Teens More Likely to Drink If Their BFFs Do

 

Best friends might play the biggest role in influencing when teens have their first sip of alcohol, new research shows.

In the study, having pals who drank and had access to booze was the most important factor in predicting when a kid started drinking — trumping a teen's own troublemaking tendencies and family history of alcoholism.

"When you start drinking, even with kids who come from alcoholic families, they don't get their first drinks from their family," Samuel Kuperman, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the University of Iowa, said in a statement. "They get their first drinks from their friends. They have to be able to get it. If they have friends who have alcohol, then it's easier for them to have that first drink."

  

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