Doug39

I come from a long line of alcoholics - both on my mother's side and my father's side.

I was born in September 1963; their is a picture of my parents that was taken in the summer of 1963 of them both smoking and drinking beer. My mother told me that she craved beer during her pregnancy with me.

Their is another picture of a 2 year old me sitting on my fathers lap drinking from a bottle of Strohs.

Growing up I hated alcohol; my father was an abusive alcoholic so I wanted no part of drinking.

I started to abuse and self medicate with alcohol 27 years ago when I was 25 years old. I often told myself and others that I always felt something was missing in my life and once I became an alcoholic I felt complete.

I truly believed that due to the fact that alcohol abuse was "in my blood" that I was a born alcoholic and I needed booze to function in life.

What a crock. Who knows what I could have accomplished in life if I didn't waste all that time and money getting loaded.

BrendaChenowyth

I think that PAIN is handed down, because hurting people hurt other people, and don't know any better. I think in some families, expression of emotions is strongly discouraged or even shamed, and alcoholism is so abundant that it is all you see and so all you learn. And then we just live in a culture that says drink to have fun, drink to forget, drink to be happy, drink to be sad, drink to be cool, drink to be liked, drink to get laid, drink to relieve stress. It's no wonder we end up thinking we're doomed to fall in to this pit.

We are our own people. We can change our childhood programming. We can love ourselves enough to make up for the love we didn't get from our parents. We never have to sit and feel sorry for ourselves, we always have the ability to create a new future.

shortstop81

I guess dwelling on heredity can lead one to subconsciously self-fulfill that prophecy. I know for me I'm unsure whether I'm genetically predisposed to drink or whether it's the only coping strategy I learned growing up. I come from a long line of heavy drinkers, and my siblings and I all share problems with addiction.

BrendaChenowyth

https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-he...-use-disorders

They have found a genetic link to the ability to metabolize alcohol, that can vary from one ethnic group to another... but as you see it says half of alcoholics had alcoholics in their families and half did not.. It's environmental.

I think it's very dangerous to tell young and impressionable people that alcoholism is genetic.. just my thought.

ScottFromWI

I also think it's somewhat counterproductive to try and figure out "why" we are alcoholics. I personally come from a family with no addiction anywhere in my immediate family tree, I'm the only one.

starstarstar

No.

Done4today

Genetic or not I have it. Now I take spiritual steps to assure that it doesn't kill me.

PhoenixJ

1 year younger. 4th generation alcie. Many deaths- all males. Both sides of family. Heredity? Who cares- no point in blaming my grandfather- he's dead. I know I cannot drink. I am the only one of these generations (to my knowledge) that has become involved in active recovery. Not a boast- if it is- it is a sad one.

Gottalife

I was never bothered about the why. It seemed to be an exercise in futility. It has no bearing on whether I can recover. And they did not have the knowledge they have today.

As it was explained to me by a professor of psychiatry who has specialised inaddiction all his professional career, there is no doubt that it is genetic. However, alcoholism also requires some environmental factor to "throw the switch", so to speak. This explains why alcoholism can skip a generation or two in a family.

The gene may not become active in some generations, and it can appear that when an active alcoholic turns up, there is no family history. It may be more correct to say there is no recent history of alcoholism, but it may be buried in the dim distant past.

entropy1964

Learned, genetic. Phenotype, genotype? Who knows. Science doesn't know. Alcoholics don't know, for sure. I spent years trying to figure it out. This is just me, but all that intellectualizing stood in the way of acceptance. I also spent years in therapy. I also spent years therapizing myself (which involved a lot of blame and self pity). Again, stood in the way of acceptance, for me.

Soooo now? It just is. Its no one's fault. Its not because of all my 'other' issues. Its because I'm a drunk. When I drink I can't stop. When I can't stop, bad things happen.

I know, sounds simple. Cause for me it has to be at this point. I do understand the desire to understand why. Haha. I was just reminded of a freshman Uni mid term we had in some Philosophy class I had to take. I studied my arse off only to walk in to the teacher writing 'Why?' on the board. I was so pissed off I wrote 'Because' in my blue book. I walked out thinking I would either drop the class or change it to P/NP so as not to affect my GPA. I got an A. Of course he threw out the grade for the whole class. He was trying to make a point I guess. I just thought he was an arrogant AH. Funny memory. He was right.

paulokes

There is a great word bandied around in the medical world these days...Biopsychosocial. Basically meaning many conditions are caused/perpetuated by a variety of factors:
- Biolgical (genetic susceptibility/ physical structural or chemical)
- Pyschological (Personality, stress-response and resilience, early development, Mental health)
- Sociological (Environment, upbringing, peer group)

And so on and so on.

Even more simply...it's just too damn complicated to figure out

There has never been conclusive proof that alcoholism is a genetically inherited condition. Never any proof that it's handed down by family systems oto patterns of upbringing. There may be some truth in both though IMO.

Point being...seeing as where we are, what are we going to do? Stop drinking, stay stopped and repair the damage of our lives...seems like a good bet to me.

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Bunny211

I come from an absolute DYNASTY of alcoholics.
My generation is the first to embrace sobriety. I have two cousins who are sober. Everyone else is either dead or still drinking.

Merigold

I come from alcoholics. I thought I was better. Somehow I'd beaten DNA!

I think it's a factor for sure. But I have my own choices.

zjw

it runs in my family and i too felt complete with it somehow. or thought i did. it was not untill i had been sober for years that i started to feel complete without it. Tho i wont lie I do feel incomplete still at times but I know its not booze that i'm missing. I just have to fill the void with better choices is all then I get that complete feeling again.

Maudcat

I have alcoholics perched on every branch of my family tree. For years I felt that drinking was my genetic legacy. So not true! A family genetic tendency toward alcohol dependency is just that, a tendency. Thinking that I had to drink because I came from a family of drinkers was my AV talking. Peace.

JeffreyAK

What appears to be partly genetic is predisposition to alcoholism, not any sort of "need to drink". The key ingredient in maintaining alcoholism is continuing to drink alcohol, and the surest way to stop alcoholism is to stop drinking alcohol, regardless of what's in your genetic history. Genes don't drive us to keep drinking after we've become addicts, it's addiction that does that.

BrendaChenowyth

My mother used to ask me why I was the way I was, or why I did the things I did. If I sat around and tried to answer that question, I'd go crazy. It's not living in the solution. I need peace more than I need the answers.

But for me, the answer is "because I was hurt". I don't have to stay there. I sound like a broken record, but acknowledging "I was hurt" is a huge step to forgiving ourselves, which I think is paramount to recovery.

BrendaChenowyth

Yes, it is peculiar to say one must accept they will inevitably become alcoholic, because it requires a voluntary and completely avoidable action! Some things are out of our control but this isn't.

MattM316

Genetics can definitely play a role in being more prone to addiction of all kinds.

Same with various cancers and other diseases, the odds of getting it are higher if you have a family/genetic history of it, that's just the way it goes.
Obviously living a healthy lifestyle can help, but you could be the healthiest person alive and still die of a heart attack at 50 if you are a certain way genetically.

BrendaChenowyth

Wild. But that's perhaps a blessing in disguise because it gives you more motivation? I'm all about positive framing..