Yes, indeed, peer influence on young people has been demonstrated again and again as far more weighty than the influence of parents.
And unfortunately, the Chief Medical Officer quoted commits the fundamental fallacy in logic and in statistics of post hoc ergo propter hoc.
It is well known to good doctors that genes play a crucial role in alcoholism. It really is a form of depression and self-medication.
Of course, then, the parents who drink heavily will often have children who do the same, example having nothing to do with it.
