mrs mipsy

Being an alcoholic with no other 'using friends' (thank God), it's something I've always wanted to discuss but obviously can't. Is this disease hereditary or is that purely speculation?. I've read small articles on it being passed down by genes, but little more. My Grandmother was an alcoholic and my Mother has had phases of indulgent 'partying' in her past. It makes me wonder, or is this simply another self-denying banner under which alcoholics can lay some blame? I'd appreciate your opinion. Thanks.

best

Well if it is a banner, it is a banner that my father and mother both carried and my grandparents carried, and of my brothers and sisters (11 of us total) 7 of the 11 could be said to be alcoholics.

Must be one big banner.
No denial here, as I hold up my piece of the banner.


OK now here is what I am told..Yes you pass it on.

here is what I feel happens... you pass it on and those who are active drinkers, also pass on, by example, acceptance and learning of how it is done.

Mom was a good teacher... drink, get drunk, fall down. We do learn alot from our parents...plus get genes from them as well.

Pick-a-name

Hi: once again a must say, get a copy of "Under the Influence " by James Milam and Kathy Ketchem...explains very well, I think. The short answer (IMHO): yes.

Don S

The short answer, IMO: no.
http://www.peele.net/lib/moa3.html
Don S

KelKel

I believe it is definately one of the factors involved.

quercusalba

I'm not sure what I think about that. My father, uncle, and grandfather (same side of the family) are/were alcoholics... two of my aunts on the other side have flirted with alcoholic behavior. I tend to lean toward the personal responsibility end of the spectrum (versus the disease model), but I think that there are many factors as yet to be determined. For example, there are genes for arachnophobia (fear of spiders) and for depressive tendencies - possibly even for shyness. It's not such a stretch to think that perhaps alcoholism/addiction could be in part genetic too. I think it's not a question with a black or white answer - I think there is an interplay of biology and environment - yes, that old horse nature vs. nurture.

Just my opinion.

BigSis

1. I think it runs in families.
2. I believe there is a mix of genetic predisposition and environmental factors.
3. I believe if you drink long enough and hard enough, you, too, can be an alcoholic - even without the genetic predisposition (just as you can be dependant on heroin if you shoot it often enough).

There is a fellow down on the Nar-anon boards who always follows one of these "discusssions" with something like - "What difference does it make in your life to believe one way or the other"?

I found his question thought-provoking.

As I said, I believe there is a genetic predisposition to having addiction. Believing in genetics helps me understand why my husband's and my efforts (we are both dry alcoholics - 20+ years) to change the environment likely made little difference in our efforts to keep our children from becoming addicts.

But I tend to believe that relapse is a choice. And relapse is a big part of the disease.

So I have mixed feelings on the issue and don't believe there have been enough longitudinal studies by credible entitites to convince me 100%.

How's that for waffling?

CarolD

My parents did not drink nor my Grandparents.
Absolutely no alcohol in there homes.
Yet my only sibling and I were alcoholics.

As Pick mention...."Under The Influence" explains how our boddies process alcohol differently.

Order it from Amazon if you want a great handbook on the disease of alcoholism.

AndrewBeen

Boy do I have a feeling this is going to be a long thread, especially with someone as knowledgable as Don weighing in on the NO side of this argument!

However, I feel that the Peele article Don has linked to (apparently from the mid 80's) does not represent the most recent recent research particularly in the area of brain chemistry. The most significant theories about alcohol addication has been teased out only since the late 80's.

Well here goes my take based on the research I have read:

I believe that GENETICS is a strong contributing factor to alcoholism, but the genetic component alone is insufficient to categorically determine whether an individual will become an alcoholic.

We need to distinguish CORRELATION from CAUSALITY. Alcoholism as a syndrome is clearly correlated to genetics because its incidence is clustered along family lines, whether the people live together are not. It's not just environmental, it goes along blood lines. But that doesn't mean that having alcoholic parents/grandparents will cause you to become an alcoholic, but it will certainly tip the cards in that direction. While the CAUSAL relationship between genetics and drinking has not been teased out, the CORRELATION is there.

