Open access. Despite the link between stress and addictive behavior in adulthood, little is known about how early life stress in families predicts the early emergence of substance use in adolescence. This study tested a developmental cascade model, proposing that early stressful life events and negative parent‐child interaction covary, and both disrupt the refinement of inhibitory control, which evolves into problem behavior in middle/late childhood and subsequent substance use exploration in early adolescence.