Alcohol :: Youngest drinkers likelier to use alcohol for stress relief as adults

The younger someone starts drinking alcoholic beverages, the more likely he or she is to reach for a drink to relieve stress when older, a large new study suggests.

The steeper slope of ?stress-reactive drinking among persons who started drinking at 14 or younger is of particular concern because their base levels of drinking are already higher than those of other drinkers,? even when not experiencing stress, according to lead study author Deborah Dawson, Ph.D., of the National Institutes of Health.

The study, based on data collected in a 2001-2002 survey of nearly 27,000 past-year drinkers, appears in the January issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.