Family, twin, and adoption studies all support this conclusion (Schuckit, 1992:94). The sons of alcoholic fathers, even those who have been separated from their fathers at birth, are at high risk for developing alcoholism themselves. Studies of boys who have been adopted reveal that it is the biological rather than the adoptive parent who is predictive of later drinking problems. Even being raised by an alcoholic adoptive parent does not appear to add to the alcoholism risk (Schuckit, 1992:94). Studies of identical twins compared to fraternal twins have shown that alcohol abuse in identical twins is almost double that for fraternal twins (Restak 1988:120-121). If one twin drinks heavily, it is likely the other will also overindulge. Family studies have consistently revealed that close relatives of alcoholics have a twofold to fourfold increased risk for severe alcohol-related life problems (Cotton, 1979; Goodwin, 1988).

Clearly then we are not dealing with something as clearcut as say Huntinington's Chorea or Down's Syndrome, in which a specific inhereted chromosomal variation results absoultely in an individual coming down with the disease/syndrome. It is more like specific biological inheireted characteristics lead an individual from a family with a high incidence of alcoholism to a higher probabilility of coming down with alcoholism than an individual that does NOT come from a family with lots of drunks.

So what are some of these biological traits? There has been some exciting developments in this area. I think/hope we are 20 years or so away from knowing them.

METABOLISM: It appears that someone exhibiting alcoholism is processing the alcohol in a very different way. In the regular population, alcohol is slowly converted by the liver into acetaldehyde (a poison, like formaldehyde, hence the term (em)"balmed"), acetaldehyde is then turned into acetic acid (vinegar), and eventually into water CO2, etc.

Alcoholics have shown to be better converters of alcohol than non-alcoholics. They can turn alcohol very quickly into acetaldeyhde. This means they can drink a lot of booze and not appear drunk -- their blood alcohol is being kept low by fast livers, and they need to drink more to get the same buzz. That's probably why we don't get the spins and puke. So while we have lower blood alcohol levels the level of acetaldehyde is higher -- which is not good.

Here is where it gets interesting. It was discovered about 20 years ago that alcoholics have the presense of a level of a substance in their brains called tetrahydra isoquoline or THiQ. THiQ is an opiate like chemical that attaches to endorphin receptors (pleasure centers). THiQ was previously only found in heroin addicts. It is not found in non-addicts.

Based on the chemical structure of THiQ it was hypothesized that some of the elevated acetaldehyde crossed from the blood to the brain (the blood/brain barrier) and combined with neurotransmitters in the brain to produce THiQ that then attached to endorphin receptors. The result is an endorphin realted buzz (akin to opium), a VERY ADDICTIVE BUZZ. The alcoholic therefore is getting less of normal alcohol buzz because the liver is more efficient, and getting another more opiate-like and addictive buzz via THiQ. This mechanism is still being debated and explored but it opens some interesting questions.

Experientially these resonates with me: we do we alcoholics remember our first drink? why are we able to drink everyone under the table? because we are not so much getting high on ethyl alcohol, we are really getting high on THiQ. We are getting a different buzz.

To go back to the Peele article:
"Kalant (1982), a distinguished neuroscientist, was more conclusive in his rejection of the idea that alcohol and narcotics could act according to the same neurological principles. "How do you explain . . . in pharmacological terms," he queried, that cross-tolerance occurs "between alcohol, which does not have specific receptors, and opiates, which do" (p. 12)?"

Well, NOW we do have a hypothesis based on the THiQ research.

By the way, the THiQ never leaves the brain, no matter how many years we are sober. It will never go away. It stays in wait, ready to be activated by the presence of acetaldehyde crossing the blood-brain barrier. This is why I believe that a ex-alcoholic flirts with disaster with even one drink.

I don't believe that alcoholism is a disease. Disease is the wrong word. I belive it is a behavioral syndrome, a disorder. This disoder seems strongly linked to variances in liver metabolism and brain function. These variances are genetic.

AndrewBeen

Answer: it is very important if we have or plan to have children. It is critical to know if there is a genetic deck stacked against them if there are ways we can help them avoid this fate.

mrs mipsy

Wow, well thank you all so much for your opinions, I only posted this morning and already have had so many interesting replies. It seems from the above posts that the jury may still be out on this one for a while. As I intially said, I have no knowledge or even a yes/no opinion about this myself but I'm certainly learning a lot from here. I was just wondering and if you wouldn't mind indulging me, those who responded with just a yes or no, if you'd like to expand or explain why? If not that's perfectly ok, again, I'm just trying to understand more about this whole 'question'. Thanks also to Andrew for such a in-depth and time consuming reply, so interesting, but one question-you said that you thought this wasn't a disease, but a behavioural syndrome, a disorder. Does that make this disorder, which involves abusing our bodies and leaving them open to disease, not a mental disease within itself or do you think that is a disorder also? Or is the word disease (for our afliction) banded about too easily in our society today, when it really can be labelled as a disorder?
Thanks y'all for reading and any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

