I was actually going to make a post that this thread isin't some kind of excuse were we can all pile in and claim innocent because it was mommy and daddy's fault but decided not to in fear of me saying that actually sparked those responses off... I chose to drink but was ignorant oh just how much it can destroy you, nobody ever explained that you could become chemically addicted and just how much it can change your personality.. to me being from Ireland.. the culture of the place basically says alcohol = a good time.

Ireland is world known for this kind of thinking. :gaah:gaah

Guyver, In United States seems to have a problem that alot of us want to blame others and do not like to take personal responsibility of there actions. as a result alot of people like to file lawsuits trying to blame others.

great thread!

I have alcohol abuse running all through both sides of my family going all the way back to..well..forever. It used to be a great excuse for me to do inexcusable things, or so I thought.

It's been many years since I threw the genetic card on the table. Whether I was predisposed to or not, at the end of the day, it was just a dadgum excuse to drink.

I drank to get drunk and I don't need to look any further than my reflection in the mirror.

I have a good deal of American friends and know that sueing people is quite popular there lol

But I don't think trying to blame others is an American problem - I think it is global!

Ill respond to this before I read any of the other responses.

I do not believe it to be relevant asking myself this question. Whether I did or didn't makes no difference at this point. I am, and can't change the fact that I am an alcoholic. Maybe asking myself this before I did turn into one might have been a sort of warning to me...but looking at the predisposition of it after the fact is kind of pointless to me.

I literally dont know an Irish person who isnt an alcoholic or heavy drinker, or in recovery. So yeah, I think theres a genetic component.
Lest you think this is racist or whatever, Im half Irish, and one side of my family is 100% Irish.
8 aunts and uncles, and all of em drink, as do their kids.

I don't think it is racist, Irish culture is known worldwide for this crap, hell we even invented whiskey and allot of the strongest beers and lagers in the world.

I was suckered into this culture of how alcohol is all fun and games until I learn't the hard way that there is a price, and as for things now are for me I could very easily end up paying the ultimate price for it.

I am not sure that I inherited a gene, but I am sure that both of my parents are/were drunks.

It was never something that I viewed as a bad thing, really. They loved us and took care of us. They just liked to party.

I hope that they had as much fun as it appeared that they were having. I know for sure that it was NOT fun for me.

Thanks for your post. I am also glad I found this site. It has helped me with my recovery writing.

I accept that alcoholism is a disease of which I inherited. I also know of many people with a genetic predisposition to addiction, and for many it is a lack/loss of control after many years of abusive drinking. I don't think addiction/alcoholism is a learned behavior, but many learned using behaviors lead to again lack/loss of control.


Doesn't matter, all of us have the same opportunities to live a clean and sober life. Once alcoholics/addicts always, but we do not remain sick and we do recover with the disease in total remission.

State of Wisconsin is well-known for its binge-drinking culture. Hell, most of the states' early historical economy was built on breweries.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say, I am willing to wait for science to find proof of this. It does not affect my life on bit. I am what I am, weather I am genetically predisposed or not.

The only way this would be of any importance is when the day comes we are all long gone, and science has found a way to genetically manufacture the "perfect" human being......i would vote for taking out the A gene....but how boring would the world be--Perfect--Ugh!

I am super skeptical about the 'gene' and family related addiction problems. There are even numbers of flaming rager alcoholics to extremely non-alcoholics on all sides of my family and my husbands.
I really think it's an individual thing.

Genetics and alcoholism
 

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, NIAAA, has been studying the link between Alcoholism and family history since 1989. They believe genetics plays a 50% role. The rest, as we all know,is environmental.
At this point, the horse is out of the barn for us. We need to move forward and stop the blame game. Where we need to take genetics seriously is with our future generations and their possible 50% chance of having a problem with alcohol. We need to educate young children. We need to support those children in a bad alcoholic environment. My Mother took me to Alanon when I was 18 and started dating an alcoholic. By then it was probably too late for me. I started drinking myself at 17.
The alcohol lobbyists are so strong that you never see a negative alcohol commercial on TV. Alcohol is made glamorous and appears to have no negative consequences.

One thing that always got me going was watching a film or tv show in which a rich old man would pour himself a shot of whiskey from a fancy glass and a high-end brand of whiskey, made me want to grab a whiskey myself as it was glamourised.

Agreed. Old films are the worst, particularly Hitchcock.
No one enters a room without being offered a cigarette or drink. :c004:

Hmmmmm....
 

This is an interesting question that has many answers. I know that I watched my parents and grandparents drink as I was growing up. Dad was a full blown alcoholic and always kept a lot of booze in the house. He even moved the washer and dryer to the garage and installed a wet bar instead.

I got my first taste of liquor from that bar when I was in grade school. How does generic vodka mixed with gin and tang sound? Makes me want to hurl just thinking about it!!

For me, I dont know if I inherited the alcoholic gene (if there is one.....) but drinking seemed normal and with all the ad's on TV when I was a kid and in magazines etc. it just seemed like it was part of a 'normal' life. Sure wish I had never started......

i've thought about it & not sure i inherited it. i don't feel my mom or dad was an alcoholic...but i wonder about my 4 sisters & wonder if my parents & circumstances drove us to drink - i didn't drink until my dads health started to fail & only 1 other sister & myself were in town & had to care for him (i failed at that) he & i didn't have a good relationship. sad, because my mom died when i was 13 & it was just he & i for many years (all my sisters are much older than me) we didn't have much conflict, just had a silent relationship. his negative attitude made me crazy :/

Hey DB,

You are right it was just a sign of the times....ya gotta admit, though, Hitchcock was a genius. Well----on second thought you don't have to do ANYTHING you don't want to. I'm ok with that, LOL!

Genetic and familial are different. I don't have "alcoholism" in my family, but a bunch of us have "addictive behaviors" (shopping, codependency, smoking, etc). Those neural pathways start being made in utero. Nature vs. nurture and all that...

It doesn't matter to me whether it's one way or the other. *I* have it. I don't sit around wondering the unanswerable. I go do what I need to do to get sober and stay that way.

I'm not looking to play the blame game or act the victim. As a rational person I've come to the conclusion that, yes, most definitely I inherited the gene.

Wish I could find a link, but I read somewhere that sons of alcoholic fathers are four times more likely to be alcoholics themselves, even if they are adopted. That would explain my situation a lot more. A little about myself:

My parents split when I was only two, because my mother said of my father's alcoholism. I never saw him again and he played no role whatsoever in my life. Mom, a nurse, raised two kids by herself for a couple of years, then married a cop who eventually adopted me and whose last name I took. So all things considered I grew up in loving, stable, middle class home, suffered no major trauma or anything else.

While I was growing up my mother would constantly preach about the evils of alcoholism, to the point of hysterics, sometimes. So I knew what I was getting into full well. Despite this, I still felt obsessed by booze, from the moment I took my first drink when I was 15 or 16. It seemed the answers to all my problems. I could talk to girls, I could be cool, etc. The reality couldn't be farther from the truth, as I blacked, passed out and generally embarrassed myself in all possible shapes and forms during any parties I went to. My sister got involved with drugs and became a heroin addict. I consider myself the luckier of the two. Hard to say from looking around addiction doesn't run in our family.

The fact is I'm an alcoholic. I made poor decisions in life to get to this point but to quote Craig Ferguson "Some people can't drink. I'm one of them". I just feel that nature was working against in making me "one of them".