Many adolescents and young adults engage in drinking behavior, which result in acute and chronic negative consequences (e.g., unintentional injuries, arguments, unplanned and/or unprotected sexual activities, trouble with police/authorities, poor academic/work performance, suicide, and death), and alcohol dependence. Social influence is foremost among the causes attributed to the initiation and maintenance of alcohol use during this period. Multiple biological and psychosocial factors mutually influence each other in causing alcohol abuse; it would be incorrect to view psychosocial causes as either independent from, or competing with, biological causes. Rather, alcohol use and alcoholism are best viewed as end products of a combination of biopsychosocial influences.