An association between the liability to early onset alcoholism/substance abuse and a recently discovered dinucleotide repeat length polymorphism at the MAOA gene (MAOCA-1) was examined using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). A significant correlation between the presence/absence of the disorder and the length of the MAOCA-1 repeat was found in males, but not females, with "long" alleles (repeat length above 115 bp) associated with both increased risk for the disorder and lower age of onset of substance abuse. These preliminary data suggest that further exploration of the relationship between the MAOA gene and behavioral traits in an expanded sample is warranted.