problems, and CUD were assessed using the Drug Use History Questionnaire, Marijuana Problems Scale, and Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, respectively. DM was assessed using the Iowa gambling task (IGT), Game of Dice Task (GDT), and Cups Task. We used latent growth curve modeling to examine bidirectional associations between DM and escalation in CU frequency and CU-related problems, and discrete time survival analyses to determine whether baseline performance across DM tasks predicted CUD onset. Baseline performance on the GDT predicted greater escalation in CU (β = .200, p = .008) and CU-related problems (β = .388, p = .035). No other significant associations were found. DM under explicit risk may be a more salient risk factor for escalating CU and CU-related problems than DM under ambiguous risk. Deficits in executive functioning could partially explain the results. Findings suggest that neurocognitive development should inform prevention and intervention efforts focused on reducing CU. Given the exploratory nature of the present study, replication of findings is needed. 

While this is a largely Hispanic sample, the findings may be important in suggesting relationships between high risk-taking, poor executive functioning, and cannabis use. Taken together, the three studies suggest the need to talk with teens at risk for substance use disorders about substance use in family of origin, intensity of positive and negative affect, and risk-taking.