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Is consuming a sip of alcohol at a young age a predictor of future substance use or is it a benign event, especially if the sip is provided by adult family members? Investigators examined this question in a 3-year longitudinal study of alcohol initiation and progression among 1023 early adolescents (52% girls, 24% nonwhite), equally distributed among sixth, seventh, and eighth grades at study entry.
Among 561 participants who provided follow-up data at 6-month intervals through the fall of ninth grade, 29% reported having sipped alcohol (outside of religious ceremonies) by sixth grade (mean age at first sip, 7.6 years), 75% reported the sip to be beer, wine, or champagne, and 73% reported that a parent provided it. After adjusting for baseli…