[GreenTea]

That's a good and interesting question... Sorry it took so long for me to see it...

I think societal factors are the primary driver when someone starts to use alcohol. I don't think anyone spontaneously sought to use alcohol based on their genetics... In other words, alcohol use is held and presented as a viable option, whether it be in the form of peer pressure, social convention, or just simple advertising...

The message is "using alcohol is okay"... So when faced with something, using alcohol is considered an acceptable method of dealing with it. It doesn't matter what your particular "something" is -- "Are you happy? Have some booze!"... "Are you sad? Have some booze!"... "Are you lonely? Have some booze!"... "Are you bored? Have some booze!"... "Don't have any booze? Get some booze!"... "Got booze?"

For the majority of people this is no big deal, (we alcoholics are a minority in society, afterall, just as people who are allergic to peanuts are).

For me, that was certainly what got me started. I originally saw using alcohol as no big deal. It was on about a par with eating birthday cake, the only difference being that no one cared whether or not you ate cake because cake didn't get you buzzed, (well, most cake anyway!)... At that time and in that place, drinking beer was not only considered acceptable, but it was also practically expected.

Once I started using alcohol, I found that it was good, (or so I thought). It made me feel good, it provided me with social acceptance, and it also allowed a "momentary escape" from my life and the problems I was facing.

I think that once a person *starts* to use alcohol, then genetic factors start coming more strongly into play. I think that the crucial difference is whether or not the "early stage adaptations" begin, as described earlier. I also think that there are certain "threshold values" which must be met for those early-stage changes to start, and that the "thresholds" are set differently for everybody.

Some people are hooked by their first drink. Others don't get hooked until after years of moderate drinking. Some people, even with a genetic disposition, don't get hooked at all, (and social factors may be responsible).

I know with me, the way I learned it, "...if you aren't drinking to get drunk, then you're just wasting the beer...", (did someone else's genetics turn me into an alcoholic? LOL)... Social issues may have gotten me started on saturating my system everytime I drank, but the fact remains that *I* choose to saturate my system.

With me, somewhere along the way I crossed a line. I'm not sure exactly where it was, but it was pretty early. At that point social factors weren't what caused me to drink -- it was my alcoholism that did. Social factors merely condoned it, (and perhaps encouraged it). It was my alcoholism that kept me drinking, and as I progressed through the stages, kept me drinking more and more.

Social factors then stopped condoning it, but that didn't stop me from drinking. Heck, I didn't even *notice* the negative social feedback! Over many years time, protecting my "right to drink" was very important to me because it was very important to my disease.

I kept crossing more lines. At some point, whenever I'd go out, I simply could not get drunk enough no matter how hard I tried. I can only see this as the result of genetics and my own sad choices years earlier. I simply cannot see how there is *any* social factor which results in the phenomenon of craving, and looking back, my craving steadily increased over time, (oh how I hated wrestling with that!).

Then I started to hit the third, deteriorative stage. I knew there was a serious problem, but I no longer really cared anymore. Alcoholism already had me firmly in its grip, and had for a long time. It merely turned up the heat.

So, I guess the short answer is this... I think that social factors started me drinking, but that once I did chose to start, then genetic factors kicked in and kept me drinking, and drinking more and more despite any social feedback to the contrary... I agree that alcohol should be classified as a "selectively addictive drug", with its selectivity based primarily in genetics, but that social factors are what get you to *try* alcohol in the first place.

Hope this makes sense. Thanks!