There have been many studies in the literature examining childhood parental loss as a risk factor for adult psychiatric disorders such as depression, schizophrenia or anxiety disorders. However, with regard to alcohol dependence, only a limited number of such studies exists, and these have reported inconsistent findings. The present paper aims to examine the relationship between early parental loss and subsequent development of alcohol dependence among Japanese men. We directly interviewed 75 men with alcohol dependence (according to DSM-III-R), who were visiting 23 psychiatric hospitals and clinics all over Japan, and 52 healthy controls without any lifetime psychiatric diagnosis, drawn from a general population. When stratified for sex and age, there was no statistically significant difference between the patients and the controls in the rates of maternal or paternal death or separation before the age of 16 years. These findings and the review of the literature suggest that the relationship between childhood parental loss and alcohol dependence is not a straightforward one.