This study sought to (a) determine the proportion of children of alcoholics (COAs) among an African American adolescent population aged 12 to 19 (N = 649); and (b) examine the influence of and relationship between COA status, self-esteem, age, and gender on their involvement in alcohol drinking. Although 52% identified themselves as alcohol drinkers, an insignificant number of these (4.4%, or 2.3% of the sample) reported abusing alcohol. One in four were COAs; 27% of alcohol users were COAs. Age, low self-esteem, and COA status were found to be strong predictors of alcohol drinking among these youth. The hypothesis that positive self-esteem places African American youth in a position of strength to counter the adverse consequences of parental alcoholism and other debilitating circumstances was confirmed. INTRODUCTION Alcohol and Other Drug Use and Abuse Among American Youth The relationship between adolescent alcohol use and crime has been made painfully clear by a U.S. Department of Justice (1988) study of a teenage sample in long-term, stateoperated juvenile institutions in 1987. That study revealed that almost a third of the youth in this sample under the age of 18 (31.9%) were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the offense that landed them in jail or detention. More specifically, 27.3% of the murders, 30.7% of the rapes, 17.4% of other sexual assaults, 37.4% of robberies, 33.7% of assaults, and 23.0% of other violent offenses were committed while these youth were drunk. Suicides, homicides, and accidental injuries account for some 80% of U.S. adolescents' deaths, and many of these deaths involve alcohol and other drugs. Motor vehicle accidents are the leading killer of adolescents, and the majority of these accidents involve alcohol (Perry, 1996). In any given group of teenagers, the percentage who regularly drink alcohol increases steadily as they age (Hansen, 1993). Hansen further notes that a sizable proportion of young people first use alcohol during their teenage years, and many have at least tried it by the time they are in the sixth grade. There is also a considerable body of evidence which suggests that alcohol is the first drug used by most youth, and that its use leads to the later use of other drugs (Ellickson, Hays, & Bell, 1992; Graham, Collins, Wugalter, Chung, & Hansen, 1991; Kandel, Yamaguchi, & Chen, 1992). In their study of high school students, Workman and Beer (1989) found that boys had higher mean alcohol-dependency scores than did girls and that these scores generally increased between the freshman and senior years. Although senior boys had the highest mean score and freshman girls had the lowest, Workman and Beer noted that the scores for boys increased steadily with grade level, while the scores for girls rose, fell, and then rose again by the time the girls reached their senior year. DeSimone, Murray, and Lester (1994) examined the association of alcohol use, self-esteem, depression, and suicidal ideation among high school students. Their multiple regression analysis showed that frequent alcohol use was positively associated with depression and low self-esteem, but not significantly associated with age and gender. Alcohol abuse was similarly positively associated with depression and high or low self-esteem. In other words, those adolescents who drank more often and who abused alcohol had higher self-esteem scores. DeSimone et al. interpreted this finding to mean that the students who drank more and abused alcohol were faking good in their responses to self-esteem measures-that is, intentionally falsifying their answers to inflate their scores. Among youth in the United States who have graduated from high school, Perry (1996) reports that 63% have been drunk, 21% smoke marijuana, and 17% have used intoxicating inhalants. A substantial number of these young people go on to develop severe alcoholrelated problems such as liver disease and psychiatric and personality disorders by the time they reach adulthood (Hansen, 1993). …