Is it because growing up with an alcoholic parent psychologically gravitates you towards it as well? If this is the case then I can understand that. But I’ve read that it’s genetic as well. How does that work if a parent became an alcoholic after their child was born? Or is it both psychological and genetic?
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A person is either born an alcoholic or not. It is not learned behavior. Alcoholics body’s process alchohol differently than non Alcoholics It is speed and not a depressant to an alcoholic.
Pretty much every human trait is a combination of nature and nurture,
A large component of it is biological. Some people have inherently high alcohol tolerance and can pour down drink after drink, bottle after bottle, and still function, while other people feel tipsy after one and might have to lie down or vomit after two or three. In addition to how much you can drink, there’s also how much you enjoy it. Some people feel bright and cheerful and outgoing and social as their inhibitions go away, while some people just feel sad and sick. (Personally, I find that about two or three drinks makes me feel sleepy). Additionally, there are after effects. Some people feel terribly hungover the morning after, while others feel perfectly fine.
All of these therefore cause people to have very different experiences with alcohol. If alcohol makes you miserable after two drinks, and then miserable the next morning, you’re very very unlikely to become an alcoholic. There’s no positive reinforcement to doing it. If alcohol makes you feel free and happy while drinking and you can keep drinking without passing out or feeling worse, then you’re more likely to drink more. Not guaranteed, but it’s more likely. To the extent that these traits are defined by some combination of how your brain, liver, and digestion work, and those are things which genes impact, it can run in families.
On top of all of these there are psychological factors. If your life sucks and you’re miserable all the time but alcohol is the only time you feel happy and comfortable, or just helps you not think about how much your life sucks, then you’re more likely to become alcoholic. If your life is wonderful and alcohol is also wonderful then you might go out and party with friends and drink sometimes but it’s less likely to become an addiction because you’re not reliant on it. If your life is wonderful but it’s dependent on an important and high paying job that requires you to be focused and productive then you’ll probably only drink on weekends, and it’s not an addiction.
And to a large extent, environments are also hereditary. Poor parents are more likely than average to have poor children. Alcoholic parents are more likely to create miserable children, especially if they’re abusive. And children learn from their environments, even unhealthy coping skills. If Timmy has an angry alcoholic dad who drinks beer, watches football, and beats up people weaker than him, then maybe Timmy learns that alcohol is evil and should be avoided, but maybe instead Timmy learns that it’s important to be tough enough that nobody can beat you up, so he grows up to copy all of the tough guy things like football, beer, and beating up people.
Of course it’s all complicated and each person ends up with their own unique circumstances. But there are similar trends for lots of traits being hereditary beyond simple genetics. But it’s almost always a combination of both, it’s just a question of how much of each.
It’s genetics and behavioral, but it’s also physically addictive. Some people hit one or two of those and only heavily drink, or have an aversion to alcohol depending on their experiences. If you hit the trifecta like I did then alcoholism (alcohol use disorder) is likely. Other people don’t have a genetic predisposition, or behavioral problems that drive to the physical addiction, so they just drink “normally “.
It can be both psychological and genetic – usually environment/circumstance plays a big role (especially stress/social disconnection). Some people are predisposed to addictive behaviors under stress in order to cope, whether that’s drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc – we have found some similar genetics among people with addictions but don’t know enough about it yet to say exactly how it works. Part of the challenge is that, again, environment and social support can make a big difference and that makes it hard to isolate the genetic component.
I am an alcoholic with 11 years sobriety
ELI5: say johnny didn’t clean his room. Johnny’s Dad gets mad and hits him. Johnny’s younger brother borrows his toy without asking, johnny gets mad and hits his brother. Johnny saw his Dad acting inappropriate, and now he does it. And Johnny’s younger brother is likely to do it too.
Non-ELI5: basically it’s generational trauma. If someone is an alcoholic they are most likely self medicating an underlying mental health issue. A child being raised in an environment of 1.) Untreated mental illness 2.) Unhealthy if not toxic coping skills is going to be predisposed to a variety of issues. In the scenario outlined above you’d likely develop generalized anxiety (fear of violence over a minor infraction).. of which drinking alcohol is one unhealthy coping mechanism to address it (alcohol can suppress social anxiety).
There’s a test called the Adverse Childhood Encounter (ACE) it goes 1-10. Someone with a 4 is predisposed to alcoholism.
If you want to learn about addiction and how it works at all levels look up Gabor Mate on youtube. Neuroscientist that sheds a lot of light on things and will turn most of what you think you know about addictions, what they are, and how they are formed on their heads. Recommend.
Some people get a better buzz of off alcohol then others making them more likely to get addicted(and better off never ever starting drinking), this appears to be an inherited trait. Jorden Petersen did some research on this where he found groups of people who would get much more annoyed and anxious as their blood alcohol level slowly dropped after drinking and thus felt the need to continue “topping-up”. I’ll add also stocism and willpower are probably partially inherited too.
It isn’t alcoholism per se, but addiction itself that is known to be hereditary. Addicts become resistant to and crave the actual dopamine brought on my consuming substances. There have been at least 3 separate genes identified with the disease of addiction, and genes as we know are hereditary.
First, you gotta understand alcohol is an addictive drug, just like nicotine. So to say alcoholism is hereditary is not true. There is no scientific evidence linking a specific genetic trait to alcoholism. Anyone can develop a physical or emotional dependence.
What you’re really asking is why do some people become more addicted faster than others. This comes down to the individual’s personality traits, which those traits can be affected by their upbringing.
As an example, take the trait of financial responsibility. Would you buy that bottle of booze when you really can’t afford it? Someone that is less financially responsible would still buy it, and would probably be on a faster path towards dependency than someone who wouldn’t buy the alcohol.
I think it’s safer to say that addiction is more likely an executive function disorder or related to dopamine disregulation. I grew up with an alcoholic parent and after watching how my Dad suffered I am very cautious about my drinking. There’s weeks I don’t drink at all, and then there’s weekends where I will have a few. He died when I was 12 and my uncle died when I was 17. I did start drinking at around 16, and my usage increased into my early twenties and now in my late thirties I drink rarely. I know that alcoholism runs in my family, my grandmother has told me her father was a drinker and that my grandfather was also a drinker. I feel like the drinking can be an escape from daily life and in time it can become your life, chasing that high again. My Dad would drink his first beer getting us ready for school and would drink all day while working around the house. My Mom would work nights and he would encourage her to go to bed soon after she got home in the morning so he could drink all day. I still carry the trauma with me of watching my Dad stumble around the garage and of having to help him go to the bathroom, along with watching him die of jaundice.
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