The relation of personality to alcohol abuse/dependence in a high-risk sample

The current study had two goals. The first goal was to test the mediational role of young adult personality in the relation between parental alcoholis m and young adult alcoholism. The second was to examine the associations be tween personality and alcohol use motives and reasons to Limit drinking in order to explore possible mechanisms by which personality may influence alc ohol abuse/dependence. Multilevel modeling techniques were used to analyze data obtained from a community sample of young adult children of alcoholics and demographically matched controls. Results revealed that young adult ne uroticism and agreeableness each, in part, mediated the effect of parental alcoholism on young adult alcoholism. Moreover, individuals high in neuroti cism reported stronger coping motives to use alcohol, individuals low in ag reeableness reported stronger coping motives and weaker upbringing reasons to limit drinking, and individuals low in conscientiousness reported strong er coping and enhancement motives to use alcohol, and weaker performance re asons to limit drinking.