Originally Posted by
BackToSquareOne 
As we all know alcoholism is a progressive disease and no one starts out as a hard core alcoholic nor does everyone progress to that stage of the disease. I know many heavy drinkers that by most medical guidelines would be classified as alcoholics but they don't seem to fit the mold. They can, for example go to a party or family gathering and drink a lot, get very drunk but at the end of the day they can turn it off. They never miss a days work, lose jobs or families and their lives aren't really affected in any noticable manner. Many are able to live out their lives without negative consequences.
I know many people and family members who fit into this catagory and in a way I have always been a little jealous and wondered why they could pull it off and i could not. It almost seems like they have an "off switch" and I do not. Certain recovery programs espouse the idea that it's all learned behavior and the alcoholic can be retrained to drink normally. I have tried many times over the years to drink normally but could never get my "off switch" to work, once I started all bets were off.
I guess the reason I'm even posting this is that I still wonder if it really is a learned behavior or is it a bio-chemical brain chemistry thing that seperates the alcoholic from the heavy drinker. If it truely were a brain chemistry issue then you have to wonder if a drug will ever be invented to address the problem. Any thoughts.
A lot of those folks that don't seem to have any problems simply drink themselves to death at a relatively early age. Their deaths are attributed to everything
but their drinking. As far as whether or not it's genetic or learned behavior, evidence seems to be, like most things, genetic. I have long since given up trying to figure out who might/might not be alcoholic, comparing my drinking to that of others was one of the tools I used to
stay in denial.