TorontoGuy28

My dad is an alkie, I still recall him coming trashed when I was a kid... Quit on his own.
My dad's brother an alkie too, he actually died from it -- wasted, passed out in a ditch during winter.
My brother - nope, he is very good with his drinking..
Me ? No need to ask.... Massive binge drinker. Total alkie, but sober today.

So my answer to this question would be as per BigSis above "there is a mix of genetic predisposition and environmental factors"...

2Step

Very good point. Interesting research also.

jmhs002

IMHO
YES - without a double genetics is involved. It does not mean that if your parents are alcoholics then you are for sure, but I believe that your have a pre disposition to becoming an alcoholic.

It is amazing to me how many stories that I hear at AA about how it runs in the family. I know for a fact that it runs in my family.

Interesting topic -
Glad to be sober today!
JMHS

Lively

I'm going err on the side of caution and believe that it does. I will make sure my children understand that if/when they drink they are putting themselves at risk of developing the disease of alcoholism. I will also teach them to NEVER be AFRAID of telling me if they ever need help....for anything. My kids are not going to be afraid to talk to me if I can help it. I think that would have made a huge difference in my own life if I felt I could talk to my mother.

And yes, both sides of my family have seen a few alcoholics but most are not.

Don S

I don't remember where I saw this information, but I recall reading that the likelihood of a child becoming an 'alcoholic' (don't recall how it was defined) was significantly higher if he/she was raised in a home where the parents were heavy drinkers OR were abstinent, compared to being raised in a home where the parents were moderate drinkers.
Andrew, you are right that Peele's article is pretty old, and the updated information you provide is very interesting. I may have to modify my short answer...or write a longer one...
Don

BubbaBob

I knew when I started posting again Don and I would soon disagree, and here we are...LOL.

Alcoholism research indicates that in most, not all, alcoholics there is a genetic predisposition to the dusease that is consecutivy generational and runs it's course through 6 generations before disappearing/going dormant.

Unfortunately, the genetic component seems to be negative rather than positive, in that there is something missing, rather than something extra being there. Something extra would be good news in that, eventually, we could figure out how to excise the component. Instead, it is something missing, and so far, you cannot add something not there in the first place.

BubbaBob

AndrewBeen

Here is my take on the semantics of this thing.

Alcoholism COULD fit the second of Houghton_Mifflin's dictionary definition of disease:
1) A pathological condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.
2) A condition or tendency, as of society, regarded as abnormal and harmful.

However I think the term disorder is a better fit:
Any deviation from the normal structure or function of any part, organ, or system of the body that is manifested by a characteristic set of symptoms and signs whose pathology and prognosis may be known or unknown.

Personality and behavior problems are typically referred to as DISORDERS. Underlying physiological causes behind disorders may be DISEASE. Example: Dementia is a disorder, while Alzheimer's is a disease.

If alcoholism is defined by behavior (one who never drinks their whole life cannot be labelled an alcoholic, therefore: no drinking = not an alcoholic) then it is a disorder. Whether there is an underlying organic disease directly causing alcoholism is another story, is yet to be determined and frankly is unlikely.

From my historical reading, the disease model of alcoholism was advanced in the early days of AA as a way of aligning themselves with the medical community.

Chy

I'm one that votes yeah, it's a partial reason. My parents were moderate social drinkers and I only saw them drunk once in my life and it wasn't really drunk like I used to get. My grandmother, uncle and others were alcoholic but I was never around them but somehow I knew at an early age I'd end up just like them. From what I've researched it skips a generation in MY family. Myself and both my brothers are alcoholics. I also agree it can be learned behavior.. in a nutshell I think there are several variables.

Savana 54

I think it's definately hereditary. My observatioins from a few relationships:

My x best friend is an alcoholic.
Her Father is an alcoholic.
His Father was an alcohoic

My XAbf is an alcoholic,
His Father is an alcoholic.
Four out of seven of his aunts and uncles are alcoholics.
His Grandfather is a recovering alcoholic.

Coincedence? I think not!